Updatez on Lyf

Hi, hi and many apologies for being away for so long -- special apologies to you, Eliot. It has been too long; I know.

I don't have much to update on by way of arts and crafts or anything, though I hope to start regularly doodling/collaging in the pages of my new moleskine, and when that happens, I will be sure to upload some photos for your viewing pleasure.

But right now, my big project is -- dun, dun, dun! NaNoWriMo! For those of you who don't know, that's National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you have to write 50,000 words (that's a 175-page novel) in the month of November. I'm not doing it alone. My roommate and I are tackling a young adult romance idea with each of us taking one character, Nick and Norah style. It's sort of silly, but it's also very fun.

My character is Cassandra, a 17-year-old girl who is on the wrestling team and has no domestic skills whatsoever. She meets Max, a shy mathlete, in Home Ec, and you know the rest. Sparks fly, blah blah blah. It's very predictible, but we needed something where we could easily pound out the pages every day. Right now we're at 26,000 words, which is 90 somethin' pages double spaced or something. Crazy, yeah?

Here's a brief excerpt from the beginning-ish:

"He's tall and lanky with messy dark hair and square plastic frames, which makes me immediately think, Wow. He must kind of be a dork. The plaid button-up doesn't help, nor does the fact that I'm pretty sure I just saw a guy with a cape wave goodbye to him. Yeah, he must be that kind of dork -- the hide-in-the-basement-after-school-and-play-computer-games variety. He could be cute in a sort of endearing, awkward boy kind of way, but I can tell just by looking at him that he's never played a competitive sport in his life, which translates to "We have nothing in common" which then translates to "Not my type."

But that's not what I'm really thinking about, because who cares if this guy is cute, he's weird. Because he's stopped in the middle of his tracks and he's staring at me, and I swear to God, this guy looks terrified. At first I think it's because maybe he's scared of girls and he's thinking, "Shit, I have to sit next to one!" but that doesn't make sense because why else would he sign up for this class, except to get in with the ladies?

And the way he's looking at me isn't nervous-anxiety fear, but more like trapped-gazelle-facing-lioness-in-the-savannah fear. And I know I've been told that I am a fucking beast on the wrestling mat, but seriously, I think I look like a pretty normal seventeen-year-old girl, so if he actually thinks that I look threatening, then this guy is the biggest wimp I've ever encountered."

One more thing!

We've come up with a playlist to accompany our writing process (with the hopes that if we ever get published, we can stick it in the back of the book as a supplement), and so I will include that here:

1. "Bruises" -Chairlift
2. "Young Love" -Mystery Jets
3. "Cha Cha Cha" -The Little Ones
4. "Fidelity" -Regina Spektor
5. "Loose Change" -The Morning Benders
6. "Little Bit of You in Everything" -The Rentals
7. "Girl You've Really Got Me Going" -The Kinks
8. "Confines of Gravity" -PlayRadioPlay!
9. "Oh Be One" -Oh No! Oh My!
10. "Funny Little Frog" -Belle & Sebastian
11. "Parentheses" -The Blow
12. "Cross Your Fingers" -Laura Marling
13. "Whistle for the Choir" -The Fratellis
14. "Swimming Pool" -The Submarines
15. "Say Yes if You Love Me" -Acid House Kings
16. "When Did Your Heart Go Missing" -Rooney
17. "Dust Me Off" -Tilly and the Wall
18. "Death" -White Lies
19. "Even Fairy Tale Characters Would Be Jealous" -PlayRadioPlay!
20. "You and I" -Ingrid Michaelson

Enjoy!