The Sparrow's Nest

Have you looked at the prices of editing and realized that you would rather die than pay that? Plus, you have to do a lot of research, CAREFUL research, so you won't end up paying a con artist to do absolutely nothing. If you find an awesome editor, great! But if you'd rather go it alone, then here's a few tips on self editing. Don't edit as you write. Get that story down first, because suppose you do edit as you write and then find out you want to do a whole re-write? An unnecessary waste of brain if you ask me. It would be like wading through a mire next to the bridge you could have crossed instead. After all that's done, I start going through the chopping process, asking myself, "What/who doesn't fit?" "What/who makes no sense?" "Does this/person add to the story?" "Is my timing right?" "Would this scene be better here?" According to word count, how messy and clunky would something be if you kept it? You d...

Some days, my muse for writing just turns completely off. I find sitting in front of the computer screen and wishing something to come just doesn't work. I saw a cartoon where a writer was doing just that. It was funny, but I don't think that cartoon character ever got her idea. Sometimes when my muse goes off it's because my brain has worked too hard and has fainted. Give it a rest. My brain is constantly going, and even when I sleep it's going nuts, so sleep sometimes doesn't do it for me. I've picked up cross stitching. Some people find it impossible to do, but it certainly empties my head, and on top of that, I come out with new Christmas ornaments, pictures for decorating, magnets, etc.... It's a productive way of not thinking. I also keep the sampler by my computer or notebook, so when I get stuck, I pick up the cross stitch. My brain is clear and I can focus. By the time I'm done with a row or two, I usually have the answer to my problem. An...

Carrina is the product of a faulty system. She naturally wants to hurt no one, and that agrees with the rules of the school, but when the school fails to defend her, she must take action. While she acts in self defense, the system vilifies her for doing it. Taking away someone's right to defend themselves while failing to hold up one's end of the bargain often more than not ends in violence and blood. In an ironic twist, the peace loving system ultimately creates violence. The staff don't exactly live in reality, while Carrina does, and it is what is real that holds sway when no one properly acts on their morals. On a lighter note, Carrina's bad day is a conglomeration of several bad days I myself and my little friends had when we were around that age. That age is usually sweet, so Carrina is sweet. She probably still is, she's just got some serious pepper in her blood now. If the system chooses to crush her more, she will only revolt, as all people with a lick...

The point of the bully for me was that Carrina busted her face, a thing I wanted to do but didn't have the know-how. Overall, bullies can come in any size. Not all bullies are big and ugly, sometimes they're small and ugly. I've seen too many idiots happy about little bullies. "They're so small and dominant! See? Size doesn't matter!" But it does matter, because when the bigger one stand up to the tiny rat, they call it bullying. Sometimes the big bully has a tiny minion who is just as much of a bully. For some reason you can fight the big one but you can't touch the little one. They say, "You're bigger, fight someone your own size." So I guess that means the little bully is brave? There is something inherently stupid in all that. They have poison tongues, they use other methods to get at you. They take away the bigger person's right to defend themselves. Size matters. It matters more than all the little pencil pushers think.

The woman was based off several DUMB teacher aids and one of my own teachers in grade school. Oh my goodness, I almost busted my back when I fell off the swings and my stupid teacher never noticed and none of the teacher aids did either. I had the wind knocked out of me and I could not move. One brat from my class saw me fall and he didn't say anything. I sure wished he had gotten run over, but brats live forever. Anyway, the bell to end recess sounded and I literally crawled to the school, hobbled into the classroom late and the teacher didn't even see. Of course she would have if nothing was wrong and I would have been punished. The teacher aids themselves never noticed anything. While threatening students with their lives for play fighting in one corner, they missed the kid being pummeled in another. And this was off the reservation. What in the world was going on? Maybe they were rethinking their miserable lives?

I wasn't quite sure what Carrina's mother would be when she came about. After awhile, it became apparent that the woman was a single mother trying to raise a daughter who was her exact opposite. Since Carrina was soft, slow going and tender, her mother might be exasperated with her for she had things to do, people to see, food to put on the table, and her answer for everything would be based on quick, efficient and dominant. Living among Mexicans for nine years in the barrios, lots of the women I knew dressed similar to her. While lots of them were crazy, lots of them weren't and so the personality isn't based on race, but on Carrina's mother's individual circumstances, and the fact that I found it funny how their personalities bounced off each other.

My own elementary school down in Mesa, Arizona provided the setting. The place has changed a lot since I've been there. I mean, they have uniforms now, so I had to do some research before I took my character there. Carrina's house is loosely based off of the house I used to live in when I was in grade school. Even that place has since been utterly destroyed in the sense that someone chopped down all the trees, killed the grass and covered the wooden walls with stucco. The mailbox is gone and the numbers are just spray painted onto the house. Anyway, the place has gone to pot. So the house Carrina lives in is the one that I knew, with the trees and the mailbox and the grass.

Scientists say we come from monkeys because something about monkeys being smart and because Darwin said so. Well Darwin tossed his own idea out. Besides, whales and dolphins are smart too. I would much rather come from something beautiful than something that eats bugs out of its butt. Of course, if we all come from apes, why do black people go into an uproar if someone calls them monkey? It's the simple fact that being called a monkey is an insult. Scientists say life started in Africa, with monkeys, where all the Africans are. Is it just me or is the whole theory a racist one? It's like saying aliens built the pyramids. Somebody has no faith in human ingenuity. Anyway, when something evolves, doesn't the evolved form vanish? Or are there still monkeys because some chose not to evolve like a Pokemon? Which means monkeys are thinking people, or thinking Pokemon. Yeah, right. Scientists probably just want an excuse to practice bestiality, but monkeys don't sleep with dogs...

The inspiration from this piece came from when I was in seventh grade. It was in my English class and we were learning about description. As a result, we had to read pieces of literature where the author went overboard on description. In the particular one we read, it was about an old woman who went to the store to get medicine for her grandchild. Nothing ever happened, I just remember something about a staircase that looked like a spiral. Anyway, I was about to die of boredom and then my teacher told us to finish the story. What happened when she got home? Well I threw a fit and didn't want to do it because I would have to use descriptions like the ones used in the story, but I couldn't copy. So here I was, ten at night, wanting to die, when I realized that I could do something with the ending. I turned the old lady insane and had her feeding a long dead corpse, which I described as gruesomely as I could. The teacher wanted description? I'd give her description! A++++++ fo...

Ms. Millin is based off of the bad teachers in the reservation school system, particularly from my high school. They practiced on the students until they paid off their loans and then they moved on to a better school. By then, they know what to do and what not to do, therefore they are experienced, leaving the Native American kids to suffer from their mistakes. Most reservation teachers don't care about  rules and do as they please, say what they please and make up whatever they like to get their butts out of hot water. And then the principal believes them because the principal just assumes that Native kids are liars. During one incident, a new teacher who wrote porn called my friend some vile names, followed her around and acted like a creepy boyfriend. One didn't wear a bra and threw a fit in the class and thought dogs were people. Rumor had it she practiced bestiality. Another said a boy had drugs in his bag because she just chose to pick on him. And when she could...

Aria actually started out in a book that I made back in high school. She had represented all my frustrated views and had a sarcastic angle to her. But as the years went by, the book transformed and so did Aria until she became a whole different character. She was no longer Aria and in a way, Aria remained. When I looked back on her "old self", I said, "I can't just let her go out and never see the light of day again. There has to be a place for her." And so when the Sanitarium Commute came about and I started to write, I remembered Aria and stuck her in. She was perfect in her original form and so made it to the light of day after all.

In doing these behind the scenes messes, I have come to the conclusion that they are much too long, and so will be discussed in short increments. So today for the "Ten Hour Project" I will focus on the setting. It takes place in two areas, the school down in Whiteriver, and the old woman's house "up the hill." Where exactly is this place? I leave that open because it really doesn't matter. There are a lot of places off in the woods up little winding roads. Sometimes there's some almost millionaire in a mansion and other times you got a total weirdo. Needless to say it's somewhere in the pine trees. The phrase "up the hill" refers to a twenty to thirty minute drive up the mountain from Whiteriver to get to the Casino. And from the Casino, another fifteen to thirty minute drive to get to the stores, depending on where you are going. Of course some people make it up in less than ten minutes but they're just statistics waiting to happen. ...