"I just got lost/ ... Every door I ever tried was locked"

This is one of my new favorite LOST blogs. Except don't go to it if you want any information.

I'm a dork and I read about LOST for a couple hours each week (seriously, if I had put the effort into school that I do reading about LOST, I would have graduated with a 4.0. But Hemingway and Faulkner are no Cuse and Lindelof). I found out about this one through twitter (Cartlon Cuse's twitter actually....yep, I'm a dork): The Final Season of LOST Seen by Someone Who Has Never Seen An Episode of LOST

Holy crap. This blog cracks me up. The most ironic part is the guy is watching this season having never seen an episode and... we faithful viewers know about as much as he does. Sure we know that 108 is the sum of the numbers that Hurley heard from the crazy guy in the mental institution and he used those to win the lottery and then had bad luck and then his plane crashed and he saw the numbers on the hatch when he went back in time to 1977 and that was the same hatch that Desmond was in and he had to enter those very numbers in every *gasp* 108 minutes for two years before the hatch blew up and the sky turned purple and Desmond started seeing flashes of the future and he became a VIP (seriously, where is Desmond this season!?!?). But at the end of the day, especially with these flash sideways and this whole Jacob and Man-in-Black war that had taken over the plot, we all really have no idea what is going on. So if you want some laughs, maybe check it out. And you get golden nuggets like this, an insight from last week's episode "Lighthouse" (spoiler alert, obviously):

Back on the trail, Hurley asks Jack why he came back to the island. Huh? Jack wants to know why he did. Hurley says because Jacob told him to. Jack says he was broken and thought the island could fix him. The correct answer is that you got back to land, realized you had to work, pay taxes, deal with pollution, deal with people telling you about pollution, and had to spend a fortune to spend a week on an island almost identical to the one you were on. I’m completely clueless on how they got off, back on, and why they want to get back off again, but whatever.

Bwhahaha. LOVE IT.

And as for my thoughts on LOST this season (because I know you care what I think): I'm liking the flashsideways and how all of these characters are connected even after not being on the island together. That's sweet. But the on-island stuff... I am so confused. And I just don't see how the writers/producers are going to wrap this up nicely in the 10-12 hours remaining until the SERIES FINALE (I weep). I've accepted I'm not going to get all the little answers but just some universal answers beyond "Why are they on the island" will be nice. I just want a decent conclusion but I am beginning to fear I have set my expectations too high. But as long as it doesn't end with an autistic kid and a snowglobe or Don't Stop Believing being cut off by a black screen, I think I'll be good (and no, I did not watch St. Elsewhere or The Sopranos. Thank God cause I probably would have been irate).

"Don't be afraid/ Just get on the train/ Take it right off the tracks/ And never look back"

The results are in (yes my sister read over 150 pages in a day)! We were actually gChatting as she read the last 50 pages. It was pretty interesting commentary but since LA predicts and gives away major plot points and the ending, that conversation will stay a secret. Here is her reaction after finishing the epilogue:

LA: YAY! YAY! YAY!

THAT'S A GREAT ENDING

me: thanks!

LA: OH, i love it

i'm sad it's over

GREAT JOB LITTLE SIS

me: aw thanks. whew. i am glad you liked it. i was so nervous

LA: i didn't like it, i LOVED it

me: awwwwww

LA: it's so great! oh, i am kinda sad that it's done. write the next one

me: im working on it

So first hurdle, cleared. Now it's time to debate if I should make some changes before sending it off to other family members or send it as is. Or maybe just take a little breaky-break. I might be voting for the latter cause I'm a little sick of this thing. But that's supposed to happen. :)

Oh and special thanks to LA for being the first reader. Especially because we knew we could have potentially been testing our sisterhood if she ended up hating it. But that didn't happen, yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you LA!!! I was hoping she'd do a guest blogging spot on her thoughts but she's if-y about it (as well as busy with little NP's first birthday coming up this weekend). Maybe if you all prompt her? * wink wink nudge nudge *

"Wanna learn from the things that you put me through/ This one's for you"

Hooray!!!!

LA: Oh, man, I'm flying through it now. I'm on page 218

me: haha yay. well i hope that means its good

LA: and I'm MAKING myself stop because I HAVE to do laundry. it's awesome

me: YAY! thanks

LA: seriously, you HAVE to pursue getting this published. HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO

me: awwwwwww. you're nice. i like you

LA: well, i am nice, this is true. but even if i weren't, i'd tell you to go for it

Now some of you might just think, "Come on, it's her sister, of course she is going to say nice things about it" but my sister and I went into this agreeing that she was going to be honest with me even if she had not-nice-things to say because why would I want to make a fool of myself trying to get into the publishing world?

And I would also like to thank all the friends who have been extremely supportive. To the ones who say "You wrote a book! That's something less than .25 of the population can say they did" (NV) to "Cheers to your budding writing career" (TW) to "I'd really love to read your manuscript" (NE) , it really does mean a lot. Good thing I found a way to squeeze some characteristics/ quotes/ names of all of you in there. :)

"Make a scene/ Make a scream/ Like you're losing your mind/ And you'll always be next in line"

So while my sister is busy reading and telling me her thoughts (all good so far! And it's so funny cause I know this book backwards and forwards but no one else knows anything about it. And I know that's obvious but it's so nice to have someone to talk about it with now!) I've started working on my second idea. Too soon? Maybe. But I think it was my brother JP who asked if I had an idea for another book. And I realized... well... yes I do but it's definitely not as fleshed out as Square One was. So I've started working on it. Plus, I've heard about people who have gotten their second book published before their first and so maybe that could happen with this one!

I honestly don't even know how I came up with the idea. I just remember I was reading before going to bed one night and an idea popped into my head. So I scrambled to jot it down in a note on my iPhone and now I'm working on an outline. Well actually, I'm not even there yet. I'm trying to come up with characters first. Cause the characters in Square One were just givens: My family was my family. This girl is based on this person. This guy is a combination for this guy and that guy. In this new one.... I don't know who they are. Yet.

And it's funny cause I make little charts and profiles for each character to keep their facts and characteristics straight so I had a side-by-side list running down a page in my Idea Book about these two male characters. And it almost looked like I was making a pros/cons list about two guys. And this twenty-something year old guy saw me writing while he was waiting for his drink at Starbucks, I could tell he was standing over me and reading it. You can think I was imagining it but I pointedly starting flipping the cover open and shut as if I was fidgeting while thinking and I noticed it broke the guy's trance. Not cool, dude. Not cool. Just funny because he probably told his friend "That girl is in there making a list about which of two dudes to choose and is listing all their traits like that episode of Friends!" but that is not the case at all.

I'm excited about this idea though. It's definitely different from Square One. It is even sort of an homage to LOST Season 6 in ways (even though I came up with the idea before S6 started). There's a big stinking clue to all you LOST fans aka very cool people. And it's funny because with SO, the chunk of writing that I built everything around was the prologue. With this new one, it's actually a scene that will probably be towards the end. It's like I have these puzzle pieces of scenes that I am trying to fit together into one big picture. Just strange how the creative process works, cause I have no idea and I'm experiencing it (sort of... don't wanna brag).

"He is sensible and so incredible/ ... He says everything I need to hear/ And it's like I couldn't ask for anything better"

Want to know the two traits that Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy, Sense and Sensibility's Edward Ferrars, Twilight's Edward Cullen, Something Borrowed's Dexter, and The Truth About Forever's Wes all have in common? 1) They are all perfect and 2) They were written by women. And the first reason is very much because of the second. You know why? Because women writers, as much as we try to "think" like boys, still ultimately write their male characters like the females (just with less pink and jewelry) and that's why they are seemingly perfect. They say and do the right thing and they make you cry happy tears at the lovely, loose- ends- all- tied- up- in- a- pretty- package conclusion. And it's because women are writing what they would want to hear, what they would want to happen as opposed to what would be more likely to happen in real life. I'm not saying happy endings aren't possible, I'm just saying the words and actions used to get there probably aren't as good as they are in literature.

The main guy in Square One is too good to be true in my opinion. And that's because he's not true, he's not real. I made him up, gave him some endearing characteristics and as much I tried to think like a guy for his dialogue and actions, I'm not a boy so I can't write that. Plus if I did try to write a boy, it would just be filled with grunts and mumbles and "I dunnos". And that's not a very good story (especially by someone like me where I really use dialogue and conversations as the main source of information).

But that's why we ladies love Darcy and Edward: They were written by Austen and Meyer and they had them say and do things that probably wouldn't happen in real life. It's just something I've realized as I reflect on the development and actions of my characters. And I'm not saying that a man can't write a good love story (e.g. Nicholas Sparks), it's just these "perfect romantic male leads in literature" have all been created and written by women.