Devilish, by Maureen Johnson

Yesterday after dinner I sat down to start reading a novel by Maureen Johnson. If you me, you will be aware that Maureen Johnson is my hero and my lady crush.

Anyway, I started reading Devilish, which when I read the back I was like "This is going to we weird." because basically the entire plot is a girl sells her soul to the devil to become popular after throwing up on some people in the middle of the most important school assembly of the year.

As I started to read this, I was like "maybe she doesn't mean the devil, maybe she means like 'popular kids.'" But no, twas the devil.

Three hours later I was done. The whole book, beating my finishing a book in sitting recorded, only getting up for food and bathroom breaks by 18 hours (Order of the Phoenix) .

Of the Maureen Johnson books I have read. This is the best. Better than the Lesbian book that I loved so much. (The Bermudez Triange I still recommend that one a lot as well. )

I'm really one to be excited about books with Devils and soul selling, but it was an amazing read. There were parts that hurt my brain, but Miss Johnson, really made the whole idea that someone could just sell there soul seem like an every day occurrence.

This book is wonderfully written and an amazingly quick read, which I wasn't expecting. Maureen Johnson made me do something I thought only J.K. Rowling was capable of.

http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/index1.html <-- This is Maureen Johnson's website. Check it out. I'm fairly certain you won't be disappointed with any of her Novels. (I still have two to read, but I'm fairly certain they are also good :) )

WTF facebook

I want to know when its all going to be okay again.
When will someone be able to say "I had this horrible dream my sister was in a car accident." and not look to make sure I'm okay and immediately apologize?
When will it be okay for me to look through people I may know on Facebook and not start crying?
When will everything be normal again?

I just want everything to be like it was before. When people didn't have to think before they started telling a story about whether or not it was going to upset me.

It was a kid I hadn't talked to since my sophomore year of high school. And I don't even think I actually talked to him then. The last conversation I remember having was in 8th grade.

I just want to know when everything is going to be okay again.

what I learned over vacation

Over vacation I over heard something that I wasn't supposed to know about, not because it's a secret or its somebody talking about me, but because the people I work with didn't want to upset me.

I work in a super market, mainly as an AM cashier. If you have ever been in a supermarket in the morning you've most likely noticed that its a bunch of old people, well I'm one of those old people.

My favorite of these old people are Oscar, who is like 105 and mad about it, and Nanci an adorable southern belle from North Carolina who grew up as an Army brat who is old enough to be my grandmother.

I overheard one of the other cashiers telling a customer that Nanci has cancer, and unless there is some kind of miracle she's going to die. Most everyone else found out around Thanksgiving but when I asked where she was over Christmas Break no one would tell me. I think this is because the person I asked knew how upset I was over losing a friend like two weeks before and didn't want me to become more upset. But I love Nanci. Like I really really love Nanci, she made my job enjoyable and anybody following me on twitter last week knows how much I HATE my job.

Right now I'm afraid that she's going to die and I'm going to be here, and I won't ever know what happened to her. The store already feels so empty without her presence. I really can't imagine working there if there isn't going to be a possibility of Nanci coming back.

Vacation

This week there will be a lack of regular blog updates. Ethan (which is what I call my computer) isn't a big fan of my parents Internet. He also over-heats and I forgot my fan so he can't be on for too long.

I wouldn't really have much to update about anyway, I'll be at the super market for most of the week.

I'll be working on my novel all I can and will be posting it over here: http://www.webook.com/project/From-the-Center-of-Our-Universe

If you check it out it will make me very happy.

I need your opinion. Please help :)

So this a a small part of From the Center of Our Universe that I just wrote and wanted to know if it made any sense. Please let me know. What I think of things, and what they actually sound like are normally two completely different things. :)


Around midnight the next night, I sat at the dinning room table wearing my pajamas; a dirty, sort of pink tank top, and blue gym shorts, my dirty blond hair pulled loosely into a pony-tail, cramming for an AP chemistry test that had crept up on me with all the drama in my world.
A knock on the glass sliding door broke the complete silence of my house. I froze in my chair as I listened to the door open and someone step inside. Robbers don’t knock first. I thought. Maybe murders do though. I pulled my chem notebook over my face, like a little kid does with their hands in an open field during hide-and-seek, if I could see them, the murderer wouldn’t see me, and move on.

“Teagan?” the murderer said, I could tell from his tone he had that grin across his face, his green eyes had to be shining.

“I thought you were a murderer,” I said, throwing my notebook in his direction.

“Why would a murderer knock before they come in?” Rio asked, placing my notebook back onto the table.

“Maybe it’s their MO or something,” I answered, still shaken. Finding out the person sent to murder you is actually just your best friend visiting at some ridiculous hour doesn’t slow your heart rate as quickly as I was hoping.


ALSO:
If you don't mind telling me what you're best guy friend smells like... please.

BANANA GRENADE!!!

So I have this friend, and he is, well weird, but its an acceptable weird. Not like "hey that guy could grow up to kill people weird." It's more of a "I hope that guy doesn't hug me when I walk by."

Anyway, this friend and I were talking at dinner when for I don't remember why, but my closet in my suite came up.

It smells like vinegar.

My weird friend said "I know." Now the only logical thing I could think to say to this is "How much time do you spend in my closet?"

To which he replied something along the lines of "I spend a lot of time in there, waiting." (IRL he was there when my roommate was cleaning it, with vinegar. He's just weird not creepy.)

Then we talked about how funny it would be if someone wrote the words "Banana Grenade" on actually bananas, bit the end to open it, and threw them into rooms.

The answer to that is: really freakin' awesome. My weird friend my do this by hiding in my closet and jumping out at one of my suite mates and yelling "BANANA GRENADE." To which said suite mate would promptly wet themselves because there aren't supposed to be boys hiding in our coat closet.

Yeah, so that's my life...

OH!! and I'm now facebook friends with Maureen Johnson, who you may or may not know is my currently lady crush.


I love Maureen Johnson.

Thanksgiving Breakfast

I sat there alone in the cafeteria sipping a luke warm cup of coffee, when slowly they all started to appear over half wall at the far end. I'd already eaten my breakfast. But I figured I had nothing else to do all day, so I might as well wait for my friends, a little conversation never killed anyone.

I waited patiently for everyone to get their eggs, bacon, toast, and pancakes, and make their way over to the second to last booth by the windows.

"I think we're going to need two tables. Help me pull this over."

I did what I was asked, and one friend and I sat at the edge of the booth, looking and feeling rather awkward at our giant table. Slowly our giant table filled up with friends and girlfriends of friends, that in our group had become friends themselves, maybe even better friends than their boyfriends were.

We squeezed eighteen people into our table. The booth were I sat normally held eight, but now somehow comfortably fit ten. We smiled and laughed. My friends ate their cheese filled eggs and I sipped my cold coffee.

As I looked over the table, all my friends lined up, I thought about how amazing this was. A year ago I would have been sitting alone, watching in envy as these people ate with two tables pushed together. But now I was a part of it.

I've become one of the popular kids.

Not the kind that plays sports or goes to big parties every night, but the kind that has what the high school popular kids never had.

Friends.

I created a WEbook

At breakfast today, I was told by a friend of mine to create a WEbook. So I did, and I started to post From the Center of Our Universe there.

This is the link if you are interested http://www.webook.com/project/From-the-Center-of-Our-Universe

I would enjoy your feedback greatly.

Today I recycled bottles, then I promptly lost the ticket to get money. Good times, then I also lost my laundry card, but it only had $3 on it so that's not that bad, but I lost $6 worth of bottles. Oh well, at least they're not in a land fill somewhere.

I also watched The Dark Knight with Noelles today. That movie is soooooo amazing.

Hopefully something worth blogging about will happen tomorrow. You never know.

~DeCoolz

Movie day!

Last night was amazingly fun.

There was a carnival at school with a band (stepanian, who is pretty awesome i recommend Ituning them), a bouncy house, an air filled race-y thing and cotton candy. It was amazing. I won a sampler CD from the band and got to talk to the members for a little bit it was awesome.

Then my friends and I played Apples to Apples and ate pizza til like midnight and then I came back to my room to be the sober kid at the crazy party in my room. I didn't like baby-sitting when I was a kid, I'm not that much of a fan know. But all and all it was a pretty awesome day.

Today I watched movies with Noelles (Donnie Darko and Eternal Sunshine). So far it's been a pretty awesome weekend. And tomorrow were watching The Dark Knight because Noelles hasn't see it yet. But hopefully we can get a big group of us together. It would be fun. I miss movie nights.

Well I haven't written any of From the Center of Our Universe today, so I should get off to doing that.

And that is the end of the story

tours.

I went to lunch today, as I do everyday. But today there was a tour of 6th and seventh graders. Normally there's at least high school kids that understand the laws of lines and how soda fountain work. But no, today there were 12 year olds in the college cafeteria.

Why on Earth would a 12 year old want to go on a college tour. When I was 12 the most important thing in my life was Zac Hanson and whether or not there was ice cream in my parents fridge. College didn't even seem important until after my junior year of high school, which admittedly is late, but sixth grade is far too early.

These middle schoolers that I was forced to stand behind to get pizza this afternoon couldn't even form sentences. "He was like hey, and I was like OMG and like." is not a sentence.

THEN there was a group of girls all in pastel AE sweatshirts that were bouncing, bouncing up and down in one of booths. I know that they have most likely never sat on a patted bench before, but didn't their teachers explain to them that they were going to a college where they have to act like humans for an hour or so.

Please tell me I was not that ridiculous when I was in middle school.

In other news, there is a bounce house and rock wall in the gym after dinner today!!! WOOT!

a piece of The Center of Our Universe

I wrote this just now. And I love it. So I'm sharing. I feel good about this chapter.

“It’s too much. Meet me at The Pearl in five minutes.” As he stepped ahead of me, he turned, walking backward, his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket, worn thin from years of wear and abuse, the edges frayed from a long ago bonfire Harper thought it would be funny to throw it into, and flashed that smirk, those beautiful green eyes shining back at me. I couldn’t help but obey his every word.

more novel drama

So I think I have figured out my major issue with From the Center of Our Universe (which is my novel). Mostly its that the big important event hasn't happened yet, and therefore I feel nothing is happening. In reality, a ton of stuff has happened to forward the plot, but it's not to the part that I really want to write yet. But I can't just start at that part, because the story wouldn't make sense.

It's also becoming increasingly difficult to type with this broken thumbnail. It's starting to grow back which makes it hurt even more.

Also in related novel news: yesterday I was supposed to go to this bar in town with the other 5 people in my class and discuss our work. There are several issues with this. First I think I'm the only one that takes my work seriously enough to see that $3 pitcher night is not the best day to sit and discuss literature. Second I'm pretty sure my classmates don't like me. And third, I'm not about to sit and watch people I know drink and a bar when we're supposed to be working and then get in their cars and drive back to campus. It's not happening, I'm not going to be involved in something like that, and I don't want to have to deal with all that again.


So anyway, I still think my book sucks, but I also think that most people don't really like what their writing in the first draft anyway.

Novel Hatred

So I've been working on this novel since I was in 6th or 7th grade. I don't mean like actually writing it, I've been toying with the idea since I was 12 or 13. Well I've really started writing for a class, because I have to write a novel of some kind and I also really want to write this.

The thing is that it's a fairly decent novel so far, but I hate it, like hate it. But everyone I give it to really likes it. I know that writing is about what you think about the work but I just have a really hard thinking it's any good. I mean honestly its complete crap.

My prof wants me to read it in class, and I honestly can't bring myself to share the utter crap that I've written with other people. The class with basically praise anything so you can't really trust your peers to tell you what sucks about it. But I know it sucks and I don't want to share utter crap with people who wouldn't see it that way and actually tell you that its good.

I know my friends mean well when they say they like it, and honestly they most likely do like it, but I learned a long time ago that you can't always trust your friends opinions, if they like you they will like your work. One of my friends will tell me what is grammar is wrong with it, which is good I guess.

My other friend will tell me its great no matter what. I know she most likely honestly believes is fairly decent. I mean there is nothing really horrible about it; I just don't like it. It has a decent plot I guess, mildly believable. I don't know, I just don't think it's worth spending 5 hours a day on. I love my characters, I have since I first thought of them, I've grown up with them and changed them and developed them quite nicely, I just can't seem to make the story work in my head.

I don't know, I've been having a really weird week and this might just be part of it, but I haven't liked the story since like mid-January. Maybe I have to get to the part that I've been building up to before I start to like it. I don't know.

I forgot I had this blog.

With all the 6 thousand other things I do daily (most of them include sleeping, listening to music, and writing my novel), I forgot I had this blog. I haven't updated my other one like I planned to do regularly either, but I'm working on this. I spend so much of my time writing that one would assume I would be good at keeping a blog or diary as well. Well this is not true.

I've heard so many different writer talk about how you're supposed to have a diary if you're a true writer, but these people also say that one most have a fairly good grip on spelling and grammar to be a good writer as well. I personally think that this is why spell and grammar check were invented. And I've tried hundreds of times to keep a diary and I just end up with a ton of empty fancy notebooks with one or two entries in each.

I'll keep working on it though, maybe having to write down everything I do in a day will make me do more things. After all there is more to life than the fictional world in my head and the collective works of Maureen Johnson and John Irving.

and that is the end of this story