Everlasting 1 Taiza Pickering MENG Final Project 16 April 2013 Writing "Everlasting" The Start of Something..."Everlasting"? In the last fifteen years, works such as Bridget Jones Diary: A Novel, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey have been published to wide readership and extensive popular appeal. These works are groundbreaking in the sense of popular attention, and all of them have spawned innumerable copycat works. Would-be authors often follow such trends, trying to cash in on the latest pop fad. What is popular is not always great literature, but that has no impact on the demand and attention such works have achieved. Serious (in the literary sense) authors often parody popular works of their day. The epitome of this is Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, the bard of the Spanish language. In his day, he mocked popular genres, including stories of chivalry, the pastoral, picaresque, Byzantine, and morisco, to name a few. Cervantes imitated, satirized, and parodied such previous works, changing the landscape of the novel forever. My intention with my MENG final project was use some of the humorous and satirizing devices employed by Cervantes, including manipulating the narration, using parody, and subduing popular texts in a fictional account of a would-be writer who attempts to achieve fame and fortune by integrating elements of the popular works mentioned above in one novel. This paper chronicles my struggles, failure, and successes of this endeavor. Everlasting 2 First, I would like to say writing this story was far more rigorous and challenging than I initially envisioned. Like a trapeze artist whose expertise make flying through the air from swinging, suspended sticks look easy, Cervantes makes complex narration and multi-layered satirization appear nearly effortless. In hindsight, this is clearly not the case. During the course of writing this story, I have struggled with many emotions, uncertainty being the most prevalent, I have gained a new perspective and far greater appreciation for what Miguel de Cervantes did nearly five-hundred years ago. My idea for this project, which in my mind seemed an integrative, fun, and "simple" way to combine academic learning with my natural propensity to make statements about the world has proven to be challenging and audacious in ways I could not foresee. In fact the audacity of my project, in hindsight, is staggering and would have intimidated me away from this project had I realized what I put in front of myself This project has had a lot of space, and there are infinite areas in which to get lost. Suffice it to say, I have a much greater appreciate for the master piece that Don Quixote really is. I have discovered, it is not easy to write a master piece. (At this point, I feel some disclaimer for this paper is warranted. While the flow and transitions will, hopefully, be smooth, the paper itself will seem tangential and meandering. This is not so different from my experience in writing "Everlasting," and I like the idea of mimicking my circulating mind patterns (to some degree) in this paper. It is, after all, some type of scholarly exposition. I take my liberties.) Everlasting 3 As an example of my experience in writing "Everlasting," I find one of the initial drafts of this monograph extremely telling in, and of, itself (and^e5,1 am intertextualizing my own draft): We can travel the oceans and barely remember the journey from one shore to the other. Waves blend into waves and become the movements of currents in the same giant gray-blue sea. Getting an education is not so different. Writing a story also is not so different. I begin on the shore with my intentions and objectives and land on the other side with the written text, being far different than I imagined and yet, somehow, still organically whole... The idea seemed simple enough at the outset, but the experience has been far from smooth sailing. As the project has evolved, the idea has become increasingly difficult to reign in. The experience escalated from an audacious attempt to mimic a masterpiece to feeling like all I succeeded in was having the color-loving right-side of my scribble (with florescent crayons) all over the textbook assembled by logic-loving left-side of my brain. (The Corpus Callosum has gone out to lunch.) To back up, and give some sense of chronological order, I would like to explain how the idea of this project emerged. It was on the Davis campus, room 306, Spring of 2012. After a semester of being subject to topics such as intertextuality, metafiction, and "the novel" as an anti-genre, my brain drew similarities between the romantic and knightly tales of Cervantes's time with the mass-produced (and, often, badly edited) romances current in our age. "Hmm, what would Cervantes do if he lived in 2012? I can see what he does with Lancelot. What would he do with Edward Cullen? Hmmm...." Thus was born some rudimentary idea of my project. One of the books we referred to is The Novel According to Cervantes by Stephen Gilman. Gilman quotes Bakhtin, whose idea of dialogism is key to my inspiration, in the following excerpt (39-40): Everlasting 4 But his material of the work is not dead, it is speaking, signifying (it involves signs); we not only see it and perceive it but in it we can always hear voices...Beginning with any text we always arrive...at the human voice, which is to say we come up against the human being. But the text is always imprisoned in dead material of some sort... In the completely real-life time-space where the work resonates...we find as well a real person—one who originates in spoken speech as well as the inscription and the book—and real people who are hearing or reading the text. Gilman quotes this from Bakhtin's The Dialogic Imagination. Gilman's assessment of this statement is involved with his assertion "...how does printed speech communicate the indispensable otherness of novelistic experience?...This seemingly paradoxical notion of silent speech is so essential to the present argument..." (38-39). If this assertion is true, the idea of the communication of a novel occurring in the space between the reader and the author instead of the words that are actually printed on the page makes the perspective, voice, and tone from which a story is written a much more weighted element in story-crafting. Furthermore, a parodic approach to story-telling offers interpretive and expository measures to literature, while standing on its own. As Kiremidjian discusses (232): At this point.. .things about the basic structure and behavior of a parody might be noted. First, it originates in an upsetting of the balance, or a disjoining of the fusion, between form and content.. .Second..it raises the question of what the relation is between form and content and forces us to become aware of the manner in which we experience a work of art as a fusion of form and content... Thus, "Everlasting" seeks to encompass both emulate the genius of Cervantes (oh, that audacity again!) while using parody as literary criticism on some recent best-sellers. I am not certain to what degree "Everlasting" succeeds or fails, but in the latter stages of writing and Everlasting 5 editing, I have come to realize that is irrelevant. Much as the true communication in a novel lies in the dialogue between reader and author, the true merit of my project exists between the attempt and the accompanying thought processes. The Writing Process My writing process works much like a French coffee press. I dump in ground coffee followed by steaming hot water and let the concoction steep. Once an undetermined length of time has passed, or my thirst for coffee is intolerable, I shove in the compressor thing, which pushes all the grinds to the bottom and allows the rich, earthly liquid to seep above the coiled strainer. From here, a slitted-spout in the lid allows the aromas beverage to enter my mug, from which it will be liberally consumed. In the case of "Everlasting," the coffee grinds are analogous to the critical analysis I consumed concerning Cervantes, Don Quixote, parody, metafiction, and the structure of Cervantes' narrative. The hot water would correlate to pouring through Bridget Jones, The Twilight Saga, and Fifty Shades of Grey (at least as much of the latter as I could endure before the effort felt masochistic). At this point of the process, I steered clear of critical analysis on the works mentioned above because I wanted to have a perspective untainted by secondary sources when I tried to assemble a Cervantes-esque parody. In retrospect, this is one of my projects greatest failings. In an expanse as wide as that which I have tried to cover requires selective narrowing, by not looking at literary criticism and secondary sources on these pop-fiction pieces, I missed the full scope of what I have tried to parody and the encompassing genre of Chick Lit. Near the end of the semester, I became acquainted with a book on Chick Lit that would have vastly altered the course which my story has taken. But then again, the term and genre itself are Everlasting 6 relatively new and overlooked in academic circles. Suffice it to say, my story was not brewed with secondary sources on Chick Lit added to the grinds. However, if one is to brew coffee on the academic arguments of Cervantes, one will not lack for body, flavor, or caffeine. By the time I read through Eclipse, the percolating of the story pretty much took over my thoughts. While in training for a new job, I daydreamed of Darward and his application of cheap costume glitter. While at the batting cage, with softballs flying in oddly shaped arcs, I found myself contemplating what type of car Darward would drive. And while talking to my friend about one of her recent dates, I became horrified to realize there is a contingent of Darwards on OkCupid.com. This brings me to another challenge with "Everlasting." I wanted to imitate the larger- than-life quality of Edward and Bella while adding some verisimilitude to their dating life. My approach to this was to write first-person accounts of the three main characters as journal entries followed by a third-person omniscient narrator that could tell things "as they really are". As for the first person accounts, we are all endowed with egos, and there is no greater inflation of a person than when he or she is talking himself or herself up. I wanted to carry this over into the narrative. Arguably, one of the reasons Twilight is so appealing is the very limited point of view covered by the saga, as it is told in first person. While Bella is often self-depreciating and self- doubting, she lacks the curiosity and metacognition which would throw the whole saga into a whirlwind and dispel the fantastical and romantic. For example, she never questions how Edward retrains himself from sucking her body dry of blood when she is menstruating, which must occur due to her age and her ability to conceive life, but she feels guilty and overly-responsible when Jasper launches at her over a paper cut. Such inconsistencies and lack of verisimilitude is easy to skip over when the story is told from a limited perspective, especially that of a simple or Everlasting 7 unquestioning first-person narrator. In such cases, all the author has to do is add in heavy doses of guilt, self-loathing, and insecurity to make the story ring "true" of the human experience. Cervantes does something very different with his narration. Don Quixote is not the one telling the story. Just to demonstrate this point, imagine what the book Don Quixote would look like if it were told in the first-person narrative of Alonso Quixano, the self-proclaimed knight Don Quixote. By layering the narrator as he does, Cervantes is able to assimilate multiple points of view. This allows for humor and parody at many levels. One article I read focuses on the self- reflexive nature of parody. Indeed, parody gets as many laughs and ironies over its own inconsistencies as it does those of other works, and Cervantes plays on this with his complex and inconsistent narration. In order to successfully carry off parody in my story, I wanted to make Darward similar to Don Quixote with his self-aggrandizement and self-delusion. I wanted to paint Brilliana as the everyday teenage girl suffering from an angst which no one else understands. I wanted to underscore both her commonness and her sense of uniqueness. Then there is Jessi Jacobs. She is in the story like a dangling modifier. She has a purpose in the undeveloped parts of the story, but she hardly seems to tie in. Then again, Twylla, as an untrained and fledgling writer is apt to have portions of her story that make no sense or seem to lack cohesion. This is just one of many layers I question and weigh while writing. I digress. I return to Darward and Brilliana, and their self-importance. These objectives were very easy to achieve in a journal-entry form. It was even easier to make fun of both characters by assuming a third-person omniscient narrator with a critical demeanor. What did not occur to me in my first draft was the jarring nature of this disconnect. The first part existed without context establishing its parodic nature and the second part deflated all the "purple prose" Everlasting 8 presents in the first-person first part. At this point, I ran into some serious limitations in how I had framed the story. I had framework. It was based on Cervantes' first eight chapters, the conclusion of which leaves Don Quixote mid-duel, sword-drawn, with an adversary using a pillow as a shield. I used the sequential set-up to frame my work by leaving Darward and Brilliana mid-goodnight kiss, without explanation of just what that goodnight kiss involved. Then, I introduced a new narrator who frantically searched the Web for a conclusion. Sequentially, the framework followed Cervantes; however, in spirit it did not. At the mid-semester committee meeting, although the reasons why differed, I received unanimous feedback that the structure of my first draft of "Everlasting" did not work. "Almost," was the answer I received. As an English undergraduate, and now a Masters of English student, I have spent a considerable amount of time contemplating literary structure. But the problematic discussion of why a structure that worked for Cervantes failed me occupied my mind with a supreme intensity. I stewed on it for weeks and would probably still be stewing if the deadline of the end of the semester did not force an end to my stewing. Although I do not know about the "truth" of my answer, I came to the conclusion that the structure of Don Quixote worked for Cervantes in his time because interruptive narrators that referred lost manuscripts as original sources were a literary ploy commonly used to give chivalric tales a manufactured (but masked) legitimacy. Although the chronological structure of the first eight chapters of Don Quixote defeated my purpose, the ideas of metafiction and intertextuality, which Cervantes uses liberally could certainly be employed. This led to the creation of a new frame—Twylla's story. In the first draft of "Everlasting," I attempted to use different fonts for each character to help keep the voices clear. There were limitations to this, but the idea of using screenshots of an actual blog to tell Everlasting 9 Darward and Brilliana's story seemed a great ploy to interlace the layers of the story, while retaining clarity of which layer was which. Peer feedback is mixed about the success of the screenshots in my second draft. While one peer editor found it engaging and adding a level of reality to the story, another found it distracting and disruptive. The screen shots are hard to read in a hard copy of the story. (Please note, the blog is still currently up and active on walkinginwater.com ) This has more to do with my typesetting limitations than the limitations of the idea. Ideally, I would copy the sections of the blog in continuous chunks instead of screenshot after screenshot, but presently, I do not have such capabilities. In an effort to maintain consistency with one chunk of screenshots to the next, I changed the background for each section. There is also some element of staging of my computer's monitor going on. As a learned and "idle" reader of Cervantes's time would have been familiar with secondary narrators in tales of chivalry, readers of my time are familiar with computer screens. I spent time a good amount of time formulating Twylla's story in a way to make "Everlasting," as she tells it on her blog, cohesive. I would really like to infuse Twylla's actual story with more witticism and self-irony, but I have had limited time to percolate on the funny in her life. This actually reaches back to the limitation mentioned earlier in my lack of focus on literary criticism on Chick Lit. Much can be said about what books like Bridget Jones, Twilight, and Fifty Shades say of woman's voice and woman's experience in the modern world. A woman pursuing a successful career while at the same time longing for some form of the traditional role of wife and mother creates a chasm to which many women can relate. This voice of this dichotomy is relatively new in its emergence, but it is potent and rich for parody! With additional time, I would explore the critical discourse on Chick Lit and attempt to incorporate that further in "Everlasting" with Twylla's life story. Everlasting 10 In order to frame Twylla, I needed to move the fan from the end of the first draft to the framing agent of my story. Hereunto comes the development of Francis Anne Newcomer. While her voice is developed, she is not as much developed as a character as she could be. This is due more to time and space constraints than artistic intent. She is the mortar of the story, and certainly, more can be done with her molding. It is important to realize this is still very much in draft form. The development is certainly noticeable, but my writing process is not complete for "Everlasting." As its name suggests, it may always be a work in process. My "Everlasting" Impressions This monograph is hardly adequate to catalogue all of the research, Internet trolling, thoughts, and work in coming up with "Everlasting." If I am really successful, I will fool people into thinking it was easy and just something I whipped up, all trapeze artist-like. That is far from the case. It is not lost on me that this monograph is a paper I am writing about writing my paper. In effect, it is a fourth-level of framing to the story of Darward and Brilliana, a story which could possibly stand solely on its own if further developed and edited. Darward is a very expansive character. He needs more space. Twylla could also be her own story. By combining the layers, I have tried to assimilate a lot of story into very little space. Then there is the question is Darward simply a self-deluded individual or is he a creeper? I find that a compelling question worthy of further writing and exploration. My greatest regret may be that the story never got around to introducing Darward's mother. For centuries, one of the central debates around Don Quixote is whether Quixote is a hero or a fool. In fairness, he is probably a little bit of both. In real life, people are both the heroes and fools of their own stories, Everlasting 11 so perhaps the greatest feat of parody is its ability to simultaneous harness these polarities with a laugh or two (presuming it is successful, of course). In conclusion, there is so much more to say... Everlasting 12 The Termination of "Everlasting" I'd never given much thought to how I would live—though my high school guidance counselor drilled into me that I should do so—but even if I had taken her advice to heart, had listened to what she told me about living in the modern world, being a woman, looking for love, and having realistic expectations, I could never have imagined reality as it is. I stared without breathing across the long room, into the closed-dead eyes of the hunter, and he did not look back at me. Surely it was a good way to live, in place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something. *l I want my life to matter, to mean something. I wish I could write. I mean, I can make sentences that flow more or less, and sometimes I even write a decent thing or two, but not the kind of thing that can swirl a person away into a place of fantasy, with kings, queens, palaces, magic, the undead, and the greatest of all magics—love. I cannot write the kind of thing that allows the reader to leave the commonplace and transcend into the beautiful world of fantasy. Like Twilight does. Since I seem unable to write something with much swagger, I like to sit on the sidelines and encourage those that can. I mean, what is wrong with riding on the coattails of someone else's success anyway? One day, while I was trolling through cyberspace, I found a blog that was a little rough around the edges, but it showed some real potential! I followed it and started a correspondence with the writer, and since I cannot write anything great, I think I will tell her story. In order to get 1 *Nearly Verbatim from the Preface of Twilight, with live and die (dead) transposed Everlasting 13 it as close as possible, I have included real correspondence that contains the thoughts she shared with me, as well as the parts of her blog in which she started telling the story. Her name was Twylla Cleaver, and it started when I emailed her saying I thought she might be onto something, a masterpiece even: How does one go about writing a masterpiece? First, perhaps, one should have some capacity for putting words together so as to relay some type of comprehensible meaning to the reader, although the meaningful value of today's masterpieces may be a moot point. Perhaps, monster-pieces is a better term. That brings to mind another question, one which has to be definitively contextual ized in order for the question above to have a viable and meaningful answer. What exactly makes a piece a masterpiece? But this raises yet another question—what is the purpose of proposing one rhetorical question which only gives rise to another one? There is purpose in what I am writing, but I am not sure that my motives for it don't strangle and undermine that purpose. It's a hard thing to tell for sure, since it is a work in progress, I suppose only time and more writing will reveal which is the case. That just sounded like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to me at the time. I mean, I had originally started reading her blog and the story because something about it caught my imagination. I mean, Twylla seemed to be taking the best of some of the most well-known bestsellers and combining them together. It was genius! She took journal-entries from the main characters to show how they thought and how things appeared to them through their eyes, like Bridget Jones's Diary. I copied the entire blog before she took it down, so here are some examples: Everlasting 14 IMJipUMljJiH File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help I am waiting for... [j Walking in Water... x iPage Drag and D... • 05 Outlook - hartlet... twilight - Google... + /'"- t ' •:.,,. ___ t 4s walkinginwater.com/blog.html " Cf WhiteSmokeNewCt,P ft fe Most Visited £ eBay [j WSU Stewart Library -... % Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations . Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs > e may better serve you, Translate: Add Comment Brillianna's First Journal Entry 07/17/2010 0 Comments July 17,2010 I am waiting for my Prince Charming. But not just any Prince Charming. He will be a Dark and Mysterious Prince of the Night. And I know I will find him. It is Destiny. He will have dark hair—maybe black, or possibly chestnut. His face will be perfectly formed—like a masterpiece Michelangelo never sculpted. His eyes will be green. Or maybe brown. I don't have anything against hazel or blue eyes either—but whatever color, his eyes will be piercing because he's immortal, and unaging supernatural beings have eternity to leam how to look deep. Not the kind of deep set eyes that look like the eyes in a skeleton, but the deep, piercing eyes that can see into your soul. I can't wait to meet HIM. Sometimes, at night, my heart screams out with a level of longing no human has ever felt before. I know Nature, time, Destiny, all the Universe will converge to bring us together because the pain in my heart is so enormously gigantically huge. It's like the Titanic. No. it's the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Scratch that, it's the icy, cold, Arctic Ocean that killed all the people when the Titanic sunk. It only makes sense that the other half is out there waiting to be glued to me—a completion. And he will be exactly the way I see him in my head. You know when you have a feeling about something, and it cannot be any other way? It's like the magnitude or the gravity or something is so infinitely strong, it is a force that can leave no room for any deviation Only the perfect will do. Everlasting 15 Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Fire -.'^•iiriltwfi - -II iTfriri nmniirifHiHl Ofe I File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help V; lam waiting for... [J Walking in Water... x , walkinginwater.com blog.html l£ Most Visited £ eBay Q WSU Stewart Library -... Q) Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines Desktc » I It's irritating to be so wa T | ; Search MHMHM It's irritatino to be so war for any deviation. Only the perfect will do. It's irritating to be so wanted because I only want one—my immortal Guess it comes with the territory of being beautiful. I'm not vain, though, or self-absorbed. I just know I am outstandingly unique; no one like me has existed in decades, maybe centuries. And I'm not just saying that—I have this on good authority. My tarot card reader that I see from time to time tells me the same thing. With the combination of the clear picture in my head of HIM, the irresistibly strong, giant, overwhelming feeling I feel, and my uniqueness that I am destined for an Epic Love. Yes I know with absolute certainty that some lonely dark angel is—and has been—searching for me, probably for a very long time. A normal guy just doesn't fit the bill. I am destined for such a greater and eternal love. Sure, vampires are dangerous. They are the bad boys of the supernatural world; beastly, carnivorous, and frightening. I mean, traditionally, they kill people by drinking their blood. That's totally gross. But everyone knows that even among dark creatures, there are self-loathing, self-denying souls begging to be remade and redeemed through the greatest great of all—True Love! I've even seen a YouTube video where a lioness adopted a baby impala, or gazelle, or some deer-like creature. Oh, I know! It was a gazelle. It's still on YouTube. http://wvw.voutube.com /watch?v=mZw-1 BfHFKfvl The lioness lost her cub and loved on the little baby gazelle. The two were inseparable. It was really cute until a male lion killed the baby. But still, the redeeming power of love really can conquer all. I figure working at a local video store gives me an edge on finding immortals, especially the night shift. I love walking down the aisles with VHS tapes—the smell of the worn plastic covers. It's so retro. It's the perfect setting to meet someone who has lived through endless technological advancements, but still appreciates how things were done in the old days. Movies have been around a long time, longer than cell phones, cassette tapes, or even refrigerators. I still think it's weird that movies existed before television, though. My mom likes to point out that old movies were actually recorded on film, which annoys me. That's obvious—that's why they're called films. Everlasting 16 So, see that is the first character, Brilliana Gosling. It is weird. She seems special, but she is also very girl-next-door. I sure can relate to her. The other main character is Darward Janke. I am not quite sure what exactly is going on with him. He is kind of weird and creepy, but I don't know, it just seems like he has something else going on. I cannot explain it, but he is my Everlasting 17 favorite. » to^ijte 3 , ,, ** iwl .1 v (§} Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help W I am waiting for my Prince Charming 05 Outlook - hartleturtle@hotmail.com 4", . walkinginwater.com/blog.html ^ ▼ (* @T WhiteSmokeNewCw. Most Visited £ eBay [] WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started [3 Etsy - Conversations .... Latest Headlines J Desktop PCs 0 Scholar Share $T masters of the universe* Search ' N twight Translate. tf\ Dictionary V Check Text 1| f§| ^jQj :• • Introduction to Darward 07/31/2010 0 Comments EMs Presley's coif is timeless, like me. Sure, he is from another era, but girts still go gaga over Elvis and his pelvis. I'm like that. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and I roll with the best of them. No dust or cobwebs for me. I have been called old-fashioned, but I am more like a '57 Chevy: always hot, always wanted, and always classy. People like to look at me, too, and I cannot say I blame them. Supposedly, vampires are not supposed to be able to see themselves in the minor, but I have been known to glance at myself in a mirror from time to time, and I must say, I never tire of what I see. And for the record, I have a reflection. How else could I style my fabulous hair property? As a serious heartthrob, I have an image to maintain. You may have caught my subtle reference to vampirism. That's right. You guessed it. My secret. I am a vampire. My kind has had a complete reversal in public perception since that story Twilight It used to be that people would shy away from the undead. We were monsters. Now we are monsters everyone wants to date. I don't how people can tell what I am, but people can always sense I'm different. It's not just in my good looks or catchy hair-style. Maybe it's the way my skin glitters and shines in direct sunlight, or maybe it's my wardrobe that gives it away. When people see me, sometimes they turn around and walk away, quickly and fearfully. It is as if intuitively, they know what I am. But every once in a while, a woman will look at me with such a curious and Everlasting 18 P ^ iw-l .1 . $ Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla firefox j A • Pile Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help WI am waiting for my Prince Charming 4", iy walkinginwater.com/blog.html fy v C M £ Most Visited eBay [] WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started {§ Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs @ Scholar Share A a*! 1 ^sm^illi4 wmmmmm mer sometimes they turn around and walk away, quickly and fearfully, ft is as if intuitively, they know what I am. But every once in a while, a woman will look at me with such a curious and open stare it could be nothing but unabashed desire. Their lips beg to ask a question, one they are too scared or too embarrassed to ask. They are compelled to know if I am what I appear to be, and of course, they want a chance to win me over. They want me the way Bella wants Edward. It is impossible to discuss being a vampire without the question of blood coming up. Doubtless you wanted to know about my eating habits the second you clued in to my subtle hint. I find my dietary needs uninteresting, but since there is a common perception that they are a key element of being a vampire, I will tell you all about my diet. Then I will get back to the real interesting part of my life-how I'm such a Don Juan. No need to put the cart before the horse. I don't bite people, and I do not suck their blood. There are Web sites out there about true vampires and the 'vampire community" that will talk about drinking blood from 'donors.' There are also some people that call themselves vampires that say they feed off of the psychic energy of others. They call themselves "PsyY. Such impersonation of my kind trivializes what we really are. Perhaps you could say, it chaps my lips that people impersonate my kind—the posers make it hard for us real vampires. I digress. I like bloody meat: the rarer the steak, the better. I don't know why the vegetarian vampires on Twilight didn't think of it. Red hunks of beef or iamb dripping with blood, all the blood necessary for an immortal like myself to sustain being undead without actually killing or harming a living being. Sure, there is a thirst and hunger for blood, but there is so much more to it. Anyway, since people ask, I stay away from chicken and turkey and Everlasting 19 ill'tW WSU Stewart Library -... % Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations : Latest Headlines Desktop PCs H Schola Ipj. Most Visited £ eBay I- ,-■■ «, ,t - (§ Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help Vv I am waiting for my Prince Charming... [J Walking in Water - Blog 05 Outlook - hartleturtle@hotmail.com ■1 4" /' walkinginwater.com'bicg.html masters of the universe* Search Translate /A Dictionary V Check Text f - Vtir.TBff tr1 ...... .. . v there is so much more to it. Anyway, since people ask, I stay away from chicken and turkey and any other meat of the poultry variety for two reasons. A) It's not bloody enough for me, and second, raw bird tastes horrible. Pork is good, but there's the whole worm thing. Even as a creature of the night, I take the health of my guts very seriously and steer clear of the pigs. Yeah, I pretty much stick strictly to beef and lamb. Sometimes I mix it up with a little venison, a little elk, but mostly rare beef from the butcher's. Oh, I also like chorizo. And bloody maries. Really bloody maries. I make my own. Vodka, Caesars, and blood (cow blood, if you must know), blended with the right amount of oyster sauce and Tabasco. Sure vampires' primary substance comes from blood, but a little extra condiment never hurt. For mortals, it would be similar to adding gravy to mashed potatoes or ketch up on fries. After all, who doesn't like to spice it up a bit? So that should cover how I satisfy my vampire appetite in enough detail to satisfy your curiosity. Now we can get back to the interesting part of being me—the Casanova that I am. You see, in addition to my good looks, I drive a sports car. Not a Mustang or Subaru WRX STI. Those are poor imitations of true sport cars. No I drive a Porsche Carrera 911—the real deal. It's classy and classic tike me, a 1991. As I tear up the streets, rewing up its engine like a cat in heat, I get the girls to look at me. Being a vampire is enough to attract girls like maggots to old fish. I am good looking, not to brag, and I have the added benefit of being an immortal. But even without such advantages, I make the girts melt like margarine. I am a full package, the full package. I am what teenage girls dream about. You should see how I dress, too. Imagine Elvis Presley meets Evils Costello, but with the flair of Elton John mixed in. I am distinctive, classy, unique, and I make a statement wherever I go. Everlasting 20 Then there is this girl, Jessi Jacobs. At first, she seems kind of like a distraction in the story because she does not have anything to do with the love story between Brilliana and Darward. I mean, for more than half the story, she just struts around half-naked and oblivious to all the havoc she causes. Twylla mentions over and over how Jessi wants to be a porn star called Constance Cummings. When I first read this, I just thought it was overkill, but it ties in later when Brilliana and Darward explore S&M because Jessi is all into that sort of thing (secretly of course). I hope that's not too much of a spoiler alert, if Twylla ever planned to do something with her story. But that tie in has a lot to do with the genius I mentioned earlier of Twylla combining the best parts of recent best-sellers. I mean, her story is anit's obvious a pull right from Fifty Shades of Grey. Twylla admitted she got some heat from copying E.L. James' idea, but really, E.L. James copied her idea from Stephenie Meyer, who, let's face it, was more than just inspired by Ann Rice. So, I am going to explain this in a way Twylla never would. I mean, you have to understand how I spend a lot of time trolling through the Internet. That is obviously how I found Twylla's blog, but my Internet surfing is far from restricted to blogs or fan fiction. I would not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but I do wonder what mysteries are out there, what secrets hide beneath what we consider common knowledge. I wonder about UFOs, aliens, the New World Order, ghosts, witches, vampires, and werewolves. I've never seen anything to make me believe in these things, but I have also never seen anything to make me not believe in them either. I do really like to read fan fiction, though, and for all different series. For example, it's true that Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James started as fan fiction under the name Master of the Universe based on Twilight? That's right, Anastasia was originally based on Bella and Christian Everlasting 21 Grey was based on Edward. It's not hard to see the similarities. But what really gets me is that these stories all center on the same thing: that which is hidden. Are there vampires and werewolves out there, kept secret and hidden? Do men like Christian Grey with their secret fetishes and perversions really exist? But I am going on a tangent, probably one that is not useful in this story. My seventh grade teacher told me my writing style lacked organization and that I had a way of going off on something that had nothing to do with the purpose of my paper. She was the first one to crush my dream of being a writer, but at the same time, she made me want to be a writer all the more Everlasting 22 because I wanted to prove her wrong. What does a seventh grade English teacher know anyway? i,. .,. fy Walking in Water • Blog^Mcgla Fn : File £dit View ;History Bookmarks lools j Help I Yes, That's the Kid From'Love Actuall... < P. Walking in V/ater - Blog x yp pretty girl - Google Search walking inwatef.com/Wog.htrni M £ j Walking in V/ater-Blog j $ v C ; ® * WifteSmofce New Cusia P '£; Most Visited jj£ eBay WSU Stewart Library -... U' Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines OesktopPCs @ Scholar sfc pretty girl Search T ditren itza SBBBOCX Translate. > A Dictionary V Check Text, S3 Add Comment Diary of Jessi Jacobs 08/05/2010 0 Comments 8/5/10 Darward got me this silly journal for my birthday. He is my best friend, and he asked me to write in this silly book. He is such an oddball. He said this thing would be important one day for prosperity or progeny or something like that. Anyway, I am not a writer. I text like hardly ever. Oh Dary, why am I even writing in this stupid thing? Dary thinks I'm a werewolf, which makes me giggle. I mean, I do turn into a huge bitch during that time of the month, and you know, how the moon goes from full and back to full like once a month. But Dary did ask, and I would do anything for him. He helps me out and gives me money even sometimes. He has supported me and helped me out when other people have laughed in my face at my dream of becoming a well-respected adult entertainer, particularly as an adult film actress. One day, I will make Constance Cummings (my stage name) a household name. tf Tweet C IK'.'. 0 Add Comment •Si.',r; -li'JJ ■ I should get back to telling Twylla's story, but I am not sure whether I should continue with her story or the one she wrote on her blog. This is where I sigh out loud because I just do not have the gift of writing the way I wish that I could. I guess I will combine both of them simultaneously. Everlasting 23 ww.Vampirewebsite.net r .. . How to find a real Psvchic Energy Telling vour friends Energy Vampires ^^ andfamilv Vampire friendly Vampire friendly , . . , "bars/dubs • tavcode Vampire jokes Letter from a real Th»? If atli Recognising a real .r x slayer real slayers slayer ~ empire A sobering moment Links to other good Comments and websites e-mails into a vampire aiders How to know if you are a real vampire Psychological conditions tbat make some people falsely believe that they are real vampires: The sole purpose of this page is to help you figure out if you are a real vampire or not. This is to be used with the finding a real vampire page on this site. After all if you don't recognize yourself as a real vampire then you aren't a real vaiupire. All of the traits below are accurate for more than half of all real vampires. All real vampires have at least 85% of them, in other words if at least 85% of them don't apply to you then you are not a vampire. Assuming that you are a real vampire, the fact that so many of these ■iMniiMHiiitiiiiiliiiliMify shock you. Psvchotic Depression 'jpi* '.<u ■ - tg< Real vampire website: how know if a real vampire - Mozilla Firefox File Edit Vie.v History Bookmarks Tools Help ' j, J Walking in Water - Blog Q Warfish.net Homepage 3 Amazon.com: pride and prejudic... ( Real vampire website: how know... x + V 7 x : ®T MiieSmflteAfcivCurfews:? ft *v.v.vampirewebsite.net howknc.vifavampife.html Most Visited £ eBay (j WSU Stewart Library-... % Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations h Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs 0 Scholar Share rranslate, ^Dictionary yCheckText itiesta Oops. I meant this tab: Everlasting 24 — @ Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools [J Walking in Water - Blog IWarfish.net: Homepage a Amazon.com: pride and prejudic... Real walkinginwater.com/blog.html ft ▼<?£]&! @ Most Visited £ eBay [J WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations & Latest Headlines . Desktop P Search r i [canslateM .^Dictionary Check.Text. At the Baseball Game 08/13/2010 0 Comments The sun was wrapped up in the steely gray clouds, swallowed in a blanket of metallic swathe dusting the horizon like a chrome bumper. Pink tendrils of dimming daylight escaped the embrace of the clouds, coloring the sky like medium rare steak. The fourth inning was in progress, the bases loaded, the pitcher sweating on his mound, like a steam vac Darward and Jessi shimmied through half-filled bleachers to take their seats. Darward was dressed in his usual statement-making black Victorian-era trench coat, with shimmery royal blue breeches, the stretch-velvet kind, a ruffled pirate/poet shirt, a hounds-tooth fedora, and his ubiquitous 1980s ray bands. Jessi, as if to distract from Darward's get up, wore little more than a gray and white lace-up corset, hygienic-white faux-leather hot pants, and vinyl purple go-go boots (she did have to go to work straight after the game). As they took their seats, she smiled at her shimmery friend, admiring his facial application of Wet & Wild glitter gel in icicle. That, combined with an undisclosed brand of white shimmery body powder really did give him the look of something...ethereal. She smiled because she knew they were doing his favorite thing—watching baseball at his favorite time of day—twilight. This doubling of a beloved activity at a beloved time of day filled Darward with a glorious boy-like glee, and sometimes, when he was like this, it was easy to believe he was an unaging immortal. Jessi drank her cheap baseball beer, oblivious to the fight behind her between a man staring at her dumbfounded and his jealous fiance. As the rumbling of the fiance's dissatisfaction escalated, Jessi leaned over to Daward and whispered in his ear, asking him what he was drinking. It was in a Seven-Eleven Slurpee cup, but a dark velvet cloth covered the lid. He responded with an enigmatic ^m£!hi.naiil/Q.<.u.'3llnninri Shr'°K if ^H^ r?n '"^Hpr. 3rPS° f^^th0 Hjfr^hor hohind fhom 3 V Everlasting 25 W Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilia Firefox fjFile Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help ■ Paste [J Walking in Water - Blog QWarfish .net: Homepage ^ Amazon.com; pride and prejudic... n^) Real vampire website; ho\ , 'O walkinginwater.com/'blcg.html a WhiteSmcke New Ci Most Visited § eBay [] WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started Qj Etsy - Conversations js-. Latest Headlines Q Desktop PCs @ Scholar Sj| S > ■. T V -. . ^Translate ; /sA Dictionary V Check Text Search Tic wasdTf uiidyiny iniiiiunai Jessi drank her cheap baseball beer, oblivious to the fight behind her between a man staring at her dumbfounded and his jealous fiance. As the rumbling of the fiance's dissatisfaction escalated, Jessi leaned over to Daward and whispered in his ear, asking him what he was drinking, it was in a Seven-Eleven Slurpee cup, but a dark velvet cloth covered the lid. He responded with an enigmatic smirk. Something like walloping shriek, if shrieks can wallop, arose from the bleacher behind them as Jessi's hardly restrained mammary glands, augmented with the finest of silicon enhancements, threatened to make a cameo-debut to the raw evening air. A few more unintelligible, but harshly babble words, the kind a woman says when she is fighting with a man, came from behind as a half-full drink rocketed mere inches from Jessi's head, landing on the empty chair two rows in front of her. Then, there were sudden dramatically exaggerated stomps, like an elephant on a wood floor, vaguely, reminiscent of a door slamming. Jessi sighed at this outburst, oblivious to her free range female exposure and the resulting drama. Jessi lived in a bubble. She was used to tuning out the world. "Some people are so rude! They have no idea how to behave properly in public," she bemoaned to her vampire friend. Darward shook his head. As a being of astute powers of observation, keen senses, and almost psychic perception, he had not missed a thing. But he could hardly care to interfere, or even stoop to acknowledge, the trivialities of the world of mortals. He did let a smirk slide slyly from his lips as he reflected on what that man's reaction would be seeing Jessi in the same outfit on a full moon. The game proceeded for another two innings will little more passing. Darward enthusiastically cheered for his team, enjoyed a killer catch of a fly ball foul, and gasped in amazement as the team mascot, wearing a giant mouse-head costume, did an astounding back-flip. Daward rarely let himself be impressed by simple feats of human acrobats, but the mouse nonetheless impressed the hard to impress sparkly being. But back-flipping giant mice are impressive. At the beqinninq of the seventh inninq. Darward excused himself to visit the little vampire's room. Everlasting 26 1 '"t'WWB ' "''Mlilll Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox ■i. . mmm*mm^m*m u niiii File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help HRBBbmbohs □ Walking in Water - Blog x , v. walkinginwater.com/blog.html Warfi5h.net: Homepage | 3 Amazon.com: pride anc @i Most Visited £ eBay [j WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations ^ Latest h I - ". -■■ j ■■-:.-■ 1 ^Ji.anslaio, /.A^cter Search At the beginning of the seventh inning, Darward excused himself to visit the little vamp elegantly sashayed to the stairway and galloped up the steps like a dancer on speed. At concluding his errand a little quicker than humanly possible, he stopped at the concessit fetch Jessi another beer. Doubtless, when he returned with it, she would lean over and p cheek, which always pleased him immensely. Despite Jessi's rough edges (or protruding the case may be) and spacy disassociation concerning the world around her—sometime just so freaking out of it—she had an innate charm Darward found irresistibly endearing, questioned Jessi's insistence on making it big as an adult film star. She worked as a coc\ waitress at a gentleman's club and had posed for a few adult novelty store ads, but to hi: knowledge, her venture into adult entertainment had ended there. Still, he felt compelled his reservations and judgments to himself, going so far as to call Jessi "Connie" from tirrn Deep down, he just wanted to see her happy, doing what she wanted to do. He was a vai who was he to judge? With his ample trust fund and Jessi's unwavering loyalty, she was I cause in the world, one he happily and generously supported. The tattooed, nose-pierced concession worker asked Darward for his license and sen with unabashed curiosity. "You don't look forty!" she exclaimed, "and you dress so strange." Darward nodded, knowing that she, like all women, was attracted to his eccentricity. H< money. He had looks. He had immortality. He had the wardrobe of an Ann Rice vampire, winning him would be more of a stroke of luck than winning the lottery, and he was fully a fortune-favored mastery. After all, aren't all vampires irresistibly seductive? He turned to with Jessi's beer as he caught the eyes of a beautiful creature. She looked twelve, or at I awkward adolescent age that is hard to guess but eternally awkward, with a mousy comp cardboard-brown hair, the kind of cardboard shoe boxes are made out of, eyes the color t—^—r Everlasting 27 ] (g) Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox^ File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help Paste [ J Walking in Water - Blog 1 Warfish.net: Homepage a Amazon.com: pride and prejudic... y.v , v._. walkinginwater.com/blog.html A u4 B S Most Visited £ eBay [j WSU Stewart Library-... Getting Started |f} Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines w' Deskto| rf/t Search Ml ^ Translate ^A Dictionary VCheck lexi awkward adolescent age that is hard to guess but eternally awkward, with a mousy complexion, cardboard-brown hair, the kind of cardboard shoe boxes are made out of, eyes the color of dirt, dirt with an overdose of peat moss and cow manure, and she had a somewhat gangly boyish figure. But she was still somehow breathtakingly gorgeous. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt that said "Bubby's Grill and Grub", nondescript denim shorts, and her brown hair in two long symmetrical and perfect braids. Darward regarded the girl with some sort of curious respect, the same way he regarded those he considered might be others of his kind. But this girl was clearly human. She stared back at him as though he was a bacterium under her microscope, taking in his fedora, his coat, his royal-blue stretch-velvet breeches, his dark ashy hair, and his penetrating jet-like eyes. And his shiny, sparkly, pale skin. She seemed unaware he was wearing make-up, or maybe she just did not care. "I know what you are," she whispered. He smiled back at her, waiting for her to say something else. She did and it was more than he could have hoped for. "We are destined to be together." "Destined?" he asked, breathless, hanging on her word like a cartoon mouse holds on to a piece of cheese. "Yes, let's go somewhere where we can talk, where we can be together like we are supposed to be," she prompted, nearly begging, with only naivete saving her from desperation. "We can go to I HOP." " I don't eat pancakes." "Of course not. Of course not. How stupid of me!! Well, well..." she stammered, like a horse that should be galloping but was distracted by a seductive clump of long, emerald green grass and couldn't quite get passed a mound in the pasture. "Listen, this beer is warming up. Give me your number and we will let the future take care of itself," DanAfard lilted in an almost-chant. It was a well-practiced voice. He knew it was the most ^■WSHQ O.-C.-Q-U-lcj. r: Page: 2 of 2 j Words: 5 j 0 Everlasting 28 3 Amazon.com: pride and prejudic. Real vampire website: h CjjEb WhiteSmokeNi ■W1 ■" ■ .HM^jMMijWJ- Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla File Edit View History Bookmarks j Walking in Water - Blog Firefox £ pWarfish .net: Homepage , walkinginwater.com blog.html fe Most Visited eBay WSU Stewart Library -... ^ Getting Started Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines Desktop PCs |3 Scholar gBfe ^Dictionary VCheckT^. yi Search ■HMMMMHI don't eat pancakes." "Of course not. Of course not. How stupid of me!! Well, well..." she stammered, like a horse that should be galloping but was distracted by a seductive clump of long, emerald green grass and couldn't quite get passed a mound in the pasture. "Listen, this beer is warming up. Give me your number and we will let the future take care of itself," Darward lilted in an almost-chant. It was a well-practiced voice. He knew it was the most suave thing he could say to the stumbling dreamer. He was, in every way, her Don Juan. "Oh, right, right. My number! You want my number! I, yes, well, it's...0 she paused for a moment, perplexed by an awkward shock before she mastered herself and scribbled her phone number, her very own cell phone number, which she had had for less than two months, on a receipt, Darward took the receipt from her hand, stared down at the Target logo with her voluminously bad handwriting, kissed her fingers as one would kiss the hand of the pope, smiled, said "Charmed beyond belief," turned around and left without looking back at the stunned, salivating girl. He knew how to make an exit. Darward returned to Jessi with the beer. As he predicted, he pecked him on the cheek. He leaned over, eagerly proclaiming "Connie, I have found her. I have found my Bella," in her ear. "Oh God," she groaned, fetching a straw from her purse (as a waitress and one very predisposed towards beverages, she walked around with a stash of straws), placing it in the beer, blowing bubbles into the beer, and praying that the extra bubble-foam would intensify the beer's effects, quickly. * Tweet :oj tf Like V I Add Comment Everlasting 29 Twylla's third email about her story: You asked me what I meant when I said "There is purpose in what I am writing, but I am not sure that my motives for don't strangle and undermine my purpose. It's a hard thing to tell for sure. Since it is a work in progress, I suppose only time and more writing will see which is the case... " I have spent a lot of time thinking about the answer and contemplating how much to disclose to you regarding my personal life. You see, it is one thing to have a fictitious story posted on the World Wide Web for any passing stranger to stumble upon. It is a very different thing to expose one's personal life to the vast anonymity of cyberspace, and this is not to imply that you are anonymous or that I don't consider you a friend of sorts, but you have to understand that, to me, you are also a stranger. I mean, you could be just another aspect of me, to be sure, but you could also be some mean-hearted and malicious person set about to make my life feel even more like hell. On the other hand, disclosing my personal secrets to a stranger so far removed from my life also has an appeal simply because you are displaced from the throes and mess of my personal life. So I suppose I shall tell you. In the spring of 2011,1 got a job at a medical billing place. Can I just tell you there is nothing more tedious, and nothing I have done before or since has involved more drudgery? Boring is a euphemism for how Ifelt about the job, but it was a godsend at the time because I had walked out on my fast foodjob to attend a "Be an Instant Success " writer's workshop. I couldn't get the time off of work, but my dream has always been to be a writer. You know how they say that if you follow your heart, everything will always turn out? I decided to follow my heart and walked out of my job. I then proceeded to charge the cost of the workshop, the flight, the hotel we stayed at (which was little better than a roach motel), and food and incidentals all Everlasting 30 to my credit card. The food and incidentals ended up costing a lot more than I had planned on because the meals included in the workshop were worse than school cafeteria food. Since I graduatedfrom high school six years ago, my standards of what I will put in my mouth have gone up significantly, so I ended up going to McDonald's and Wendy's for almost every meal instead of eating the crappy stuff they passed off as food. Anyway, the only reason to tell you about how deplorable the food and lodging were is to give you some type of idea of the quality of the workshop overall. Halfway through the workshop, the so-called instructor ripped apart (figuratively) a portion of my story in front of the class in the most unflattering way. I was HUMILIATED! The instructor has never even published anything! After that humiliation, I left the course, because it was useless, and there was no reason for being made to feel like an idiot in front of other aspiring writers. But I was in a pickle. Before, when I'd had a job, I had moved out of my parents' house. Predictably, and they had both given me the responsibility speech for leaving a job unexpectedly and charging the whole thing on my credit card. So, coming back, the last thing I wanted was the humiliation of having to move back home and live with them and their "I-told-you-so's. " I landed the job at the medical billing place just five days after coming back from that writer's workshop; it was a serious blessing. I was so desperate to retain some shred of self- respect, that I would have licked floors clean on my hands and knees. Okay, that's an exaggeration and medical coding is definitely above that. But even the best of blessings can carry with them the worst of curses. In this case, it was one of my new bosses, one of the owners of the company, Mickel Jorgenson. He's 5' 10", 185 pounds of ripped muscle, with charcoal hair, hazel eyes and the most debonair charm I have ever encountered. His father is a wealthy real estate investor and his mother is a beautiful Everlasting 31 French woman. Because of his mother, he speaks English with the slightest of French accents. He is beautiful, charming, rich, and did I mention that he's my boss? He is also engaged. He is my motivation. Now that you 've got me on this topic, I want to tell you all the juicy details. But right now, I need to go so I can clean up my apartment. Take Care, Fan! l&tojtil i(D Real vampire website h... 05 Outlook - hartleturtle®... Are werewolves real or n... [] Walking in Water -Blog x £) BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY.. Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox File Edit Vie„v History Bookmarks lools Help 1 ? m ■ji 4" ® walkinginwater.com/blog.btml 17 " C @ * MiteSmoke New Customa P ft f Most Visited ^ eBay [] WSU Stewart Library -... Q> Getting Started Qjj Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs H Scholar Share r | bridget jones diary Search T Later that Evening 08/14/2010 teamjacob 0 Comments Later that night, after Darward had dropped Jessi off at work, and gone for a lonely, thoughtful walk along a dark and deserted lane, he called the mysterious girl. She answered on the seventh ring and sounded half-awake. It was near the stroke of midnight, and she had been dreaming. 'Hello?* she answered. It's me," he said huskily. "Huh, whor *You know who," he retorted impatiently. "You've been dreaming about me, haven't you?" "Oh, OH! Like OMG, you called! I knew you would! I knew it!' Her giriy excitement made Darward smile, and his eyes danced like lightening bugs in a glass jar. 'So, tell me, most enchanting creature, what is your name?* Darward whispered as airily as possible. "Brilliana. Brilliana Gosling," she giggled like a two-year-old. 'My friends call me Brill." she gushed. "I bet you've never heard that name before. It's different, a little strange and , just magnificent, like me.* 'It's the most brilliant name I have ever heard. And now, would you like to know my name?" he asked like a radio announcer at a cliff-hanger. "Yes! Of courser "Really? How bad do you want to know my name? What's it worth to you?* *0h, I want to know SO bad! Please, please tell mef "What is it worth to you? I can't give my name to just anyone." "Anything! I'll do anything! Please, puh-lease, tell me!" 'But you know my secret, and do you realize the danger I will be putting myself in if I give you my name? A name is a very powerful thing.* 'Ohhh, please, trust me! I know your secret and it will always, always be safe with me. You can tell me your name. I will never tell Everlasting 32 g/ Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox . ftite kXi^aSfea^j - jsHmaii . aiu File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help Real vampire website: how know i... ) Are werewolves real or not? - Yah... ; J Walking in Water - Blog Q BRIDGET Ji , v walkinginwater.corrvbiog.html i bridget jones diary Search team jacob Translate Dictionary s >/Check Text Most Visited £ eBay [ J WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations : Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs @ S 'Ohhh, please, trust me! I know your secret and it will always, always be safe with me. You can tell me your name. I will never another soul." 'Soul or not, you cannot give my name to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, ever.1 'Huh? Oh, yes: yes of course, I my lips are sealed. I promise. I am the most trust worthy person in the world. You can trust mt 'Good, because I reward betrayal with a kiss....but not any kiss...a kiss from my kind....like a kiss of death," he said portentously. After a long pause, Darward delivered 1 will, tell you my name, but it will cost you dinner/ 'You want dinner? I can do dinner. Dinner it isL.Wait....am I the dinner?" Darward laughed authentically. 'Of course not. I was thinking my favorite steakhouse, across from the river. It's lovely. We can be alone, but we will still be in public so you will be safe. Well, as safe as you can be with me," he taunted. "Okay!" She sounded like the winning contestant on Jeopardy. "'Darward Janke,' he announced gravely. "Huh?" Brilliana responded anticlimactically. "My name is Darward Janke.= He reiterated with additional gravitas. *Darward? What kind of name is that?' There was silence for a moment, two moments, three moments. *0h, well, I should have known you'd have a...a different sort of name," Brilliana stumbled, suddenly afraid she had offended hei soul-mate monster. It's very memorable.1 The silence continued. Finally, Daward breathed. 'Dinner at seven. Should I pick you up at your house?" 'No my parents would freak! Oh, I know, my friend Jenna's house, you can pick me up there." "You have my number now?1 Darward growled. *Um, no, wait, yes. Yes I do." Text me the address,* Darward ordered, suddenly bored with the tedious details of sorting out plans with mortals and their inar technology. *Okay, wait, urn.." Brilliana trailed off, desperate to have a heart to heart with her new-found destiny. The future will take care of itself/ he replied, trivializing her pause, and desperate to leave her wanting more. He hung up. Iff ^immszL: Everlasting 33 Dear Fan- It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. —Pride and Prejudice That is the beginning to one of my favorite books of all time. Funny how in a man's world, possibility for a significant other is determined by the status of the man. Men will make you think that women hold all the cards, but that is such a lie. Men are the ones to chase, or they are supposed to, so a woman has to make herself into bait appealing enough for the man to get a scent and want more. A woman only holds the power if she has the man's interest. But since it all hinges on the man's interest, he has the real power, or so it seems in how romance is supposed to work. I am so frustrated! Actually, what Ifeel is beyondfrustration. It's desperation of the most desperate kind! I hope you will forgive the tirade this email is about to go on but I really have to vent! I could rewrite the line above in a million ways: • It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man will always want the woman he cannot get, regardless of her status. • It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman infatuated with a man, and wanting to be his wife, is the most unfortunate of all beings. Or how about this one? Everlasting 34 • It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of good looks, self-depreciation, and clumsiness must be in want of a bossy man to tell her what to do. And, because of my stoiy, this is my favorite: • It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single male vampire in possession of a desperate hunger must be in want of a single female, for food or companionship. But really what I want to get back to is my desperation and not my desperate wordplay. My boss, Mickel, is the most gorgeous creature ever, and he has no ideal am alive! Well, obviously since I work for him and he pays me a weekly paycheck, he does know I am alive, but he is missing just how alive and how much I live for him. My entire blog, my entire life is all to position myself to make me attractive to him. It seems very silly from the beginning that I would be interested in him. I mean, I've been vegetarian since I was twelve, and he is an avid hunter. He has stuffed deer, moose, and elk heads all over his office! But I can overlook that because of how I feel when I am around him. Not to sound like Brilliana, in her overly innocent ways, but I really feel like Mickel and I are meant to be together. He has a fiancee, but they've been engagedfor years, and I figure, until he puts a ring on her finger in a church, I can still work it! She is the perfect Californian blond, slightly tanned, perfect silicon breasts, perfectly styled hair, and she always dresses so fashionably. I started going to the tanning booth, checked out what I would need to do for breast augmentation (outside of my price range), and I dyed my hair blond. I'm even trying to dress trendier because that's what he likes. I was wearing these platforms the other day that made me tall, and Everlasting 35 hopefully emphasized my calf muscles (I have been working out), but I don't think he even noticed all my efforts. It was all for him! For him! If I could just get his attention long enough for him to see me for who I really am, I have no doubt he would see what I see: just how much we are meant for each other. I can hardly imagine how I sound. Actually, I can imagine exactly how I sound. I sound like a dumb girl. But going back to my motivation for writing Everlasting (that's what I intend on calling my book and the trilogy I hope to write based on it, plus the movie deals that will, hopefully, follow as well) is to become rich in my own right, and perhaps famous. Then Mickel would have to notice me. Writing, despite my setbacks, is the one thing I have always felt strongly about. It is my one talent, so I hope it will make me stand out and shine like a star so he will be attracted to me. I can be a sun to him, and all that I have done will be the gravitation that pulls him to me... The email went on, but there is no need to expose any more of Twylla's dumb-girl demonstration. Women long for love, and when their expectations are smashed, they feel humiliated for being a "dumb-girl". It happens all the time. I am not about to get on a soap box about feminism, women's advancement in the workplace, but I will preach about the loss of power due to extreme scrutiny on looks. I have no idea what Twylla looked like, but the very fact that she felt compelled to alter how she looked for a man speaks volumes. See, how I will go on? I do not know if Twilight falls into "Chick Lit," but I would think it does, along with Bridget Jones. Maybe Pride and Prejudice could even fit into this category. Whatever the case, you know what bugs me about those books? The girls are always "a mess" and looking for love, but dysfunctional. And somehow, the story always ends in a happy, quirky, love-conquers-all Everlasting 36 ending. Love does not conquer all. Quite the opposite in fact. It screws everything up. If you could take love (at least the romantic variety) out of the equation of humanity, you might have some decent expositions on humanity instead of endless lovelorn "literature." I mean, look at this story I am trying to put together on Twylla; it does not focus on her. It focuses on her obsession with some random guy. He might be Hercules, but so what? A nice guy or a douche bag, it does not matter. Twylla somehow reduced herself from a living, breathing vulnerable human with weaknesses and aspirations to, well, Brilliana. You remember how way back at the beginning, when I was talking about my seventh grade English teacher, and my tangents? I am back to that. I mean, I could be such a better writer. I am a terrible narrator. I mean, I change my tone, contradict myself, and I include judgments. I know. I am very aware of my short comings. But I feel so close to her, who she was, that I cannot quite take the personal out of it. Everlasting 37 | Walking in Water - Slog - Mozilla Firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help : •o tei | C Yes, That's the Kid From love Actual!... [ j Walking in Water - Blog - ; 1 i s Michael Bowman walkinginwater.com'blog.html A u Cf'fflT WhiteSmokeMewCustaP & Most Visited £ eBay [] WSU Stewart Library -... % Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations f>. Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs § Scholar m hick eyeliner, uneven s Search r hide eyeliner, uneven shii ^.Translate Dinner 08/21/2010 0 Comments Thursday, the sun had lushiy led the day with warmth and sunshine unti! the day felt well-baked, like cookies left in the oven even after the heat has been turned off. As the sunset behind the western horizon, bright stars began to twinkle with effervescent glee, and as Briiliana gazed up at the star-filled sky, she was certain an epic love, like those the Greeks plastered in the constellations of the Heavens, was about to begin, this night, at a shaded and anonymous steakhouse, a shrine of love hidden beneath the fabric of the mundane and everyday world. Darward picked her up at 7:07 sharp. Briiliana was adequately enough impressed with the twenty- year-old Porsche to please him. Jenna's house was little more than a shack, her parent's happily consumed with the real lives of real housewives somewhere else in the country. As Darward opened Briiliana's car door, a prince would open the carriage door for his princess, he looked her up and down, letting a look of being mesmerized gjajf across his features. She wore thick eyeliner, uneven shiny purple eye-shadow, and badly applied bright-red lip gloss. Her hair twisted in nearly-flat curls and smelted of Aquanet hairspray, which irritated his sensitive supernatural nostrils. Darward speculated Jenna and Briiliana had spent quite some time prepping her for this evening, and he shook his head at the lack of success. She had looked better at the baseball park, but as a true gentleman, he kept these thoughts to himself. She was stili freshly beautiful, innocent, and unblemished by the bitter side of life. Darward fried fo nav attention to the conversation haiievinfl everything Briiliana snoke would have Author Write somethir No need to be overview. Archives August 2010 July 2010 Categoric All H RSSFeed Everlasting 38 01 Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox •-..:...... ..... ..... . iMHwiTr-i i in File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help '*} Yes, That's the Kid From 'Love Actual!... walkinginwater.com/blog.html 0 Most Visited eBay [j WSU Stewart Library-... ® Getting Started f§| Etsy - Conversations ^ Latest Headlines hick eyeliner, uneven s ! Search " hick eyeliner, uneven shii j ^Sj^ggsjate^ />A Dictionary s/ WTOWnrfW Darward tried to pay attention to the conversation, believing everything Brilliana spoke w significance in his world, but he found what she said mostly the inane babble of a high sc student. He nodded his agreement when necessary, driving faster than he usually did jus end to the ride. As they parked at the steakhouse, he took her hand and went inside. Sh< a Christmas tree as they held hands. They were seated by the fire with an illustrious night-time view of the river. The steakhc dead. "Will you eat?" Brilliana asked. "Of course, and you will, too." "I thought vampires didn't eat normal food," she whispered. It was the first time the V-w been dropped between them. Darward looked at her with a superior smile. "You have much to learn Brill. We eat, and we also never say that word out loud." "What word?" Brill looked at him questioningly, terrified of unintentionally killing her yoi romance before it even had a chance to bud. "I prefer to keep what I am a secret. Not everyone is accepting of my kind," he whispen explication as the firelight caught the extra sparkle of his skin. He had applied extra amoi glitter this evening. Brilliana sucked in her breath as she noticed the pallid sparkle. "It's real. You're real." She said to herself. The shock of the reality of her situation strucl dream that she had dreamt was actually happening! The realization left her in a state of dumbfoundedness. "And so are von mv hrilliant beinn of sunlinht that snarkles like an eternal diamond in tl Everlasting 39 <:V Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox a File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help f c Yes, That's the Kid From 'Love Actual!.,. [ J Walking in Water - Blog Michael Bowman 1 + ' £ , walkinginwater.com/blog.html 7 0 Sb WhiteSmoke New Cust 3 Most Visited £ eBay [ j WSU Stewart Library -... ® Getting Started QJ Etsy - Conversations Latest Headlines Desktop PCs @ Sch " hick eyeliner, uneven s Search r II hick eyeliner, uneven shii Translate>. fiJ\ Dictionary y Check^Text » mbhehibbeh "And so are you, my brilliant being of sunlight that sparkles like an eternal diamond in the eternal hell of my cursed darkness,0 he stated as he lifted a glass of water. But he did not drink any of it. He ordered wine, which he placed in front of Brilliana. "I can't drink that," she said as he thrust the glass towards her. "Of course you can, my sweet," he responded silkily, 1 know I make you nervous, and this magical red liquid will help calm you, as my magical red liquid does me." Brilliana glanced anxiously around the steakhouse to see if anyone was about to witness her sin. She was, afterall, underage. But as she surveyed the restaurant with a look of sheer guilt, she quickly determined the coast was clear. She did not want to insult her host, so she took a sip of the dry, maroon cabernet and coughed a little. He laughed. "It was the same for me the first time I had blood." He picked up the wine, swirled it, letting the legs crawl against the glass, and he gazed at it like a fortune teller. It was a fine wine. "When...when...um, when did you become one of the undead?" Brilliana asked conscientiously, but suddenly more confident. Twenty years ago," Darward said vaguely, still swishing the wine in the glass. ' Did it hurt? How long does it take? Someday, will you make me one?" Darward's look darkened significantly. "People are always so quick to jump to the conclusion that being undead is a good thing. They think their mortal lives are unimportant and boring and pray for some type of fantastical magic to enter their lives and change everything. It's really quite silly," he looked faraway, outside the window, and Brilliana suddenly felt very alone. Wherever he went, she did not go with him. But it only lasted a second. "Of course, being what I am does have some Everlasting 40 File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help f (g; Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox .jiii-. O Yes, That's the Kid From 'Love Actual!... j Walking in Water - Blog Connecting... ^ , walkinginwater.com blcg.html - V/hiteSmoks Most Visited eBay fj WSU Stewart Library -... Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations i Latest Headlines Desktop PC WT hick eyeliner, uneven s' & Search " hick eyeliner, uneven shi, ^Trffslato., fiA Dictionary BflK • did not go with him. But it only lasted a second. "Of course, being what I am does have some amazing perks and benefits," he smiled at her. "It does hurl It happens over a week. And I have no desire to make another of my kind, but if you are really the one I've been looking for all these years," he sighed hopefully, "I would consider changing you to be my companion." "Oh! I am here. I am! I am! I've been waiting for you too," Brilliana gushed, "ever since I was sixteen, I have wished on the stars every night to bring us together! My heart as ached with a longing that is beyond words. I knew you were out there somewhere and that we would find each other. I didn't think it would be a baseball game though. But everything else is exactly as I imagined it!" "Everything?" Darward asked darkly. Brilliana felt his piercing gaze as he summed her up. It was almost a glare, and Brilliana shifted in her seat uncomfortable. Suddenly aware of his brooding, and the effect it was having on his date, Darward switched his facial expression and tone of voice to one of casual interest °Um, so how old are you?" He said it as though it had no relevance, as though eternity smudged the value from the number of years as they trickled by. "I'll be eighteen in the spring!" "I see.3 A nearly imperceptible sigh of relief seemed to escape, muffled, from beneath Darward's napkin, as he held it to his mouth. The haggard waitress was wearing far too much blue eye-shadow and her lipstick was half-wom off, leaving an aged and uneven texture to her lips. She approached. "May I take your order?" "I'll have a filet mignon, bleu. No potatoes or vegetables. And my date v/ill have a salad with Everlasting 41 \3 Most Visited T hick eyeliner, uneven s eBay [j WSU Stewart Library - ... ^ Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations L%: Latest Headlines J Desktop PCs 0 Search T hick eyeliner, uneven shii ^^Meg ^ Dictionary VCheck^ ipfllUUUHUUT "I'll have a filet mignon, bleu. No potatoes or vegetables And my date will have a salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and she can have my vegetables on the side." The waitress was taken aback by this presumptuous order for his date, and she stared at the boy He appeared to be about twenty-something but carried himself like someone decades older. He was wearing make-up, dressed all in black, and seemed theatrically pale. And the hair cut? Was he trying to be Johnny Bravo from the Cartoon Network? Certainly an odd fellow. She looked at Brilliana, who simply nodded her agreement to Darward's order. After the waitress left, she whispered to Darward, "I hate vinaigrette dressings." "You'll learn to like it. It's good for you." "Okay, if you say so. You are my other half after all." "Yeah. Exactly." Darward responded stiffly He hated his choices being questioned. In all the stories, the fine-looking (gorgeous actually) man was in complete control, his decisions unchallenged. He always what was best for his beloved. Brilliana was in the middle of discussing the difficulty of her latest Chemistry exam when the food arrived. Darward took one look at his steak and sent it back for being overcooked. He expressed unreserved annoyance at the waitress not knowing what a "bleu" steak was supposed to be. "Rare, rare, rare," he bellowed as the waitress returned to the kitchen. "Barely seared on the outside, bloody in the middle." The waitress, in a much muted tone, muttered something about him being a bloody pain in the ass under her breath, which Darward, with his superior sense of hearing, pretended not to notice. Brilliana looked down at her hands, folded demurely in her lap. She hated being the cause of a Everlasting 42 - Blog - Mozilla Firefox Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help! ^ Yes, That's the Kid From'Love Actual!... [ j Walking in Water -Blog x ''Connecting... walkinginwater.com/blog.html ~ ." C § - WhiteSmoke New Custo / £ Most Visited £ eBay [j WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started 0 Etsy - Conversations ; Latest Headlines Desktop PCs f§ Scholai •J'5 " hick eyeliner, uneven s T: ; Search r hick eyeliner, uneven shh h£jranslatejj * A Dictionary >/Check Text » — w —— —•' sQP Brilliana looked down at her hands, folded demurely in her lap. She hated being the cause of a scene. "You were saying?" he prompted, returning to the conversation. "Were you even listening?" she asked shyly. Darward rolled his eyes and then his lips settled into his most disarming smile, "Of course, you were talking about Boyle's law and how you got mixed up on whether solids expand or contract as they freeze because of what water does." Brilliana grinned. Any disenchantment Brilliana may have briefly felt instantly disappeared. She began eating her salad and vegetables with great gusto. A new steak appeared in front of Daiward in record time. The sides were reddish-pink and the inside did oozed with blood. Brilliana prattled on about homecoming, her very pathetic date, and her beautiful dress as she tried to ignore Darward cutting the steak into tiny cubes, which he would place in his mouth and thoroughly suck as though they were after-dinner mints. His table manners were impeccable up to the sucking and slurping of the cubed flesh within his mouth. The louder the sucking sounds grew, the louder Brilliana talked about how her high school's football team had lost the homecoming game but not without an amazing last minute touchdown. She then continued to talk about debate, chess club, anything and everything she could think of to fill the conversational silence and distract from the gulping, grunting and slurping noises, even though the feasting vampire across from her seemed thoroughly engrossed in his meal. He finally finished, smacking his lips, and dabbing the side of his mouth with his napkin.°That all sounds very interesting. I forget what high school life was like sometimes," he responded. Everlasting 43 01 Paste ( Walking in Water - Blog - Mozilla Firefox j-S. -jtniutt ' ■•MllwHairniViMi : File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools Help rv,- Yes, That's the Kid From 'Love Actuall... [ J Walking in Water - Blog x Connecting... ^ , ic| walkinginwater.com blog.html ej B* WhiteSmoke New MostVisited eBay [j WSU Stewart Library -... @ Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations ^ Latest Headlines Desktop PCs m (Msm. dMsm* $ : hick eyeliner, uneven s' g Search hick eyeliner, uneven shb She smiled, shyly, at him, wondering if through that god-awful scene, he had heard what she said. "Can you believe what my homecoming date said to me?" she asked innocently, baiting to see if he had been listening. She looked into his eyes. He returned her eye contact with an intensity that made her blush. "Teenage boys are lecherous. Of course he was trying to talk you into making out in his dad's car," Darward responded without missing a beat. "In your innocence, you must beware the intentions of others. They are not always as pure as you might suppose," he stated, raising an eyebrow. Bnlliana smiled with satisfaction, ignoring the last statement as a teenager always disregards sage advice of an elder. If she could just get over that awful slurping and convince Darward to drop that awful Elvis-impersonating hairstyle, he really could be her true love, the immortal she had set her heart on. It could be real. Her dream could be real. Her heart-rate quickened and she started hyperventilate. Forcing herself to calm down, Brilliana changed topics. "Do you ever think of repeating high school, again, since you will be young forever?" Brilliana asked innocently. "Why would anyone want to repeat that torturous experience?" he asked, but as he saw Brilliana's expression, he quickly recanted. "Of course, if there were a girl in my life worth the torture, perhaps I'd go through it again, just to spend every moment of every day with her," he smiled, letting his eyes fill with the vulnerability of decades of loneliness. ul suppose I'd go through anything for that." Brilliana beamed so brightly, Darward blushed and smiled back, a genuine smile that touched his eyes. "You can blush!" Brilliana exclaimed happily. "Yes, I eat and I blush," Darward admitted. uAnd I feel I must apologize for my noisy consumption Everlasting 44 g) Walking in Water - Blog - Morilla firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks lools Help ' \M : ffi | Yes, That's the Kid From 'Love Actuall... [] J Walking in Water - Blog | , walkinginwater.com- blog.html x Connecting... 0 WhiteSmokeNewCustaP lii ^ Most Visited eBay f j WSU Stewart Library -... % Getting Started @ Etsy - Conversations i; Latest Headlines . Desktop PCs B Scholar hick eyeliner, unevens T Search ' hieye^er, .nevensh:- ^ Transit ; ^Dictionary >/Check Text _ . * • \rw nuiu uiujiibu uiiu .jiiiiiOu Uuv.>\, u yCifOuiO jlitno UlUl lOawloU inj tin uYdfitl^^^^ jff eyes. "You can blush!" Brilliana exclaimed happily. "Yes, I eat and I blush," Darward admitted. "And I feel I must apologize for my noisy consumption earlier. It has been days since I last ate and I was ravenous." "Your eyes are still so dark Do your eyes change color?" "Only when I wear contacts." "Do you wear contacts?" Darward smiled in response. "You'll just have to spend more time with me to find out' As the night came to a close, Darward parked his car down the road from Brilliana's house so he could walk her to her door without attracting the attention of her parents with his eye-catching ride. They walked slowly, hand in hand, and as they approached the corner of the street, Darward went in for a kiss, on her neck. She breathed deeply, a little frightened as he took in her scent. She thought of the steak at the restaurant. He seemed transfixed by the warmth of her skin, the sound of her heart, the pounding of blood pulsing through her veins. As he got closer to her, he licked her neck gingerly, right where her jugular pulsed. Fear and uncertainty quickened the pace of Brilliana's heartbeat as Darward went at her neck with his teeth. Sl^JS SI10 ' Add Comment t f. * Si * Oh Fanny~ He's! Dead! DEAD! I went to his funeral, and I was such an outsider, this man I loved. He was driving down the canyon, too fast, and he hit a moose! The mighty hunter was undone by a moose being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can 7 believe he's dead. I can 7 believe it. Everlasting 45 You may think I sound calm, but you cannot see my tears, or the breaks / take between keystrokes or the random wailing my upstairs-neighbor surely does not appreciate. He's dead! He will never know what we were meant to be, and I will live the rest of my life wondering what I missed out on... please excuse me while I throw myself over a bridge. Three days later, the blog was taken down. I got this error message: 404 Error! 404 Error - Not found This is a standard message from your web browser indicating that the file frying to be accessed doesn't exist or isn't available; basically it means a dead end. Cancel I emailed Twylla several times in the ensuing month, and heard nothing. But I also Googled her, keeping an eye out for an obituary, which I never found. I was very worried and depressed. Finally, when I had given up all hope and started taking Ambien to help me sleep, I got this email from a new email address. Everlasting 46 Hi Fan- I am alive and well. Well, relatively, considering. After the whole Mickel thing, I went into such a depression. You should have seen me! I stopped showering, but it was not enough to stink like body odor, so I dumped oil all over myself. The things we do in grief! I am still not over it. It has only been a month. But now I am both clean and well medicated. =) I read one of your emails yesterday. It is all I could handle, but I wanted to catch you up on what happened. I immediately quit working because I could not stand to go into the office and type stupid numeric codes for sick people and their insurance while the man of my dreams...well you can imagine. I was amazed at how fast my parents intervened. My parents forced me to move home, almost immediately. My mother was beside herself seeing me as her "catatonic child" as she put it. I wasn 't catatonic so much as mostly dead on the inside. At her insistence that I need some serious R&R, my father paidfor a trip for her and me to go to an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. She insisted the sun, ocean, and swimming would help me. There is something to be saidfor the therapeutic qualities of the tropics. Plus, we also made it to Chitzen itza, and I can at least be relieved that I don 7 live in a culture where I could be thrown down a well as a sacrifice to some pagan god in a drought, right? This email is probably sloppier than usual I am kind of in a hurry. I am in a good mood, with a good moment, and very clear. I want to write this before the internal weather changes, so to speak. There was one more thing I wanted to tell you about the story with Mickel, and that is how it started. It was the first week of work. I was wearing a new pair of dress pants, and they were really uncomfortable because they were new and stiff. In fact, looking back at that first week, I felt so artificially starched. Mickel casually complimented my attire as he was leaving Everlasting 47 and asked me if I needed a ride to the bus stop. I did not turn him down, and Ifound myself at a bar, drinking a gin and tonic because that is what he had. We talked, andfor the first time in my life, I felt like someone took my dream of being a writer seriously. He even casually mentioned it would be a feat to see a book like Twilight that really captured the ridiculousness of the whole vampire thing, while being a true-to-life romance. Looking back, I think he was just talking out of his ass. He always said things he did not mean or without thinking. But what he said got me thinking, and I determined to win him over. But the more I tried... well, what does it matter anyway? Anymore or maybe ever? He died. But my mother has been more supportive of my writing as a way to "process. " Who knows? Maybe I can still be a writer. I took my blog down, for the time being. One day, I will start over. I will invent a pen name, and I will write my story, or at least attempt to, as a way to start out. And that is how I, Francis "Fanny" A. Newcomer, came to be. Everlasting 48 Works Cited & Consulted Allen, John J. Don Quixote: Hero or Fool? Remixed. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta, 2008. —. "The Narrators, the Reader and Don Quijote." MNL 91.2 (1976): 201-212. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Bocharov, Sergey and Vadim Kiapunov. "Conversations with Bakhtin." PMLA 109.5 (1994): 1009-1024. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Boog, Jason. "The Lost History of Fifty Shades of Grey." Galleycat: The First Word on the Book Publishing Industry. Media Bistro, 21 Nov. 2012. Web. 3 Mar 2013. Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print. El Saffar, Ruth Snodgrass. "The Function of the Fictional Narrator in Don Quijote." MLN 83.2 (1968): 164-177. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Ferriss, Suzanne, and Mallory Young, edts. Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. New York, Routledge, 2006. Print. Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones's Diary. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print. Gilman, Stephen. The Novel According to Cervantes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Print. Hannoosh, Michele. "The Reflexive Function of Parody." Comparative Literature 41.2 (1989): 113-127. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. James, E. L. Fifty Shades of Grey. New York: Vintage, 2012. Print. Jane. 11Master of the Universe versus Fifty Shades by E.L James Comparison." Dear Author: A Romance Review Blog for Readers by Readers. Dear Author Media Network, 12 Mar. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. Everlasting 49 Johnson, Carroll B. Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990. Print. Kiremidjian, G.D. "The Aesthetics of Parody." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 28.8 (1969): 231-242. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Medina, Jeremy T. "Narrative Framing and the Structure of Don Quijote Part /." Confluencia 14.1 (1998): 12-22. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Meyler, Bernadette. "Bakhtin's Irony." Pacific Coast Philology 32.1(1997): 105-120. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Meyer, Stephenie. Breaking Dawn. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print. —. Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007. Print. —. New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006. Print. —. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Print. Simerka, Barbara and Christopher B. Weimer. "Duplicitous Diegesis: Don Quijote and Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation. Hispania 88.1 (2005): 91-100. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. Soons, C. A. "Cide Hamete Benegeli: His Significance for Don Quijote." The Modern Language Review 54.3 (1959): 351-357. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec 2012. "Vampires." The Tyra Banks Show, Season 4. Perf. Tyra Banks. Warner Brothers, 31 Oct. 2008. Youtube. Web. 2 Feb. 2013. Everlasting 50 Sample of Web Sites Trolled http://vampirewebsite.net/ http://www.vampirewebsite.net/energyvampires.html http://www.vampirewebsite.net/howknowifavampire.html http://answers. vahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110326130157AAJZauT http://listverse.com/2012/01/25/10-true-life-werewolves/ http://forum.darkness.com/topic/118898-are-vampires-and-werewolfs-real/ http://ilovewerewolves.com/are-werewolves-real/ http://www.voutube.com/watch?v=mZw-1 BfHFKM http://dearauthor.com/features/industry-news/master-of-the-universe-versus-fiftv-shades-bv-e-l- i ames-comparison/ http://www.mediabistro.com/gallevcat/fiftv-shades-of-grev-wavback-machine b49124