Currently Nothing..

<-- That is my adorable dog, Odie. I love him. He's about 4 months right now, but that was taken about 2 months ago (do the math yourself). He's adorable, and since no one else in my family is puppy trainer (and my sister screams whenever he licks her) I've solely by myself taught him to Say, Sit, Laydown, and Wag His Tail (the last one was the easiest). He's adorable. I'll get more pics of him soon.

Oh, and in the background, that's me. I'm wearing a really baggy sweater.. so I'm not.. obese.

There hasn't been much going on lately. I finished the script for the movie due in.. may, and my teacher and I talked a little about my story. I ripped out pages from my old sketchbook and glued them in my new one to finish it before it was handed in, and have to draw and life-sized portrait of me for grad.. who I have currently named Sally, because she can't be me, because I'm not that ugly. I hope.

I'm doing Red Maple, which is a reading thing my library has. Important people (old geezers) pick good books they like, and we read them, vote from all over Ontario, and the winner gets an award. This year, the old geezers picked the worst possible books ever. One is even about those standard act-older-than-you-are girls who walk around in malls 3 feet high wearing abercombie and miniskirts. Luckily, most people were warned about the book... unluckily, I was the person warning them, and I'm scarred for life. (She's in love with her teacher, and every single guy she meets!) So far,the winner seems to be a book about a boy becoming obsessed about the make-belive "King Arthur" game. Interesting eh?

Yesterday, on an unexpected snowday, I saw Inkheart with my boyfriend (yeah, I know, but it's the hold-hands-at-recess type of thing, and niether of us wear abercombie or fitch). It was pretty okay, but really, what they need in the movie is some great fight scene. Add Matt Daemon as a blackjacket, and let Mo fight out his life. If they had that, I would've loved it. But no, they didn't have any fighting what-so-ever. If I hadn't read the books... I really don't know what I would have thought about it.

I'm trying to start writing a totally romance story called "A Changed Story" because of how many times I've changed it. I've ran out of names like "Empyrean". The problem is, with ACS, it's more of a learning story. I'm trying third person, multi POV and romance being the main headline of the story. It's hard. I think I'm going to have a really real narrator... something somewhat like that. I'll update you if I get anything, but I don't really have a clue yet.

And, on a sadder more personal note... ahhh!!!! I used to only occasionally get these moments of extreme depression where the sky was falling and I'd fallen into a deep hole with everything crashing down.. now they are happening at least twice a day. I feel like Harry Potter with the whole angsty thing going on, except mine isn't acted.

But hey, that's not your problem. It's mine, and how I seem to have inherited every bad trait from my family.

Sarah

Words.

Because I'm feeling wordy, I'm doing a little thing on words here :D

Free Rice
I found this awesome site in the summer sometime. It's supposed to give grains of rice to people who can't aford it, and it also teaches you stuff. The version I like the best is the English learning bit. It starts out with easy words, like "solitude" and asks to click on a synomym. If you get it right (and it tells you what the right answer is/if you get it right) the next time it gives you a slightly harder word. You can change the level of words all the way up to level 60, which has words like capitulum.

Also, you can change the subject to math, french (which is helpful the the french-extrended student here - which is half-way between french immersion (totally bilingual) and core (normal)) and stuff like that. It's really cool, and if it works and they're not just lying to you, it gives rice to people in need, which is great as well.

Words, Un-Worded
In my class, we have something called "What in the World". It's were you bring in a newspaper article, about anything, submit a report on it, and talk to the class about the article. For mine, I did this really cool and exceptionall nerdy article: Collin's Dictionary Un-Wording Words.

This is the summary I wrote for fun, and as a guideline as to what to say to my class. The more formal version will be following, as suckish and written-the-night-before as it is.

Collins Dictionary Un-Wording Words
The article I chose is about the dictionary Collins is trying to make some words go linguistically extinct - which, by the way, is not a word I use at all - ever - but maybe I should start, because some really weirdly interesting words are about to go extinct because Collins doesn’t think their used enough for their dictionary. They are still words!

Well, the article goes on and says that they have compiled (another word that is luckily not on there) a list of 25 words that they think should go extinct. Of course, some people are getting really upset about this, like the poet Andrew Motion, who has officially adopted the word “skirr” after finding out it was endangered and is trying to get people to use the word more often. “Skirr” means a whirring sound, like the wings of a bird - which is how Andrew used it in one of his poems. Other word-using people are also adopting words and trying to save them from becoming extinct.

I liked this article and think it was important because if one dictionary can get away with killing off one of their words, than the others will follow and then we’ll have nothing in dictionaries but words we always use - and dictionaries are for finding weird words that you didn’t know about. So what if their long and hard to say - but half the words that they have on their list aren’t even that weird. I mean, the word embrangle? It was winning for the word the most people want to save, and means to tangle. It’s important, because when you think of tangle, than you, or at least I, think about hair or tape or something. Embrangle kind of has more of an outdoorsy-feel, maybe a tangle of green twigs could be an embrangle.

Also, I think that some of the words Collins has chosen are completely wrong. Skirr at least looks human, and if you randomly look at any word-of-the-day on dictionary.com sites, than you find words are look like they’re from Saturn - like catafalque, which means some sort of decoration on a coffin. Maybe I haven’t been to enough funerals, but I haven’t ever heard anyone call anything a catafalque - it isn’t pronounceable or spellable.

So, overall, I think that dictionaries are for finding words like skirr, maybe even catafalque if it’s a big dictionary, but it’s actually a little sad to figure out that skirr isn’t even recognized on Word’s spellchecker - because it’s my word of the day.

Okay, here's the icky formal one. It's bad, I know.

Collins Dictionary Un-Wording Words
Imagine looking in the dictionary, flipping through the few pages it has and never finding that word you were looking for. The horrible thing is, that could actually happen sometime in the future - if dictionaries start to cut books from their pages, and therefore make the word go extinct.

The article that caught my eye and that I decided to do my “What In The World” on was called “Collins To Remove Obscure Words From Dictionary”. It was by Rebecca Tucker and summarized the decision Collins Dictionary was going through; whether to delete a list of twenty-five words from their upcoming dictionary, or not. The article didn’t list the words, so I looked around on other sites for another article - and found one. This one was called “How You Can Help Save Some Cherished Words From Oblivion”. It explained the same idea, but of a slightly different case; saving the words. Collins has decided that if the words were still used in the papers and internet (not including the articles about Collins and the endangered words themselves) they would include the words in their dictionary. Good thing for me, at the bottom of the article there was a list of the twenty-five words. Also, this web-article has an online poll for which word you would save - embrangle was winning. Embrangle is the word I voted for on that site, and means to confuse or tangle. I think that “embrangle” is more outdoorsy than “tangle”, and would actually be useful.

Actually, a lot of the world would be useful. Some of the words that stood out to me are “skirr” which means a whirring sound like a bird’s wings, “malison” a curse - and it sounds curse-like - and “calignosity” which means dimness or darkness even if the “calig” part makes you think of calligraphy, which makes you think of light/white. I could totally use these words - especially when I need to write more formally (even though I’m already having to do that, but more formally). Also, I like these words. Words are awesome and great inventions, and none of them should ever be forgotten.

Overall, any weird word is still a word, with consonants and vowels, and deserves it’s place in the dictionary. If one dictionary can get away with cutting out these tools of writing, more dictionaries will follow, destroying more precious words. What would a world be without words? Some people have already reached that, and decided that the wordless world would be disastrous. Those people have decided to endorse these poor words and save them. All of the words need to be saved. A world just cant be a world without every one of them.

I know that's not half as formal as it should have been, but it was late at night and I was tired. So it passed the Sarah-Check. I can write more formal stuff, but not when I'm not in the mood. Yeah, my writing is all moods. But no fears, this blog is over. I would add more.. but I think this is enough. I'll find more wordy-related stuff for later.

P.S. my Word Origin of the day is: Nerd. Which was invented by Dr Suess to be a wierd looking creature. Go nerds!

Grade 8 Graduation

Ahhhh!!!! I'm not the type to like wearing a dress - but in an hour my mom's making me go dress shopping with her!!! (She likes to get stuff done early... kind of the opposite of me). I really, really, really, really hate dress shopping, but I hate shoes more.

The sucky thing, is that I'm tall. Like, 5"4' for you american peoples who make it hard to use metric 24/7, lol. And most people, including my boyfriend, are about 5"2. Which really sucks, especially when you're around your teacher's hieght as well. So no heels for me for grad.. but have you seen the flats? I've been looking for a pair of nice, normal flats for two years. Haven't ever found one.

I am going to die. I'm gunna die a slow and painful death from now until grad.

Why is grade 8 grad such a big deal? I think we should all just go to the movies and have a little ceremony (tiny one... like.. jeans and a t-shirt style) and then have a dance. Normal. But no, it can't be normal. Gotta be full out dresses with shoes and hair done. Ick.

Okay, I'm finished my whining...

Interesting fact: The word "Sky" is Old Norse and it means cloud. So, really when we're saying "sky" we're saying "cloud". Wierd eh? I got this calender that has the origins of a word for every day. Amazingly cool :D

Sorry for lack of things to say.. don't really have much going on right now, but when I finish my newspaper article I'll put a bit up.

Sarah

EMPYREAN!!!!

I'm exstatic. Totally, 100% exstatic. I'm to happy to even care that I probably spelt exstatic wrong.. and the three errors are glaring up at me with those evil red eyes. I'm too happy to care. I think you might be able to know why, but if you dont...

Well, a while ago I have my book, Empyrean, the first book I've ever started, middled and finished, not to mention a really crappy editing (by yours truely), and get edited by other people (much less crappy edits).

So, I waited, and waited.. for a whole two weeks. And now, I just got it back. I think my teacher read the whole thing and now is editing from the beginning.. most likely. But I got it back!!!!!

The first five pages. And they just happened to be delivered in the middle of my music class. I think most people, or at least my friends, knew what the white envilope was. I did. But I had to finish playing my sucky clairinet, go play an hour of badminton (which wasn't the best because I was preoccupied) and then get home. Luckily, my dad was on time so I got home pretty fast.

And now I'm here.. with five pages of writing with all these green pen. My favorite colour is green (and it has been for years, not just cuz it's what this is marked in).

But anyways, amazing, happy... you get the idea. I'll give you a page.. and only maybe more later - I've got editing to do! (Yipee?)

Anyways, here:

Emprean: page 1



Fire. Fire surrounded my body. Angry flames licked at the small space that had yet to burn to cinders. That small, uncharred space was the one I was crouched on, watching the flames crawl closer and the heat burn higher. Even at six, I knew I was there until my death. There was no way I could get out, no way to survive. I was unable to stand because of the smoke, unable to scream (my voice had given out ages ago), unable to move, frozen solid in fear while the burning heat froze me in a different way.

All I could do was wait. Wait for death, wait for a savoir who wasn’t coming.

I felt the heat sinking through the top of my shoes and the plastic on them began to melt. It dripped onto the floor like an ice cream cone in the sun, but far less delicious.

This wasn’t delicious at all. My mouth was dry and tasted of smoke and ash. The air around me was so thick with the fumes from the fire, I could hardly breathe. Sitting there, watching the rubber melt off my shoes, while the pain of the heat still tolerable, I should have known something was up.

But at that moment, my mind was calm and clear. I took in things as they happened, when they happened, calmly and sanely. I didn’t look for ways out, I didn’t question the things happening; I stood, eyes wide open taking in everything, calmly and sensibly. All I could imagine was what the outside of the building looked like - most likely similar to all those other awful, grey, smoke fires. We passed them sometimes on the way to school, still smoldering from the life-taking ‘accident’ that had been caused the night before. Those fires happened almost every day, and no one knew why. But for some reason, the fire fighters never came, and the fires where left to put themselves out.

My sister, Alexa, once said that the fire fighters, loyal and diplomatic to our small and powerful country, were not supposed to come. She said that someone had told them not to save lives in those big fires, and the poor fire fighters weren’t allowed to break that person’s rule.

She’d whispered that in my ear as the house beside me had burnt down, killing one of my family’s best friends. I remember thinking of the mother and hearing a single scream. She had given me cookies every day on my way home from school. Now, she was gone. My parents caught us watching the blaze, and quickly ushered us away from the windows, telling us in strict, severe tones that we were never to talk about that family again.


Yup.. maybe not that different, but to me it is. And it's a start too.

Haha. Right now my cat is sleeping on the papers. If he shreds them, I'll shred him (not really. I love him).

Sarah.

For Lack Of Things To Say..

Okay, so maybe keeping a blog isn't that hard, but finding things to write in it is. I feel kind of mean to my erm.. one, maybe two, veiwers for not saying anything. I'm reminded of this, because I haven't said anything to my Wii Fit dude either, and today, when I went on, he sounded a little upset.

But I do have a valid excuse, you see. It's because of my teacher. I've given him my story, Empyrean, which is finished and great (or so, well, I'm telling myself it is so I don't edit). So, I'm waiting for him to say something, which I'm hoping will be tomorrow. I'm super nervous, and I'm going to be breaching insanity tomorrow morning.

Plus the fact I'm not at all ready for school. After a "weekend" of fourteen days, approximately, I totally forgot how short real weekends are.

But I still need something good to say here, or at least something interesting. Well, when in doubt, you're supposed to kill off a character, right? So how about I show you my "when in doubt" scene...

Empyrean: Pg. 73-75

But of course, it’s all fun and games up until someone dies. And someone died.

It started about a week ago, one of my friends met up with Erik and they became friends as well. I was surprised, because Erik didn’t make that many friends, and most people thought he was dark or mean. Also, I wasn’t too happy about it at first, because I liked having friends that weren’t shared by me and the one guy I wasn’t really ready to talk to yet. But all too soon before I could stop them they became almost best friends - maybe they were even best friends - and oh, I wished I could’ve stopped them.

Maybe if I'd stopped them they would have never become friends. Then he wouldn't have figured out about our group and our plan.

He wouldn't have joined either.

If only I stopped him.

If only I stopped them, Quint Taylor would not be lying a few meters in front of me, underwater, dead.

They said he drowned because he fought off the enchantment sub-consciously that was meant to alert the guards that someone was out of bed. But I had been out of bed before and no alarms had been alerted.

They said he drowned because he may have committed suicide after what his family did.

They say he drowned because his friends had pushed him, which separated Erik, Olyver, Aydrian, Liam, Raechel and I from the others for a while until I got it across to my friends we were not to blame. I think they believed me only because I couldn’t say that without crying.

But in reality, I knew he drowned because the Government had killed him. I knew he had been drowned, because he had found out too much.

I sat down on the pavement, sadness and desperation washing over me like a blanket. The Government had killed Quint. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Erik coming up to me, the same sad look on his face as I knew was on mine.

"He wanted to tell me something." Erik said quietly. That was the longest sentence we had said to each other in days. "He had just found out something important, yesterday he said he was on the verge of figuring out something big, but he said that he needed to know for sure, and that he would tell me tomorrow. My birthday - he said it'd be my birthday present."

"Nice birthday." I remarked sadly. It was the worst birthday anyone could get. A wave of guilt washed over me. If only I had stopped them from being friends. Quint Taylor had even asked me, you're okay with me playing basketball with Erik right? Not going to start ditching me too? He had asked a couple days ago. I wish I could turn back time, as I had since the first day I'd gotten my power. Turn back time; get out of this burning building.

But even if I had, I'd never really. All my life has ever been is a burning building. For a while, my parents had sheltered me from the fire, the dangers in the world and told me that fire would not, could not hurt me. But now they left, the fire was back and my house, now just a skeleton of what it had once been, was falling apart, slowly but surely.

Now the fire had started to knock off my friends, and I couldn't help but think more would fall soon. What we were doing, Erik, Olyver, Aydrian, Raechel, Liam and I, was being firefighters. We were diving into the blaze, trying to be heroes, but really, we had no protective fireproof suits. We were normal, ordinary civilians with nothing but a hope.

And hope, hope leads you nowhere. Where did hope lead Quint? The hope of giving Erik the best birthday present was gone - that hope had caused him to jump too far, to jump across a too big gap to save the people on the other side. Beneath him, the floor had collapsed and he'd fallen. I'm not even sure if the people on the other side, to soon to be deathies like my sister Alexa and my friends from nugatory school, had survived. Maybe our entire group’s hope had gone with Quint Geoffrey Taylor. Maybe, everyone in my building had already died, and it was just a period of time until we discovered that no one could see us, and that we were not ever going to wake up after we went to bed one night.

Maybe everything was already over.

"Yeah, it is." Erik said, "The worst birthday ever." He looked like he was about to cry, but I already was.

Yup, there it is. I can remember thinking about it, in the middle of NaNoWriMo, wondering what happens and how to get from point A to B. Well, kill someone. And wonder Quint Taylor just popped into my mind.

I just love writing dramatic death scenes. If I wasn't so attatched my characters, I'd be another tragedy Shakesphere, without the whole old words.

Sarah

P.S. For some reason, I've found a new obsession with iCarly. Sorry if it's affected my writing.. whenever I watch something or read something my writing changes, a little. It might just be my thoughts.. but if you noticed a difference, sorry. (Just think of how many books I've had to put down so I can write like me! Tis horrid).

Work...

Although for most people this probably isn't much, I have a lot of work to do this weekend. Term two is the shortest term - 9 weeks - but my teachers expect the same things to get done. Right now, I have the major tests, one small quiz, a writing assignment and a movie to work on.

I'm trying to plot my time, finishing one thing then working on the next - and studying throughout. I'm glad my friends (the "script writers" of my group) all slpit up the work and are each writing a little of the script out over the weekend. We wrote out all the events, checked off the ones we were doing, and now all we have to do is write about 5 pages, x 3 is 15. If we get 15 pages out, we''ll have 30 pages, or minutes of movie film. Plus the climax, our movie will end up around 40 pages. And that is just perfect. It's exactly what we want.

But first, I need to get the rest of the stuff done. Plus actually keep my life running, with walking my dog and talking to people. I tried it once, but no one likes it when you hibernate.

I don't think I'll have time to continue my Car Chase story, but hopefully sometime I will. I really like it, even if I'm stuck on where to go next. And, by the way, what I showed you was only a little bit, partway through. Some things might've been unclear, but I tried to get a pretty easy to understand part.

Well, off to writing - scripting, newspaper writing and to do list writing. For most people, it'd be a horrible weekend, writing the entire time. I'm so glad I'm me, and I actually like writing until the tips of my fingers turn blue. Or get swollen. Either and.

Typedy, typedy...
Sarah

P.S. the only thing I'm not looking forward to is the math and french tests coming up. Maybe history... I usually get it, but I still like geography more. Geo's more.. smarter. It's what sounds right and using your brain more than using memorized formula's and stuff. I do good, and it makes me happy when the smartest person in the class doesn't get anything. I think she's only memorizing stuff.... :P go me.

Car Chase..

I think I have a new idea for a story... at least, some sort of writing project to keep my mind off the real thing; my teacher reading Empyrean. So far, all he's said is that it must have taken me a long time, he's going to edit, maybe professionally edit (not sure what he meant by that) and this would be my personal goal. Yeah, my school is like that. All gooey, personal you're amazing stuff. It's hard to avoid. But he's pretty nice - called education "edu-fun-tion" or something like that. I can't decide if I'm dreading or looking forward to Monday, when he says he'll probably finish it by.

But I'm really trying hard not to think about it. Every time I do, I have to try even harder to stop myself from opening that file, editing. But no editing.

That's why I need something else to write. A blog helps, but if I really was writing on this as much as I need to to keep my mind of other things, I'd have five entires a day. I need a new story. I've crossed out a sequel to Empyrean, because that's Empyrean related, and may promote editing. Big no-no.


So, I have this. Tenatively named the Car Chase.....


....Outside the car, the ‘Nashville’ sign passed by. A click of hail joined the clatter of rain that had been following us around all day. It wasn’t the best day to go shopping, and the amount of people and activity in the mall had reflected that. Either way, there was a nice amount of bags in the trunk - maybe a not so nice amount of money taken out of my bank account, but I had the money to loose after my summer job.

“…And that’s the start of the real storm.” David said, referring to the hail falling from the sky. I nodded, and my head fell back against the headrest. I closed my eyes and relaxed.

An electronic whirr came from my left, followed by a downpour of rain, sleet, and heavy rocks of hail.

“ARGHH!” I screamed. Nick was just doing up his seatbelt again as I undid mine and jumped on him, pummeling his face with my hands.

“Whoa! Watch it Emma, we almost got into a car accident!” David shouted. A truck roared by, inches from the side of our car, splattering the previously red, but now a dirty pink, already splattered car with more slush.

I didn’t say sorry, and regretfully promised to torturously kill Nick some other time when it didn’t endanger my life.

As the slush cleared off the windshield, I saw a pair of headlights unnaturally close and coming closer by the second. A car’s horn went off as the silver SUV cut off two lanes of traffic and headed in a straight line towards us.

I felt my heartbeat quicken, and wondered what on Earth the SUV was doing.

David must have noticed the deranged car and driver heading towards us as well, and he swore colourfully. I think he must’ve picked up some words in Iraq, because before he left, ‘shoot’ was as far as his vocabulary went in the ‘profanities’ direction.

“Is there anyone behind us?” In these conditions, which were getting worse by the second, David couldn’t take his eyes off the road. I waited for Nick to look behind, noticing the line of traffic ahead of us.

“Someone!” David shouted at us. Nick hadn’t moved. I checked behind me.

“No one.” I said, casting the lump of wasted space beside me a look that I hope reinforced the ‘I’m going to kill you’ scheme of things.

David’s hands flew at my words, one hand on the gears and the other controlling the steering wheel. The emergency brake was pulled, gear-stick shifted from three to reverse. Our red car rolled backwards.

“What-” I started to ask.

“Shush.” David said sharply. I closed my mouth and looked at the SUV, which was charging towards us as we drove backwards down the road. I looked over at the speedometer, just visible under David’s arm. It read 70 kilometers an hour. I didn’t know that was possible while driving backwards.

The car slid to a stop, David’s hand switching from reverse to first and up as the car regained speed. Now we were speeding towards the SUV.

David spun the steering wheel and our car moved into the oncoming lane. The silver SUV tried to turn and hit us, but only clipped the back. The car fishtailed for a minute, and then David regained control. He sped off down the road, joining back into the right lane when the SUV was far behind us. Back in our lane, David still drove fast, cutting between cars and passing on the left and right.

“A, S, S, H, O, L, E.” Nick muttered beside me, digging through the pocket and cup holder beside him.

“What are you calling my brother?” I asked, giving Nick another death glare. He reflected it back at me.

“No you idiot, that was the license plate number.” Oh, I thought. I grabbed the notepad out of my cup holder and handed it to him.

“There’s a pen in the glove compartment. David, can you slow down and get it?” I asked.

“Have to make sure they’re gone and we are far away from them.” David told me, but slowed down and got the pen anyways.

We recorded the plate and David told us that he would take it to the police station the following morning. Right now, all he wanted to do was go home.....


And that's it. Now what do I do? I've figured out some things, like how this is a story about David and some secret thing he got into with the army, but besides that, I'm blank.

At least it'll keep my mind occupied though.. and I need it.

Sarah

Forget-Me-Not

I'm really depressed right now. For the second time, my dad pretty much forgot about me going to badminton, after school. The first time, he came at 5:00, after everyone had left. I started to walk. This time, he came at 5:25, but I hadn't walked because my teacher was in the school.

Think about it. over an hour with your teacher.... trying to think of something to say.

It ended up okay. He talked about my story a little, and himself, and we know each other. But it was still very awkward.

About my story, he hasn't said much. I hope he's waiting to say it all at once, not waiting to find a good way to say how bad it is.

I think it's pretty okay, but maybe he could think different. It really is killing me; slowly, but surely.

But besides that, nothing much happened. I have a newspaper article coming up soon, and inkling of an idea for a new story I'll tell you about later, and an idea for a sequel - such a small idea it's fainter than dust.

Oh, and as a P.S. because I'm too tired (after shivering for an hour, which is what I do when I'm nervous.. and being around teachers makes me nervous) to add this bit in where it should go, my teacher had to look up Empyrean. :P (Emp-Ear-EEE-an.. according to him, and I like that was the best). It means fire and heaven, which fits well, don't you think?

P.P.S. This is titled Forget-Me-Not because that's what my boyfriend called me when my dad didn't turn up... just before he left, and I waited one whole hour at school.

Movie Script Writing

As part of our "media" class at school, we are supposed to write, film and edit a movie. Complete a movie. Sound easy, eh? Well, not really. The script writing is the hardest, mainly because I have to write in the lines.

Me writing in the lines is like an elephant on a trampoline. It can be done, but slowly, carefully, with special equipment and people to help.

I'm the scriptwriter, along with some friends, and together we're writing it. But within the lines, I can't think of anything. It'd all of my strength to keep within the lines, and not take control and just get the thing done.

Although, with other people's help, I have managed to write a pretty good script.


The Presidential Conspiracy

Exterior - Large High School - Mid-Afternoon
Bell rings, students come pouring out of school. Two students walk down the street, talking.

MALIA ANNE OBAMA
I’m so glad I ditched those secret service guys. They’re so annoying.

ELIZABETH SMITH
I know it’s kinda hard to talk to your surrounded by men in black.

Malia Anne and Elizabeth come to split in the road.

MALIA ANNE OBAMA
I’ll call you when I get home okay?

ELIZABETH SMITH
Sure, see you later!

Malia Anne nods and they walk in separate directions. After a couple seconds, Elizabeth looks back at Malia. She’s just in time to see a black van pulled up beside her friend and two men jump out. One grabs Malia and jumps back in the van. The other man get out of the other side and runs in the opposite direction. The van pulls away with a SCREECH and turns the corner. Elizabeth runs for home, horrified.


CUT TO:


Interior - Large Speech Room - Later
President Barack Obama is standing in front of thousands, saying speech for new campaign.



BARACK OBAMA
It is why I stand here tonight. Because for 236 years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors - found the courage to keep it alive. We meet at one of those defining moments -

A tall security guard answers his phone. He hangs up and grimly walks up onto the stage and whispers to Barack Obama.

BARACK OBAMA
I’m sorry. This speech must be put on hold.

He and the guard walk off the stage, talking.

SECURITY GUARD JOSH
Sir we are not sure of all the details but at approximately 3:00 pm today, your daughter was kidnapped. She was seen leaving school, and has not yet arrived home. No witnesses have been discovered, but you’ll have to come with us, we are headed for Langley.


Not that bad, eh? At least we're getting it done. Oh, and pretend the formatting for movie scripting is all right, with the line widths and indents and stuff. It all got messed up as I copied and pasted on here, and there's not a lot of point in fixing it, for me at least.

So, that was the main thing that happened today. I found out that I could write between the lines... and gave my group a major shock when my teacher called me over with a stack of 127 pages in front of him and we talked about what he was going to do (edit). A guy came over, (one of my friends) and asked if that was my story, and I told him it was... and then he told me group. Suddenly their group member got a whole lot more interesting... and after that, writing anything was awkward.

Oh well. Monday. My teacher said to give him the weekend to read. Maybe edit, maybe just read. I'm not sure.

Sarah.

Introduction Of Sorts

Hey, so this is my blog. Hi.

Today... today was a bore. First day back, brains dead. Plenty of laughing, a little learning, and one big email.

I emailed my story to my English teacher. He sent back, being formal and weird, making me think "cool" wasn't the best word to write. Oh well. If I die tomorrow, once again, my books go to Cam, money equal between all friends, and room/posessions.. friends and family. Like I have anything of importance.

Anyways, I'm pretty proud of my editing job of what I could without dying of boredom - namely, the first few pages. I'll upload a short little bit on here for you to see.


Empyrean - Page 1

Fire. All around me, fire surrounded my body. Angry flames licked the small space that had yet to burn to cinders. That small, uncharred space was the one I was crouched on, watching the flames crawl closer and the heat burn higher. I even at six, I knew I was there until my death. There was no way I could get out, no way to survive. I was unable to stand because of the smoke, I was unable to scream, my voice had given out ages ago, I was unable to move, frozen solid in fear while the burning heat froze me in a different way.

All I could do was wait. Wait for death, wait for a savoir that wasn’t coming.

I felt the heat sinking through my top of shoes and the plastic on them began to melt. It dripped onto the floor like an ice cream cone in the sun, but far less delicious.

This wasn’t delicious at all. My mouth was dry and tasted of smoke and ash, and the air around me was so thick with the fumes from the fire. I could hardly breathe. The heat around me was sickening, but watching the rubber melt off my shoes, the pain of the heat still tolerable, I should have known something was up.

But then, at that moment, my mind was calm and clear, taking in things as they happened, when they happened calmly and sanely. I didn’t look for ways out, I didn’t question the things happening; I stood, eyes wide open taking in everything, calm and sensible. All I could imagine what the outside of the building looked like - most likely a lot like all those other, awful, grey, smoke fires. We passed them by sometimes on the way to school, still smoldering from the life-taking ‘accident’ that had been caused the night before.


Good? Not? You're already dead, my writing's killed you? I don't think anyone one is there to answer, so I won't really expect an answer.