The Invisible Girl

t's been a month since I've written the last chapter, and this chapter is only one-third of what I actually wanted to write, but SOMEbody, Far and Away, kept bugging me of, 'oh, where is the next chapter, and it'd better be good!' (she actually didn't say that) that I dropped my two other writing projects, and my iPhone games, and my ... *ahem* 'internet' ... um ... 'research' ...

(Yes, thank you: I'm a loser who's scared of her own shadow and has no life, thank you for o-so-politely pointing that out to me)

(ooh, red heads!)

(I have no idea where that one came from. No idea at all!)

(Little Annie, Victoria's au pair, is a blond, not a red head, by the way ... which will make sense to you after I finish "Auld Lang Syne" and start "Annie, au pair") ...

So I was hiding in the corner sulking, but I got bugged into writing this next chapter, because somebody very politely reminded me that it's not about me and how scared I am to write anything ('Oh, wah, boo-hoo! Writing is so hard!'), and how I'd rather just fill my mind with work and noise (or noise and noise, as the case may be), but it's about ...

Hm. Altruism-alert, but what the hell. It's not about me, but it's about my responsibility to you to write what I have to write. Mel Brooks was told "If you're going to step up to the bell, ring it." I had the guts to think about Alicia and Caroline, so I may as well ring that bell and let the whole town hear it, and judge me, the bell-ringer, for what I've done, good or bad, instead of not judge me, not even know me, nor care, for what I've not done.

I started this. I better G.D. not disappoint you by not finishing it, again, like I always do.

(Yes, I have a very high opinion of myself (that's sarcasm, or self-loathing. Whatever. Again))

I love you. I love my characters as they struggle through their lives, trying to make sense of their world, trying to keep their dignity intact as they try to make this work, whatever this is. I love you, my readers, for reading something into what I write, and finding something in there that means something to you, even if I don't know what it is, because I surely don't, 'cause I'm just struggling, trying to make this work and pretend I have a shred of dignity when my boss pulls me aside and tells me he has to help me when he sees how utterly I've failed leading a division that nobody else would touch, and ... I didn't do a bad job, but what's to be proud of that? That I didn't do a bad job, and now I'm just a little office worker again, trying not to be ashamed that I tried to manage something, a very, very small team, and I couldn't, and now I report to a new hire, a woman much older than me, much more experienced than me, much more competent than me, and she wants to make sure I'm happy doing my job now that she's taken over.

And. I. so. am. I'm so relieved that she's taken over management of the division, so I can do what I'm really good at, and she can take care of all the politics and go to all the meetings with management and take all the heat (well, most of the heat) and complain to me about how hard it is and how demanding upper management is, and don't they understand all the stuff we're doing? And I'm like, amen, sister, amen, and thank you for taking this on.

And that's me, a little girl who volunteered to jump into the little-big pond of leading a small team of one other person at work and utterly failing and now, here I am, happy to be just little, tiny me again, and not in charge of other people and 'the direction of the project' and all that entails.

And so, so sad that I was looked to be more than I could be, but I couldn't. I failed. Smart, little `phfina tried, and failed.

And now I have to ... press forward, and just ... meet every day, being little me, and be okay with that, or figure out how to ...

Oh, God.

How to, once again, face my coworkers and my relatives, and live with the terrible burden that I have so much potential.

And maybe that's all I'll ever have. Maybe that's my place, to be a little nobody, a little office girl who smiles up at you from her desk, and that's all you'll ever know of her, just the girl who went to work and smiled at you as you passed by, and that's it.

Maybe if I look away at the right time, you won't notice me, and I'll just disappear, and nobody will know I'm gone.

The Invisible Girl.

The Point

But the point is this, not that I'm a nobody. That's not news.

No, the point is this.

One reader didn't care about silly, little sorrowful, suffering moi (that is French). She wanted the next chapter, I was the writer of it, and she worried me down until she exacted my promise to write it.

Sometimes ... you have to be hard to get what you want. Sometimes ... the measure of a person's worth is how much somebody else demands not what you think what you can give, but what she knows that you can, and excuses be damned. So this (partial) chapter is for you, Far-away girl.

And my next chapter is being written, even now as we speak!

Or, more precisely: even now as we don't speak, as I'm the shy, quiet type; the one to smile tightly and then run away if you notice me too much.

But, still, for a' that, I'm also the one who's smile goes from her face and seeps into her bones, because she knows you demanded the next chapter from her and didn't allow her sad, little whining excuses to allow her to shirk her responsibilities as a writer.

I am a writer. Saga told me: 'Read what you just wrote me: you are a writer, min allra käraste Älskling. Never forget that.' (Saga was always such a bossy, little sweetie, with her big batting eyes, her teasing smile, and her 'erhm, who? me?' and her 'Thuesdays.' The little Valkyrie. God, I miss her so much it physically hurts.)

I will fade away into dust. My job and my disappointments will come and go. My words may touch you today, but someday, they, too, will be no more.

But This is Eternal.

I am a writer, and a writer writes.

Thank you for reading what I've written so far. I hope you like what I've yet to write, but will.

And you know why? Because somebody gave a fuck, and didn't care that I'm a nobody. No, she was somebody who had a voice and a demand, and I better step up to that bell and ring it, because I did not want to mess with this, because she's somebody.

You're somebody. You have a voice, and if you demand hard enough, you may actually find that your demand is being heard by somebody, somebody with just enough life left in her to honor that request, and to honor you, ... for being somebody.

ps: Okay. Holy fuck. I just saw Saga leave a Starbucks near where I live. She walked right past me, the shawty, in her little black mini, her candy-cane knee-high socks, her wavy, brunette hair and the self-possessed air of an Old-Worlder navigating calmly through the confused busy-ness of this New World. Siiiiigggggghhhh.

I guess I'll drown my nostalgic sorrows in a macchiato and a slice of pumpkin bread. I have a little extra on my sbux card.

"Do you believe in ghosts, `phfina?"

A reader asked me, out of the blue, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Here is my answer:


What an interesting question!

No. I don't. Credo in unum deum (which is an entry in my blog ;)

I don't believe in ghosts, nor werewolves, nor vampires, nor ... anything, really.

Can you believe that?

I believe we're given what we're given, and we make what we can with what we have.

I was given words, and a wild, wild, WILD (smexy) imagination, and I write my words down, and some people like reading them, and it makes their day, and that makes me SO happy.

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you have a story to tell? A ghost story? Is it scary? terrifying? or is it sad? or sweet? Nobody will know your story, or laugh or cry or EEP! until you write it down and share it. I think you have a really good ghost story. Tell it?

One is the loneliest number

Okay. This.

HitRecord, episode 1

Holy. Fuck.

Okay, so I know how it is to be alone, be all alone at home, be at my job and be the only one in my little, tiny cube doing my little, tiny thing that only I can do, so I'm left alone to work on my spreadsheet, or I know how it is to go alone to a café and open up my laptop and call up word pad and just look at it awhile ...

... and cry.

And write a chapter title, and look at that for a while.

... and cry.

Yeah, I'm really popular in cafés.

Then, a week later, go back to that one word in that one document, and start writing and writing and writing, and wanting to puke so bad at what I'm writing, at the same time I'm crying so hard as I'm writing what's going on between my characters, as I feel along with them.

And...

And it's a terribly lonely experience, my life, and a scary one. I create, then I decide to publish, and my glory is that somebody liked what I wrote, and my agony is that somebody didn't, but I don't know that until it's too late, and my words are out there, and they hurt or they heal, but I'll never meet the persons I help or hurt.

Or when I do, I really puke. Then I run.

It happens.

But that's my life, which is none: I have no life. I'm alone, and I'm 'fine' with that. Being alone is so much better than being with somebody, and then, inevitably, hurting her.

Then I saw this video, and ... it was about the number one, the loneliest number.

And it was all made up by ones. Ones and ones and ones, all alone, all creating with hope and fear and a trembling expectation that somebody might actually see what they did, and what would happen if they did?

Well, nothing would, but somebody, somewhere would see them and see their art, just like with me, and ... it would be alive. It would be more than just them now, it would be two, or three ... or ten-thousand, or millions.

Just like Friday's girl, Rebecca Black, a thirteen-year-old girl of a single mom. She made a music video for $10k and went back to school the next day, and that was it for her, so she thought.

I'm not Rebecca Black, nor Stephenie Meyer, nor Medea nor Sophocles, and even if I were, I wouldn't even know it until I was dead, right "Frances"? ... I'm not eve anybody else, I'm just me.

But, I'm alone, and being alone, I'm lonely, and I forget, or I do not know anything other than the happiness of being sad and alone.

And then this video shows me thousands, thousands of others, alone, and creating, and hopeful, and ... joyful in their vocation.

Watch the video.

YES! Merry Christmas posted on literotica

So, I wrote this smexy, BDSM BellaRose story on ffn. The Powers That Be got wind of it and the banned it. The content violated their ratings policy. :(

BUT I sent it to literotica, and after much deliberation, they published it. YES!

The link to the story is here: literotica-dot-com-slash-s-slash-merry-christmas-8

It's a sweet, little smexy piece, with love, ... and bondage.

How to Write (a review): Recognize. Describe. Share. Appreciate.

How to write?

There are three levels of writing: recognizing, describing, and then sharing.

Good, better, best.

And there are two approaches to writing: indifference and appreciation.

Or (very) bad, and good.

Levels of writing.

Recognize: "Your writing is different."

Describe: "Bella in your story isn't a pushover, although Rosalie bosses her around, but I think Rosalie really loves Bella, too, even though she won't admit that to herself. Also, other femmeslash I read, one girl is mannish and the other girly, but your story, you don't take away Rosalie's femininity, and I like reading that, for a change."

Share: "I had a really shit New Year's and reading your story, seeing two girls who really love each other and are happy with each other? I like being with couples who are happy and strong people but also bend and depend on each other, it gives me hope that I can be happy like that, too."

Then, the two approaches.

Indifference: "Update soon." (What, am I your fvcking b!tch? "Fetch, Lassie! Fetch!")

Appreciation: "You really put your heart into this chapter, and it must have been hard writing it, and, with the material, brave of you to publish it. I liked this chapter. You are one of (if not the) best writers on ffn for being able to write a Lauren fic (a character I hated in the series) and you made me like her."

My advice.

It's safe to recognize something, but it takes hard work to describe how to distinguish it from all the rest of the crap out there, and then it takes courage to share what it meant for you.

It's ... fvcking rude to be indifferent, by not leaving a review after you've read a chapter that made you say 'Huh. Wow.' (Recognize that: "This chapter made me say 'Huh. Wow!' Then DESCRIBE WHAT made you say 'Huh. Wow.' then FVCKING SHARE WHY THAT MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, for FVCK's SAKE!) It's fvcking rude to say: "More, more, gimme more!" and not FVCKING APPRECIATE WHAT YOU JUST GOT! WHY THE FVCK WILL I GIVE YOU MORE IF YOU DON'T SAY HOW WHAT I JUST GAVE YOU TOUCHED YOU? You are a fvcking selfish, rude, little pig.

Recognize that. You are a fvcking selfish, rude, little pig. Now read that PM or that review you just wrote.

Did you just recognize some sh!t out there, or did you distinguish it, and then, did you dare to share what it meant for you?

Did you appreciate what you were just given, little piggie, or did you put your fat fingers into the dessert tray, stuffed your mouth full of chocolates and then say, 'More!'

If you sent this PM or review to yourself, would it make sense? Did it help? Would you have been pleased to have received it?

Or, since you just sent it to yourself, do you now want to b!tch-slap yourself silly?

I recommend you start b!tch-slapping yourself, right now, and take your review or your PM and rewrite it. Keep b!tch-slapping yourself until you get to a rewrite that doesn't want to make me puke.

So, yeah: keep b!tch-slapping yourself.

I recommend you take that bullsh!t chapter you just wrote, and get fvcking real with yourself and with your characters. Nineteen-nine percent of the problems on ffn is that the writing out there has the fvcking CHARACTERS in THEIR STORIES EMBARRASSED TO SAY THE LINES THEY ARE GIVEN and TO DO THE FVCKED UP SH!T the AUTHORESSES MAKE THEM DO.

Don't be one of the 99%. And you know how you will rise above the crowded cesspool? Put just 1% more effort into your story. That's fucking it. And fucking put your heart into the story.

And then, before you publish the motherfucker, fucking proof read it. I proof read each chapter seven time. You hear me? SEVEN FUCKING TIMES!

"`phfina, you want me to beta your stuff for you, so you can have good grammar, like my stories don't?"

Uh, no. I want you to read Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Now. And I want you to spell-check your document. Now. And I want you to, when you don't know what word to put there, to mark that place, keep writing, and come back to that snag and get the exact word and the right word, and not publish your chapter until you do put the exact word and the right word needed right there.

And I want you not to use the words 'stuff,' 'good,' 'bad,' 'interesting,' and 'different.' Ever.

Never, ever use those words again.

Thank you.

Oh, and if you write 'summary sucks,' guess what sucks even more: your story. Write a fucking summary that doesn't fucking suck. No: write a summary that rocks your readers' world.

"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.

I wish ...

Do you know what I wish?

I wish I could write a story that was as beautiful and as evocative as the song "Mary" sung by Sarah McLachlan or as honest as "Head over Heals" by Tears for Fears.

That's what I wish.

Busted!

So, I submitted a story titled "Merry Christmas" to this site about Rosalie, with Bella, and all the yummy things she does to Bella. Got some positive reviews, 2,000 hits, all that.

Then I got this notification from the great pooh-bahs at ffn:

"phfina,

Title: "Merry Christmas"
Summary: "'Twas the night before Christmas, and throughout the dorm, not a kid in her dorm room, 'cause they all had gone home. Except me, and my Christmas present to me, all tied up in a little, tiny red bow: Bella Swan."
Rating: "Rated: M"
Storyid: 9957895

Main reason for removal: "Rating: explicit content or adult content above current rating"

The above story has been removed because it violated the guideline detailed on the upload page.

www-dot-fanfiction-dot-net-slash-guidelines

FanFiction.Net has a set of guidelines for the uploading of stories and chapters."

So, they took down the story. BUSTED!

Well, I saved the story on my laptop, and, BONUS! my laptop hasn't crashed (much) today, so I'm uploading it to my literotica-com account. I suppose ffn is telling me it belongs there.

So, that's the temporary fix.

But I don't know what to do in the long term, because of this: my girls like each other, ... love each other, in fact, and they express that love through little hugs and rubs and coo-coo-I-luv-you! and all that, but they also, SHOCKER! have s.m.e.x. SMEX, and if I can't write that on ffn, then I may not be able to develop my stories as fleshed-out things on ffn.

What does that look like? I don't know yet. Does that mean I'll start a story on ffn and keep the vanilla action on ffn and put in the chapter the following message: "And for what happens after we fade to black, please go to the side story X on literotica-dot-com at the following url: (then the url)"? Or does that mean I have to abandon ffn completely? Abandon you?

Maybe yes. I don't know. I'm sad, but let's take baby steps for now and see what happens down the road.

Whatever happens, my dears, know this: I love you. Thank you for reading my stories, which gave me a voice when I had none, and then, when you gave me my voice, you gave me so much more: yourself, and now I have friends, lovers, brothers and sisters where I had none before.

You don't know how much you just reading my story has meant to me.

Thank you. I love you.

kisses, `phfina

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.

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.

Shame

Dear Diary (for which the whole world can read),

A friend of mine asked me what I would wear to church today, and I didn't answer, because, as is the common ailment of our sex, I didn't have a thing to wear, in a closet stuffed to overflowing.

I have pretty dresses, and like I fancy the Irish do, I favor the green, and I have solid colors and prints ... and a little yellow summer dress number from the Banana Republic that I love.

But what did I wear to Mass today? I didn't know at the time of the question, so I didn't answer, instead, scurrying, as I do, to the closet to stare at it and grab something off the rack, ready-to-wear.

In the old days, the commoners wore 'off the rack' and 'ready-to-wear.' Rosalie wore neither: her dresses were made for her, and they fit her perfectly, as her hats did, as her gloves did.

Now, we girls try to fit ourselves into 'one-shape-fits-all' dresses, and either suffer the embarrassment of bursting out of them, or the embarrassment of them falling off our nothing-to-cling-to figures.

I don't wear off-the-shoulder numbers, if you didn't guess by now. Partially because of modesty ... what if a guy stared at my collar bone and had licentious thoughts?!?! ... and mostly because of practicality ... I don't have 'milk jugs,' or put another way: my 'happy fun bags' aren't bags, and all they have is happiness and fun, because they've got nothing else to grab or to hold onto ... just ask my dresses.

But the dress I wore today was Shame.

There we were at Mass, bb and I and my nieces up in the choir loft, singing sweetly, like birds, but it wasn't a sweet moment.

bb was getting angrier and angrier. I could see it in his stance. I could see it in the set of his jaw. And I was like: what did I do? I mean, what did I do more?

I am an utter and complete disappointment to my family.

But I didn't see anything I was doing wrongly, so I almost turned on him and smacked him, right there at the beginning of Mass.

And then he ... left.

I was like, what the FUCK!

He left the pew, walked right over to the priest, and handed the priest the laminated placard of the revised responses that the Church just did for the English translation.

And I was like, lightbulb! bb had seen that the priest hadn't had that, and I guess he got angry that everybody else didn't help the priest, so bb goes right up to him, right in the middle of Mass and hands him the sheet.

He came back. He sat next to me. He didn't say one word. He didn't look at me reprovingly.

But I knew what he was thinking. 'Why didn't you notice the priest looking lost up there? Why didn't you help him? You were on the aisle seat. Why did I have to get up, go around you, make a scene when you could have opened your eyes and helped.'

But as if I could. I mean: really! Me, go up in front of all those people, and me, a girl, hand the priest something to continue the Mass?

I mean: I'm getting sick just thinking of it.

But that's just it. It's all me, me, me, and how I think I look, and that paralyzes me into inaction.

Or paralyzes me to wrong action. Stupid action.

And so I do nothing, or I do everything wrong, and bb has to pick up the pieces, and, in Mass, in front of all those people, he goes right up there, fearlessly, I mean, he doesn't even care! and helps the Mass continue, whereas everybody else is just stuck in their pews, not even noticing, like me, or not brave enough, to do something about it.

And that's what he was thinking about me: self-absorbed. Useless. A waste.

And knowing he thought that of me.

You want to know the color of the dress I wore to church today? It was red. Bright red. The color of my cheeks as I burned in embarrassment at what a ...

What a burden I am ... what a burden I am to my family. How useless I am.

Because you don't know the second half of the story. The part of the story of how I moved down to Washington D.C. from nowhere Connecticut.

Because I didn't move.

bb came and picked me up.

From the hospital.

There's the whole precursor of how I ended up there, with my mom screaming and dialing 911 at the same time, and me just looking up at her stupidly from the kitchen floor, but I couldn't say it would be all right, because my mouth was full of cotton and how I couldn't seem to move my arms because they were so heavy, but everything felt ... funny, you know? heavy, and it felt ... I felt tired, but something felt very, very wrong.

Getting your stomach pumped ... it's not something you forget easily.

Mom has to work, she can't watch me 24/7, so what's she going to do? Hand me over to the State?

So bb drove all the way to Connecticut and picked me up from the hospital.

So you think I have my own apartment, with that ... history? histories?

What are multiple suicide attempts called? I mean, besides stupid?

Those steps I fell down, those were the steps from the kitchen to my bedroom they built for me, downstairs.

You think I participate in family activities because they like me so much? Or so they can make sure I don't confuse my diet coke with the kitchen cleaner?

You really have to wonder, considering me, why people try to keep people alive who are so determined to die. I mean, it'd be better for everyone if they just let people like me just ... go away. No fuss, no blame, and no ...

And no more waste of space and effort watching me like a hawk to make sure I don't off myself so that what? so that what? I can face another useless day in my useless job, ... 'and would you like mocha sprinkles on your latte, sir?' ... or my new useless job where, instead of staring at the suits come and go to work, serving them coffee, now I'm one of them, or one of their doormats, staring at a spreadsheet all day, filling in numbers, and getting shouted at when I get something wrong, and getting shouted at when I get something right (yes, you read that correctly), when I do the payroll in half a day where it took a staff of three to do it over a weekend, and yes, they worked over the weekend to get the payroll in Monday morning's mail, and yes, I do what they did in half a day with my spreadsheet, but because it's Excel, everybody thinks they can put their fingers all over it, screwing up the formulæ, and then blaming me when they screw it up saying nobody can understand it and I have to make it simpler.

So here I am, all grown up, with all the other grown ups riding that metro train to their daily grind with their iPhones and droids out to make sure it all gets blotted out so they can make it to 'happy' hour so they can blot it out some more so they can do that again tomorrow, for ... what?

Or I could be a kid again. I could sneak ... no, I don't even need to do that: I could just walk right onto Annadale High School grounds or Edgar Allen Poe, but not TJ, Thomas Jefferson because you need to be somebody with a proven track record for them to look, scornfully, at your grades and deign to allow you to enter, I could have Mrs. A_ drag me in there by the arm and register me in 10th grade, and start that shit all over again and live through, okay, hell, okay? Hell! with me becoming this thing pushed around by everybody else's opinion until I end up on the floor again, either in the classroom, screaming, or on the kitchen, more than half dead, because somebody said, 'Are you really in 10th grade, because it looks like you skipped some grades,' and then look down at my chest, and smirk, and leave me in the girls' bathroom, looking in the mirror reflecting the tears that will, or that I will not allow to fall from my eyes.

The irony of it ... don't you just get the irony of it? Instead of being ratted out for being too old for my grade, I'd be the subject of an exquisite vivisection on posing as 10th grader instead of going back my 6th-grade classes. Now imagine Rosalie going to Forks High School and fitting right in in 10th grade, and now wonder, truly wonder, how she stopped herself, every day, and in every class, from ripping off those vain, self-righteous idiots' heads, and then showing the teachers their own livers for their arrogant presumptive attitudes.

You see, I'm not a woman. A woman is a person who can hold her baby in her arms. My baby didn't come that far to where I could hold her before she died.

Yes, I've had lots of casual sex. Lots of randy college boys on campus, too, if you didn't know that fact.

I'm not a girl anymore, either. I'm trapped in a girl's body, but I've lived too much death to be a girl anymore, and to continue to play the game of being a girl.

I'm neither a girl nor a woman, I'm a girl-not-woman. I'm a child who's seen too much, but instead of allowing me to close my eyes, they keep pumping my stomach. And those hospital bills are another burden I can never repay, another reminder of what a failure I am.

...Writing.

Writing is good therapy. I mean, take this post, for example. Probably very therapeutic for Saga to read and to revel in the fact that she got away from this no-life jailbait loser.

And I can always review this post, and say, "Wow! Look at how far I've come!" and marvel at my amazing ability to claw my way through life, because I'm so gifted and talented at survival.

"Hey, baby," is called out to me, "how's it going?" And instead of answering with the truthful answer of, "You are more right that you know," I answer with the expected answer: "Fine."

I'm doing just 'fine.'

I'm a good student. And I learn from the best. Whenever anybody ever asks Mom how she's doing, she answers, 'Fine,' and says no more, nothing about her just scraping by after her husband left her, her cancer, or her drinking, or smoking, or the one and only failure in her life, a daughter of a college professor who couldn't even succeed in dropping out of life.

Mom and I are on good terms. She came to visit me once, to see how I was doing, because whenever she called and asked how I was doing, I said I was doing 'fine.' Just like Dad, dear old Dad; he came with Mom and wasn't that just a lovely, awkward, family reunion.

But I can tell people I majored in Ancient Greek lit. I have that going for me.

Funny how nobody ever asked to see my degree. They just say, 'Oh, ... impressive!' and give me a job that has a skill level of pouring coffee in a cup, one cup at a time, or putting numbers in columns and making sure they add up ... you know: third-grade math. It's all about style. And I have plenty of that: style and attitude will get you anywhere, baby.

Heh: 'baby.'

So now what? I suppose I could go back to work Monday morning. I got paid this last weekend. I got paid a lot of money. A lot more money than if I were in High school, even selling drugs, which I don't do by the way. ... Sell drugs, that is.

In the supply-and-demand economy, I'm on the demand side ... you know, a 'user,' or as Ayn Rand like to call me, a 'moocher.'

'Guns or dollars!' That was Ayn Rand's lens, that is: how she saw the world. She missed out on high school and college today. Although drugs are all about guns AND dollars, so maybe her lens isn't all that distorted...

But back to the here and now, ... I mean, I have a job and everything!

Just little `phfina, a good little Catholic girl, sharing her opinions with her dear diary. Just a few words on paper, meaning and signifying nothing.

I think I'll have that diet coke now.

New story: Rosalie Gets Asked Out on a Date

Story title: Rosalie Gets Asked Out on a Date

summary: Rosalie has a new belle. A new belle who asks her out on a DATE! So exciting! Fluffic ... in the mode of phfina.

Read it, and review this one-shot with an 'update soon!' that always overjoys authoresses with your stunning display of wit, appreciation and insight.

Wait, that was sarcastic, wasn't it?

kisses

Kutthee

Oh, I published a new one-shot call Kutthee. Just so you know. Do I need to mention it's `phfinaescque?

I'm on Masterpiece Theatre!

Ooh! Chez Melissa was read on (sort of) Masterpiece Theatre! ... Actually it's from the author: 'Pretentious Internet Theatre'

The audio link is:

[deprecated:] h t t p (colon slash slash) dl (dot) dropbox (dot) com (slash) u (slash) 48360393 (slash) pit44 (dot) mp3

Updated link from Pretentious: http://pitpodcast.blogspot.com/2011/11/pit-44-why-are-there-so-many-fanfics.html

Pretentious is marked as a favored author on my fanfiction.net page.

kisses

Le Gasp!

Hm. Was going to comment on the article in the Washington Post about 8th graders binge drinking and how, well, I guess I didn't start all that early (whatever that means, meaning: nothing but excuses, and yes, fourth day dry), but le gasp! bb's started a new story! Excuse me while I try not to faint.

p.s. Yeah, yeah: I'm writing, too, okay?

Nymphs and Shepherds

Published a poem and its response in two parts. It's the standard nymphs and shepherds stuff, you know? Love is a many-splendored thing, and a' that.

en'phfinafied.

Writing material

Thought for the day

Do you know how life is a roller-coaster ride, with it's ups and downs? Or so I'm told. And they tell you just to ride it, and not to get off?

I find myself here in the middle of this twister, a scared little girl with no ruby slippers and no toto.

They say in the center of a tornado and at the eye of a hurricane is utter stillness, so all I can do is stay in the center of this storm called life, and any step, ANY step in any direction leads to calamity. As I've seen. Today. Again.

And ... but ... if I stand still, the imperious, impersonal, dispassionate storm called life will roll, uncaringly, right over this sad little nothing girl.

Because that's what life does. It goes on. and on. and on.

God, I hope Saga writes.
God, after what I just wrote her, ... I hope she doesn't.

And then there's all the littered corpses scattered pel-mel behind me, too. 'Friends' or 'survivor victims of the 'phfina encounter.'

I am SO not cut out to be a masochist, so why do I keep doing this to myself. Why do I keep breathing? ... when I just. can't. breathe.

And I look in the mirror and ask one simple question: 'who is the cause of all this?' and look into the eyes of the girl who so knows the answer.

'You did, 'phfina. You,' she says. And she is so right: as always, it's all my fvcking fault.

Just some random thoughts for today. On the upside: 'ooh, fresh writing material! Yay!'

And the irony that I'm so present to right now is that people ask me, all the time, where I get ideas for my stories. Hm, let me think about that ... ah, yes! I know: I'm still breathing, unfortunately, so there is just oh-so-many things to write about today.

That's 'phfina's lovely little thought for the day. Happy? You want insights into mysterious reclusive little writer 'phfina? Well, then, there it is.

"Update Soon"

Okay, so, for those of you who want to take on writing well, read this. For those of you who don't, please don't.

You do know your review is part of your writing craft, right?

Cancel that, start ophfer, 'phfina.

Okay, you've just read my chapter, and your socks were knocked off, and you're speechless, and you wish to thank me for that amazing piece of writing, so you're going to leave me a review.

Okay, first of all, thank you for your review.

Now, here's how to avoid a tongue-lashing (the bad kind) from me.

1. share, don't describe.

Look, I know what happened in the chapter, so you don't need to (re)tell me the plot. So tell me, yes, what you liked, or what you didn't, but importantly, tell me why! Why is the 'why' important? It's important because something in this chapter struck you, and saying 'I was struck by ...' tells me nothing and it tells you nothing. And saying 'When Rosalie told you about your childhood, that really hit close to the bone,' tells me nothing and it tells you nothing.

WHY did it strike you? WHY did it really hit close to the bone?

Honey, if you can't talk about this with me or with you, you aren't in touch with yourself, and if you aren't in touch with yourself, you have no way of relating to anybody beyond superficiality. And me? I don't relate in a superficial way. Superficiality is a lie and a time-waster. You want to hide? Stay hiding, but don't waste my time playing your nasty, stupid, fearful games.

My friends and relationships? They are real. Get real with me.

And the payoff for getting real with me? You have to get real with yourself, and when you get real with yourself, guess what? You get real with others, and then you have real relationships, not fake ones.

You know the difference between a real relationship and a fake relationship? No? That's because you've been hiding, withholding, and living a lie. Get the fuck real and start living your life.

2a. don't fucking PM me your real review, hiding behind a fake, pleasant public review

Chicken. Wuss. Moocher.

Listen, sharing with just 'phfina? That's a nice, safe game you're playing. How's that working for you, playing safe with your life, playing safe in the world?

Did anybody ever accomplish anything by playing it safe? Playing it safe is survival mode, and survival mode is for back-stabbing leeches, sucking the life out of everything they can and contributing nothing. Listen, there are other people out there in the world with your exact same issue, and my stories are for you, honey, AND for them, and what you said in your PM may have helped somebody else who would've read it if you left it in a review, but no, now s/he thinks s/he's the only one who feels that way about my stories and now s/he goes and kills hirself because you were a selfish little safe b!tch and PMed me what really happened for you reading my story, leaving this pleasant little nothing of a review.

Well, guess what? Your pleasant little nothing of a review just sold out on you and sold out on that person who needed your words to make it one more day.

By PMing me your real review and hiding behind a safe public review, you just abetted somebody's suicide.

Heavy, 'phfina? Hell yes. It is heavy when you withhold yourself. Do you think I liked writing and then publishing Rosalie and Me? Do you think I was playing a small game?

If you're going to be playing a game, play the big one. The stakes are the same: you are betting your life either way, but the payoff? HUGE difference. HUGE.

2b. Oh, and don't PM me with "Oh, I'm going to review the next chap you publish."

Every single one of those PMs? Not one of those 'people' (and I use the term very loosely, the more accurate term is 'fucking cunts' ... because I'm ashamed for our sex, but every single one of those PMs have come from girls) has ever delivered on her promise, and so I write the next chapter and, behold, no review from you.

Guess what: I remember what you promised to me.

Guess what: it hurts when you break your promise because of your indolence.

Guess what: you aren't a person of your word.

The sad thing is is that the only person who's paying for your sin is me, not you, because you didn't have the guts to review all the other chapters I already have up. Look, I already did the work of publishing those chapters, but you're withholding yourself from me and from the community for my 'next' chapter? Why? The story is not in time, honey, it's forever, and, guess what? So is your review. Are you playing the small game of 'gimme this for that' or 'I'll do it when ...' or are you going to play big and put yourself out there?

3. Write your review, don't write your critique of your review.

"Oh, you're probably tired of hearing how good a writer you are."

No, I'm not.

"Oh, I'm going to say this wrong/stupid/boringly."

No, you're not.

"Oh, if only I had the way of words that you do."

Honey, news flash: you don't. You have something better than that: you have the way of words that you do.

Let me tell you something about me. I am a writer. Do you know how I know that? You told me ... in your reviews. And not only am I a writer, but I'm one of the best, perhaps the best on ffn. I didn't say that: you did. So do you know how I know that I'm touching you with my writing? You told me.

Weak of me? Sure! Yes, I should be this strong, fierce, sleek panther on the hunt, striking terror into your hearts and making your bodies all a-quiver (in several ways), but in reality I'm just a little black kitten pretending to be a panther, who, maybe, on a good day can work her self-image up to an ocelot, but only when you've told her so.

Does it get easier for me? Hell no.

Hell no.

It gets harder. Because why? Because every chapter I write has got to meet my standards, and my standards are right out there for you all to see, because I've already written that awesome one-shot Fireworks. How can I top that? How can I even match that? And here I am, writing this shit chapter, and the dialogue is not coming together and the events are all a-jumble and I'm going to publish this?

I'm fucked. I'm so seriously fucked, because now I'm a has-been who can't write shit anymore, and I put that chapter out, and what am I doing?

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for you to call me out. "'phfina! That chapter fucking sucked! Why the fuck are you publishing this shit? Get back in the fucking game, loser!"

And so when you say: "I'm embarrassed at writing again that this chapter rocked because I sound like a broken record. I'm sorry for boring you with my repetitive reviews ..."

Do you know what I'm doing? I'm screaming so hard at my laptop that I'm crying, and I'm crying so hard that I'm screaming. Do you know what I'm screaming?

NO!

I'm screaming NO! No, you review isn't boring me. No, don't beat yourself up about fucking saving my life.

Because NO! I don't think I'm God's gift and that I'm hot shit. No, what I'm thinking is that I'm in fucking trouble, that I'm a wannabe — a never even has-been because that means I would have had something, and I so fucking don't! — that's been found out, and your review is the only lifeline that I can grasp, but you're beating yourself up for saving my life, for keeping me going? Do you know what I'm reading in your critique of your review that you sent? That your beating yourself up will beat you away from leaving your next review, and there goes my lifeline.

Honey, when you don't leave a review? I know it. Do you know what that tells me?

It tells me that my stuff is shit not worth bothering over anymore.

Your critique of your review is the precursor of you not leaving me a review. I mean who, consistently, does stuff she hates doing?

Besides me, publishing that next chapter, chapter after chapter? In my experience, not many people are up to that. If your review denigrates yourself, it'll be so much easier for you not to leave a review the next time because you've talked yourself out of the contribution that you actually are.

Honey, your own worst enemy is you. Stop this shitty self-talk. Stop it now. Because your biggest fan? That would be me. Do I want your review? Oh, yes, I do. So review my chapter, don't review your review, okay? Don't worry about how your review will fall on my ears. Don't worry: I will so fucking tell you how I received your review. Promise. AND I'll also thank you for your review.

Unless you're a complete prick, crowing about how clever you are at my expense, and then I'll ban you.

I, unfortunately, wrote the word 'prick' for a reason. Guys (meaning the male of this species), why do you have to be so fucking clever in your reviews? "Look at me, Mommy, I'm so clever!" You do know you're hurting me, and you're hurting you. I put my heart on the line and you think you're so fucking strong and manly to poke fun at me? If my piece touched you, tell me it fucking touched you. And guess what? That is manliness. That is strength, ... AND you'll have girls fucking all over you because you're strong enough to be a man and to be honest and open about your feelings.

Well, I mean, girls who ... you know ... well, ... okay, um, never mind, okay? *blush*

No, I'm not going to give you my phone number, okay?

Um.

4. "Update soon"? Why don't you just write "fuck off and die"?

... because that's what I do when I read those words.

Some of you have experienced this, by your writing or by your leaving an honest heart-felt review (in your native language). You've seen the tremendous responses you've received by daring to put yourself out there. You've felt the absolute terror of being singled out, hunted down and examined under the microscope by tens, by hundreds, by thousands of people.

Now, as I say in my story Monsters: "Be Me."

Be me when I agonize over every phrase, like "Bella's adam's apple," or every twist and turn of the plot (like, OMR, everything that happens in my one-shot Prowling Panther). Am I really going to publish this? If I do, they are going to see me behind my writing, they are going to see me, and they are going to know me, and then they are going to come with their pitchforks and torches, they are going to bust down my door, and they are going to burn me at the stake.

Yes. Every chapter. That's what I'm thinking.

And I just put out this chapter, and I'm agonizing, and I get your review that says "update soon"? So, why? So I can go through that torture again so I can get your next review that says fucking nothing about the chapter I just put out there and just says to "update soon"?

Honey, your review for this chapter is your review for this chapter.

What happened in this chapter that touched you, and why?

If you have nothing to say about this chapter in the review for this chapter, what is the point for me to write you the next chapter? In your review for this chapter, tell me about this chapter! Because you're saying "update soon" says: "I burned through this chapter and have nothing to say about it, your story means nothing to me other than what the next chapter will reveal because this chapter didn't do it for me, leaving me wanting, so you'd better step up your game and not publish a shit chapter like this one."

Sure. Sure you say: "but I'm writing 'update soon' to encourage you, 'phfina, to write the next chapter. I liked this chapter so much that I can't wait for the next one." I know that is your intent, but think out these words fall on me. Be me. Write a chapter and have a reader leave you a review that says "update soon" and see out that feels.

And not say: "'Update soon'? WTF about this chapter, b!tch? Didn't I just kill myself over this chapter? Where is the fucking love?"

And the irony is, some of you have felt this exact thing. I know because you've told me. Yet you still fucking write those words in your review. WTF is this? "Do onto others what has been done onto me"?

"Update soon"? "Can't wait for the next chapter"? Shame on you. Fucking shame on you.

And you know what? You're writing "update soon" shames your parents. Didn't they teach you to be grateful for the gift you've received? Not to be grabby? Guess what: the chapter I just wrote? That was my gift to you. You're saying "update soon"? That says not: "thank you for your gift." No, it says: "gimme more!" Did your parents raise you that way? I can see that from your review you just left that shames your parents.

Sit on that one for a while: everything you do reflects on you and reflects on your parents. Think about the next thing you write before you press 'send,' not after, right? Because your parents taught you to think before you speak, right?

So the shameful things you do shames you and shames your parents. And the honorable things you do honors you and honors your parents.

And do you know who I want to hang with? I can't stand company that says 'oh, boo-hoo, and my parents disempowered me' and all that shit. All I can think is: 'get me away from this slime ball!'

No, I want to be with a person who's at peace with their parents because they just love them or because they made peace with them.

A man who honors his father? I'm like, wow! I'm like: there's a man brimming with self-confidence; that's not a man, that's Superman! That's a hero among men!

So hard to find these days: a good man. A man who doesn't despise his father, but honors him.

A girl who loves her mom, who says her mom is her best friend?

Oh, my God!

Oh, my God! I just want to hang with her and honor her and tell her how awesome she is. That's a girl I want as a friend. That a girl who's not mired in shit. That's a girl who's up to something. That's a girl I love to love.

Honor your parents.

Oh, and for those of you hiding stuff from your parents? You know what I mean! Like you haven't come out to your own mother?

What the hell is that all about? First of all, do you think you can hide anything from your parents? They know. They fucking know something's up, that something's not right, and by hiding this from them, you are torturing them. And second of all, how can you honor somebody that you hide stuff from? Get counseling or support or whatever, but get real, for God sake! with your parents. Yes, you can get thrown out of the house. Yes, you can be disowned. I know that. I've seen that. Not personally, thank God! So do it right, do it under advisement with full awareness of what could happen. Don't just break the news to them on Christmas break, for God's sake, but do do it, if you plan to honor your parents fully and honestly.

For those of you who don't have this issue ... well, you actually do if you are hiding anything from your parents, and, by extension, from anybody. Come out of hiding. Stop withholding yourself from the ones you love and the ones who love you. Honor them.

Love them.

The Game

For those of you who haven't experienced this, well, I highly recommend this for your character development. Write something, put it out there, and see what happens. That will really show you what kind of person you are. That will really show you your strengths and weaknesses. You up for that kind of game?

If you are, do that, PM me, and I'll send you a cookie. Yay, you win the game, and here's your prize.

And, bonus, you've accomplished something. It's out there, your work, and now nobody can ever take that away from you.

If you aren't, well, okay. So then, be strong in another way: leave me a review of the chapter you just read. Share, don't describe. Leave a real review in your review, not in a PM to me. Don't denigrate your review in your review; if anything, revel in it, and don't write 'update soon' in your review and don't look for fucking synonyms to that phrase, but honor the chapter reviewed. Savor it.

... and I'll send you a cookie. Congratulations, you've won the game.

Or, be very, very brave and leave your very first review ever, and write "Good chapter; update soon" because you don't know any better, and you don't have any other words to express your admiration ... yet.

... and I'll send you a cookie. You were brave. You've won the game.

You may wish to PM me "'phfina, don't beat me up, this is my first review, and I don't know what to say in my review and ..." and blah-blah-blah.

Not that that PM will do you any good. You've been alive on this planet for how long? And you don't know what to say?

Honey, you do know what to say. All it requires is for you to step out, like you did leaving your review, and come from hiding from yourself and say what's really real for you.

And do you know what happens when you do this, when you finally begin to start to get really real?

You start to live. You start to be not afraid anymore. Those weights on your shoulders come off. Other people PM you and say "OMG! I felt the same way, too, and you're so brave!" And you are brave, and courageous, and ... loved.

You start to love and be loved.

For real. Not for fake. For real.

And then the game really begins.

Frustration!

*SCREAM!*

(Insert image of 'phfina throwing back her head like that cutie in the poster of the movie Drag Me to Hell)



(oh, this is a blog ... so I just did insert the image ... that was easy!)

No, sweeties, I'm okay. You haven't heard a peep from me, but that's not 'cause I've been drug to hell (haven't seen that movie, either), but because UGH! LIFE and stuff is just so-o-o-o-o getting in the way of my writing!  Really! I think it's hurting me more than it's hurting you that I haven't updated.  I mean WHAT HAPPENS TO ROSE, REN AND BELLA?!?!?!

Yeah, what!

But, you know, when I do get out and I do meet people and they are nice and sweet and smart ... well, then, they invite you into their lives, and I could be ... you know, me — a total b!tch — and tell them what to do with themselves because I just hafta write, gosh darn it! ("'gosh darn it' 'phfina?" Yeah, ... problems?)

... or I could ... sigh! ... get involved with them, their lives and pursuits and ... you know, grow, and have fun, and stuff.

And then there's work! Ugh! I hate it when work gets in the way of my writing ... I'm thinking about taking out a personal ad: "Writer, b!tchy, penniless, very high maintenance, inattentive to your convos 'cause she's writing the next chap in her head, seeking thick-skinned fem to take care of her and not get offended when the 'huh? what?' comes up when you're sharing your deepest revelations or the 'Leave me alone!' when she's at the keyboard and you're feeling a bit frisky and romantic or the staggering into bed at 3 am's and staggering out at 1pm's or the ..." well you get the picture. Yes, I am an artiste! Bohemian doesn't even begin to cover it (I mean along with the shy and boring bits: at a party, I'm the girlie texting her non-existent friendies who runs to the bathroom at the hint of eye contact). But I'm not going to take out that ad: I haven't seen nor read Misery, but I'm also a paranoid little b!tch and I think I'd have a seizure if somebody did answer it.

*Shudders!*

But, really, m'dears, I am being eaten alive by Madam Muse and her imperious demands that I write that next chapter ... for three stories AND RIGHT NOW! (1, 2, and 3 (unlinked, because it's totally unwritten but it better be sent for 'betaing' by tomorrow or I will so never forgive myself!))

But that's not happening today, nor tomorrow, nor ... sigh, again ... but, yes, I'm still here, thinking about my stories (almost nonstop) and I will get back to writing them, okay, sweeties?

My 'phfavorite 'phfina one-shot is ...

Background

So, I write a bit. Some of these are one-chapter stories, called one-shots. One reader said, "Oh, What She Said [my most recently written one] is your best!" So I was like, hm, is that so? So I did something I've never thought I would have done: I ran a little poll asking which one-shot was your favorite.

And here are the results:


And the winner is...

Drum roll, please.

Fireworks! Yay! *throws confetti*

What did you get out of this poll, 'phfina?

What I got out of this poll was that every one of my one-shots was voted on by somebody, and that warmed my heart. It tells me that there's something I wrote in each of my one-shots that touched or moved somebody.

Did you vote, too?

Yes, I voted.

Which one-shot was your fav?

Not telling.

Aw, c'mon, 'phfina!

Oh, all right! I am such a push-over! (um, don't tell anybody, and don't use that to your advantage, you know ... somewhere horizonal, either!) Tell you what, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. "Dear 'phfina, I voted (would have voted) on X and here's why! ... Okay, now show me yours? You got pics? *blush* Eek! I didn't write that! You've turned me, 'phfina, you've turned me into such a perv! So ... this weekend ... EEK! *scampers away*"

Um, you don't need to follow that PM format precisely ...

But actually, when I voted, it was so, so hard, and then I got scared away. I couldn't do it. They are all my favorites, I can't choose one of them! But I had demanded you pick a favorite fav, so it would be unjust for me to chicken out. So I picked the one that called out to me, and actually cried a bit about not being able to pick the other ones. I'll give a run down of my one-shots and why I love each one of them here some day later (or 'real soon now').