"Dear `phfina, I'm thinking about writing my own story ..."

I don't think you should 'think' about writing your own stories. I think you should start writing your own story, and right now. That way you will know, first hand, what it is to create, and how it feels to get a review saying that your story is 'different,' but telling you nothing else. Or not getting a review at all, and knowing you have to keep writing, anyway, to be honest to yourself and your characters.

My stories are 'different,' because why? Because I put my heart right out there, and risk it, every time with every chapter, and what's going on in my characters' lives matters to you because it fvcking matters to me. They've been hurt, I've been hurt, they want to love and be loved, I want to love, and be loved. They hope, even though the world is a hopeless place that doesn't give a fvck, I want to hope in a hopeless world that could care less.

And when I risk my heart, there is the risk that my heart will be stomped on, and it is, often, by readers, reviewers and ffn itself.

But the point of writing polite, detached, impersonal stuff that conveys nothing of yourself is what again?

Please write your own stories. There are people, right now, in the same situation you are in, feeling the same feelings, struggling with the same issues, that need to read your story and know that somebody else understands, and wrote a story about it, so they could read it, and make it through one more day.

Your story may actually save somebody's life. Like mine have, at least three times I've been told so far. You don't write your story, that person doesn't have your voice to carry them forward one more day.

Don't 'think' about writing a story.

Write it. Today.

Rosalie and Lauren ... and Jess

So, I was asked this.

How easy is it to get into the minds of your characters, `phfina, then to step back out?

I don't get it. Or you don't.

Or something.

See, I don't get into the minds of my characters, then get out. I think ... I think a lot of writing is exactly that, however.

"Oh, Bella needs to fall down some steps, then Edward needs to say, 'Silly Bella' and dazzle her, so they can fuck and I can get my rocks off writing that and rereading it, and then I can get 10k+ reviews."

Right? Well, not exactly like that, but that's what you read, story after story. Bella has to go to the Lakota store, so the Native there has to hand here the one and only book in the entire book store that says "Edward (or Alice) is a Vampire, so tell them and make passionate Bella-squeaks when you get it on."

How many stories have you read that? People do just off-the-wall things because the plot has to move forward and because it's Bella, so she has to know, although this is the first time these two are ever meeting.

I don't read fanfiction fics anymore, not even the good ones, not even the ones rec'd to me. Not even yours, because you want me to.

Because they're filled with that, things (bad things) happen to Bella, because things (bad things) happen to you, and you take it out on her, but she, somehow stupidly, makes it in the end, because she's Bella, and if things turn out okay for her, they'll turn out okay for you. You know what I mean. You read it all the time: stories with bad things like Bella cutting herself because you, dear authoresse, hate yourself so much you have to hurt yourself to breathe, or daddy Charlie rapes Bella because your dad raped you. Or ... winner! Edward rapes Bella, forces her to have an abortion to save her life, and she's hopelessly in love with him, because he treats her like shit, rapes her and makes her have an abortion she didn't want, because Edward knows best and is a whole lot smarter than stupid, clumsy you, I mean, Bella, and if she doesn't love him, he'll leave her, and that would be bad, for some reason.

See, you can read my stuff and see all that in there, yes?

Or no?

Why is my stuff, where bad things happen to the characters ... why is my stuff compelling? Is it compelling for you in the same way that you can't take your eyes off the people going into the ambulances that happened at that three-car pile-up you passed today?

Or, is it compelling to you because you're going through the same shit I'm going through, but instead of me saying 'oh, this bad thing happened, but it's okay, because it'll turn out well in the end, because it's Bella.'

I write instead, 'this shit happened, and now Bella has to deal with it.'

This shit happened, and now Bella has to deal with it.

This shit is happening, and now I have to deal with it, because I'm writing about it, and I'm crying like the little baby I am, and that's all I can do to deal with it, write about it, and cry.

But I'm not writing about it where it's going to be okay, because it isn't okay. Bella's dealing with real issues and she's really hurting.

And you're dealing with real issues, and you're really hurting.

Or you're not dealing with real issues, and you're really hurting, but you see Bella dealing with it, as best as she can, and she sucks at dealing with her issues, but she's trying.

And if Bella can try, maybe you can try. And maybe I can, too.

That's a rather long route for me to say what's the appeal of my writing. Ick.

But, so, if I don't push my characters around in the plot, then what am I doing?

Having a conversation with them? Having them drive the plot?

Nope, not really.

Here's what I'm doing. Here's the secret to my writing.

I am my characters. Every single one of them that show up on the page, I am them.

I am fucking Lauren.

See, nobody understands Lauren because nobody wants to think of themselves as her. She's the bk, the bad kid, and if you think of yourself as her, you're a bk. And you can't possibly be a bk.

I'm Lauren.

I so didn't want to write this chapter, because I never 'got into the mind' of Lauren. I didn't want to. I don't want to bring up all her shit and now that I have, I have to deal with it.

You don't. You don't write Lauren fics, you don't read them. Too much shit in them for you to 'deal' with, so why bother?

Except for the little fact that you have too much shit in your life you have to deal with, and you don't want to bother with it. You just want to leave it on the floor and have somebody else: your mom, your friends, me, deal with it, and say you're 'fine' and that you 'don't want to talk about it, because it's private.'

And you go on sticking that knife in the back of your mom and your friends and me in everything you say and do, because you have all that undealt-with shit in your life, and you think you can push the people around in your life like you push around Bella in the fics that you read and write.

You are Lauren.

I am Lauren. The difference is: I acknowledge it and now I have to deal with it.

You don't, so you don't have to deal with that dirty little shit that you are ... just everybody else does in your life.

"You don't know what you're talking about, `phfina."

Yeah, whatever. And nor does your therapist, even though there's over one-hundred years of studies into your fucked-up psyche, but you know better about you, because you're you, and all those psych-os are old fogey-pervs.

Whatever. Keep at it, Lauren.

But, okay, that's not very empowering to you, the one or two people (still?) reading this. What is?

Rosalie is Lauren.

Everything, pretty much, that Lauren has gone through, Rosalie has gone through.

But what's the difference? None, really, Lauren's hurting, Rosalie's hurting.

It's just perspective and what they do with their past. They are both living in their past, it's just that Lauren uses her past to hurt other people, because she's hurting.

Rosalie uses her past to fuck-all everybody else, and do what she wants (just like Lauren, by the way), but Rosalie is functioning, in her fucked-up-ed-ness, whereas Lauren is frozen in it.

I'm fucked up, you're fucked up, we can either function or freeze. Our choice. We can either lash out and say "I'm dealing with some shit here, leave me alone in my misery" or we can comfort.

And we can comfort codependently ("Love me because I'm crying and holding you") or freely.

There are so many layers to living. You can be hurting and hurt people from that hurt, or be hurting and help, but then be all weird about it, or be hurting and help and really make a different in somebody else's life.

That's the measure. Not how you're dealing with your shit. Everybody has their own shit, but some people actually are like, wow, I want to be with them! I want to be like them! They are so nice, genuine, friendly, helpful, sweet, loving, caring ...

And they, being all that, still have to get through their day, every day, same as you and me.

And they do.

Just (un)like Rosalie, just (un)like Bella, just so unlike Lauren.

But Rosalie and Bella and even Lauren try to make it through their day. They have alternatives: they can check out, big-time, or they can check out of the conversation, but they can also try to make it through the day.

So, in that regard, Rosalie, Bella, and even Lauren deserve a measure of respect from me.

I have to treat them as persons, with thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears, and so when somebody says or does something, it affects them. Don't you see that?

When you say or do something, it affects the people in your life.

Try that on for size.

Now, ...

The real surprise for me is Jess.

Because I so ...

There's one in every school, isn't there? There was one in my school, which may or may not have been Tolland High where I may, or most definitely was not, a cheerleader.

Just like Bella. eheh. ;)

But, so I just so dismiss the Jess's in my life. Fucking thoughtless ditzes, laughing at everything, popular, and so not deserving it. I work for my grades, I don't sell out my feelings, my emotions, my opinions, my ... body just because I want to be liked.

But I did.

I so want to be liked, and I so sell-out, by checking out, when I'm not liked, and when somebody likes me, I so...

Sell myself.

I would do anything, with anybody, when they like me. You know that feeling, being liked? And you know what you're willing to do to keep them liking you, and not to be alone?

Anything. Right? Anything.

And, yes, I mean anything, and yes, you can read all about it in my blog, my useless, wasted, empty life in my blog, if you want to. Read about me, and read about that girl who ...

Well, you know. Maybe even personally. We do things, sometimes, to feel this now, and we know we're going to pay, but that's later, not now, and we so, so want to be loved. Now. Because we so, so know we're going to be alone later, and maybe this now will make later a little bit more bearable, that we were liked now. And felt something, and was connected to somebody else.

Even if it's just going for lattes at sbux with your friends.

Go to sbux and have a latte with your friend. It means so, so much to her.

And Jess. I hated her. I hate her. Because she's a sell-out, and she does it without thinking.

But no, she's not a sell-out, and, yes, she thinks, and she worries about it, too. God gave her a brain and an conscience.

No, the reason why I hate Jess is because all I have to do is to look in the mirror to see her, now that I've written her, and recognized her in me.

I am Jess.

And I love her. And my heart hurts for her. Because I know what it is to be liked, and I know what it is to be alone.

And I hate Jess so much, because she is surrounded by her friends all the time. She's not alone. She's never alone.

Because she can't handle being alone. She knows what that feels like, and it sucks.

I know what it feels like, to be alone, and it sucks.

I don't 'get into the mind' of my characters, and get out.

I am my characters, and my characters are me, and when I write them, I love them, understand them, and respect them.

When I write to you, I love you, I understand you, and I respect you. And it so hurts when you don't to me, so I know it so hurts when I don't to you, yet I do it over and over and over. It's just too much, isn't it, to really listen to someone and open your heart to them.

But I see the alternative every day at work, in PMs and in stories and reviews. And ...

And not listening? It hurts me so much when I'm not listened to. And when I tune someone else out, I hurt them. I see it. And I hurt me.

Rosalie is Lauren, Lauren is Rosalie. And they have their best friend Jess, who needs them more than the next breath, although she's cool about it, everything's good. And, actually, Lauren, you need Jess back. Can you admit that? Can you admit you need a friend, too?

Good morning, my lovelies.

... and the fourth marriage proposal ...

So, I just got my fourth marriage proposal on ffn.

But that's okay, because she was just kidding. Or she didn't know what she was saying. Or kids these days (or Americans these days) don't know what love and marriage is anymore, just look at the statistics, right, so no biggie, `phfina.

Right?

I've heard this before, particularly from my European friends, but love, to me, is love, and it's a phenomenon, that if even if somebody says, well, it isn't, they know, in their heart, that it is, and it is serious, and making light of it only makes it more serious, not less. So, maybe a review of epistemology may help your argument, because this is a track that many, many people have trod, including philosophers, so, as you think, you have many others who've thought over this, very diligently, to help you form, or to counter, your arguments.

'Love isn't love, marriage isn't marriage' doesn't work. If your statement held (F-logic allows paradox), and they weren't, why are you giving any thought to what isn't?

Cognitive sciences help there, too.

It comes down to accepting responsibility for what people say to you. Do you accept it, or belittle it? Empower them, and yourself, for taking them at their word, or use logic and reason (sophistry) to distance yourself and themselves from their words by draining them of their meaning, paradoxically, by using semantics to argue that a thing isn't what it is?

When you embark on that path, you embark on viewing people as things, as 'it' spouting nonsense, and not 'thou' speaking from the heart.

And either are valid views. One is entirely materialist, and I, and Martin Büber, take exception.

When someone makes you especially giddy? Don't you see that as something special, for them at least, and if so, why not for you? Because you don't want the entanglement, the complication of a relationship with depth and honesty?

But then if you don't want the consequence of another person feeling something because you've opened up to share something of yourself, then ...

Well the obvious alternative is not to share yourself, or to shut them down, hard when they do get giddy, by telling them: "oh, you're just feeling silly; you'll get over it."

Ouch.

So, go ahead, say: oh, they're young. They're a fangirl. They don't know what they're saying.

That helps me, dealing with a girl who's just broken down and told me she loves me, because I wrote something that touched her heart in a way nobody else has ever done, but you, you adult, mature, reasonable people, instead of acknowledging her fear and her feelings, say: 'get over it, grow up, little girl.'

Leaving another breaking heart, or, worse, another person who hardens their heart, vowing never to open themselves up again like that and get hurt, then get ridiculed for it.

Today is the day someone truly dared to live, and got on her knees, 'pretending' to tell me she loves me.

Please don't make today also the day she closes off her heart, regretting her own daring, and dies, just a little bit, just a lot, because that cold, cruel world actually is, and is actually populated by jaded, hard-hearted people who 'know better.' Please don't be one of those people who sees hope in a naïve, sweet, young, inexperienced girl, and crushes it aborning. Please don't make her one of those people.

Someone opened her heart today. Can you dare to open your heart to hers?

I love you.

kisses, `phfina

Right Now

Right now.

You know, and you do know, I've come this close. A few times, and more than a few times.

I've come this close to ending it all, calling it a day, saying 'bye-'bye, goodnight, sweet prince(ss), andiamo. Like the Raven, quothing: nevermore.

But...

Today. Right now. There's a war going on, and I'm not talking metaphorically, I'm saying there's a war going on and people are killing each other, and people are dying, and there's a girl there, right in there, right in there that my imagination will never do justice to her reality, but she's there, and she has a gun in her hand, or she doesn't, and she's killing somebody, knowing that she's pulling the trigger, and having that on her soul for the rest of her life, or, she's being killed, and dying, quickly, oh, so quickly in an instant of shock, or slowly, in a combat zone, watching her life-blood bleed out around her mortal wound, and being able to do nothing about it, just watch herself bleed out, as she seen others do, and why did she have to read Wilfred Owen before getting into this shit?

So, I can't imagine what she's going through, ... I can't even touch what she's going through. And I think I have problems. And you think you have problems.

But I do know one thing.

She PMed me, and told me, when she's going through her life crisis, or just going through her day, being so scared that she won't be able to marry the 'man of her dreams' because her 'man' is looking more and more to her like her 'woman' of her dreams, but terrified, scared out of her mind, that her family will out-right reject her, disown her, that she can't even think to herself the words 'gay' or 'lesbian,' and now she's in a place where she's ending somebody's life, or her life is being ended, or she's a clerk behind the front line, but she knows there's no front line when her 'enemy' works right alongside her and she could be getting that next report on that clipboard, or end up as another statistic on that chart labeled 'suicide bombing victim count.'

Civil war. Lovely, isn't it? 'Hate thy neighbor,' and 'eye for an eye' in action, right in front of her.

But I digress.

She PMed, and told me, that ... she writes me little notes, during her day. That my voice, my words, ... me ... I'm the only one she can talk to freely, and share her concerns, and be heard, and know that someone cares and understands, and in knowing this, she has hope.

She has hope, to go through her day, and face her family, or now, face the facts that her decision comes down to her living, because somebody else doesn't, or her dying, just because.

And she can face that.

Right now.

Today, in fucking November when it's not the most pleasant out, and even if it were, you gonna take a shower today? drink clean water? not get shot at? not shoot somebody and watch them die, oh, so slowly crying as they try and fail to hold their guts in or just like that: bang, they fall down and never get up again, and you pulled the trigger? Are you going to do that?

... and, she wrote me and apologized for 'dumping' on me, saying I'm the only one who she can talk to. She apologized for telling me I'm the only one who can give her hope. Right now.

And I think to myself, suicide queen, do I have any right to take that away from her? You. You love me, or you hate me, you think that I am the most wretched, despicable creature God ever created on this planet.

But do you have the right to silence me? To take away the hope of a girl too scared to ask a girl out, but because I PMed her and screamed 'Ask her! Ask her! ASK HER! It'll only weird her out if you don't and keep it to yourself, and all she can say is 'yes' or 'no'" so she asked that pretty girl in her class and that pretty girl said 'yes.' Or she's scared to talk to her family, so she thinks she can only talk to me. Will I silence myself so that she now has nobody to talk to? Will you?

Or she's in a combat zone, and she gets a PM from the girl who's kept her alive all this time quoting Ecclesiastes wondering what's the point, and she's in a fucking combat zone and she reaches out to comfort her friend from the hell and squalor that she's in? Because why? Because even in that, her life is worth living, because she has hope, because she thinks she can talk to me, and she can, and she does?

Do I have the right to take that away from her?

Yes, I do.

I have the right to remain silent. And I have the ability to snuff this, what I am, into nothingness forever.

I can do that, so easily.

And you have that right, too.

It's funny, how sad it is. I got a PM from a reviewer, saying she liked my Chez Melissa but couldn't stand my Rosalie and Me. When I asked her why, she said that when people reveal their personal problems to her, she tells them to man up and quit whining and that's what Rosalie and Me was to her, but it's always nice to have fun baking with friends in the kitchen, because she gets something good out of it.

Think about that, for yourself. When people come whining to you, do you roll their eyes, and say, 'there, there' as you look at your watch? You do know what you're telling them. You're telling them, that you, like everybody else they've gone to before you, has no time nor patience for them, because they are worthy of neither.

Proving to them, again, that they are all alone, unloved, even by their own family.

One more lost person, taken out with the Monday morning trash after the coroner calls it when he doesn't detect her heartbeat anymore. Just another victim, be it suicide, or war, or neglect.

Just like you neglected her.

'Oh, okay, I'll care!' you throw up your hands.

But you don't get off that easily. Nor do I.

I have this friend, all the way across the world, and I helped her live, day to day, year to year, in a marriage she's trapped in, because my words were her only balm, her only beacon of hope. I have this friend, all the way across the country, whose mother sold her daughter's virginity to a hard, callous man who liked fucking the mom, so let's try her fresh teen just because a little rape sounds like fun to him. I have this friend in a combat zone. Right now.

You know how I have these friends?

'Edward and Bella were skipping down the lane ...' sound so fucking trite to me that 21 million girls could fall for a guy who, as far as I could see, was a totally stuck-up asshole who treated Bella worse than shit because at least he doesn't walk all over shit.

So instead, I wrote what I wrote. About Rosalie and Bella, and how they fucked like rabbits, all the time, but at least they cared for each other, enough to love each other, to listen to each other, to make sure their teeth were brushed and hold each other through the laughter and through lots and lots of tears. And I put my heart into every chapter.

... and it hurt, ladies and gentlemen. It hurt, every time I wrote a chapter, and it terrified me to press that 'submit' button. But I did. I put my heart on the line, and I put it right out there, and no, it wasn't cathartic, because instead of getting better, it just got worse and worse.

But I held on. Held onto something. Held onto my words, and when you wrote, held onto you, and I cried. And you cried, and we both ... made it through, when nobody else seemed to care, and you went back to your life, and I kept that in my heart, that you could, and because I wrote, and shared my heart, and cared, you could go back to your life, and live. And hope.

And I have these friends, across the world, at least one, and more, who are alive today, who wouldn't have been if I had exercised my right, and remained silent. Or took away all my toys, forever, because I'm that selfish.

It's your turn now. You can, and you do, exercise your rights.

Whose life did you save today? Whose life changed, forever, because you choose to be 'strong,' and to tell them to fuck off and man up for God's sake, you little crybaby, and can't you see I have enough problems already?

We all have enough problems already. And one of those problems is that we fix other people's problems when they don't want to be a thing to be fixed, they want a shoulder to cry on, someone to listen, really to hear them from the depths of their loneliness, they want to know somebody out there is really out there, dealing with the shit their dealing with, and is trying, and failing, just like them, and cares.

And how can they know this, when you 'don't give a shit' or you say that you do, but you 'don't deal with personal issues.' It's not your problem, after all, right? 'You have a drug problem, not me, go fix yourself,' and you refuse to drive her to 12 step, because you just don't want to get involved, so her only solace is the chemical high that drives her further into despair, because you made it plain: you're not it for her. 'Stay away from me until you get cleaned up.'

It's not your problem that today, right now, somebody else is literally dying, and you have the means to help, but you won't. Don't get involved. It's risky. And it hurts. A lot. I know.

Or you can write, from the heart. And save somebody's life. Somebody that you didn't know until you wrote down your words and saved her life. How much are your words worth? And you don't write, because of any excuse you give yourself to justify your fear and selfishness?

You have that choice.

And so do I. I have that choice to take my ball, walk away from it all, and just play with myself from now on.

Or I have that choice to send a PM to a girl, right now, in the real shit, and hope, and pray, that she's still alive to receive it. To receive my thanks that today, she chose to reach out to me to tell me that she's thinking of me, and that she cares.

Right now.

'Wankers,' n. pl. pej.

A new definition from `phfina on her pensée du jour.

Wankers, n. pl. pej.: of or pertaining to the wankiness of the wankitude, usually uttered by Brits or Brit-like people.

Usual usage: "That dude is a total wanker!" (collq. meaning 1, see 'douche bag')

Unusual usuage: ... well, I don't have a straight-up definition for ya, but girls reading this usage will totally get what I'm saying, esp. girls taking the pressure off, 'blow'ing off steam, or other euphemistic ways of saying this unusual meaning:

"Whoa! I wanked my wanker until I wanking wanked so hard I saw stars and I couldn't feel my arms anymore and I had to wanking lay there for a while until I got my breath back."

n.b.: extremely unusual meaning, most people won't get this meaning without provided context ... and lots of wanking used as ... *ahem* ... 'explanation.'

May or may not have medicinal usage, either in causing blindness or preventing ... 'hysteria.'

... oh, and you know how 'they' say a picture is worth a thousand words? So in lieu of the usage definition of the second, unusual meaning, I should have just shown this:

hm-hm-hm ... ;)