The Squeee

Hello world. Just to let you know I've joined Wattpad , which is some sort of writing community. Seems like the place to be. Now I just wonder what I should start uploading to "lose my Wattpad virginity" as it were. Suggestions? :) If you fancy stopping by and saying hello, my username is doctortrax (it had to be 6 or more chars and Traxy is only 5). And just looking at that username now makes me remember when I first signed up at Hotmail (or HoTMaiL as it was back then, way before Microsoft came along) in 1996. Wow, those were the days. *hit by a nostalgia brick* Anyway, I wish everyone a very nice weekend! EDIT: There we go! The Sheriff's Wife is now online. Took a while to edit the text I selected to be the first thing posted, because a) it's longer than I remembered, and b) it's been in first draft since November 2007, as it's the mainstay of chapter seven of that novel. Actually, it's probably the best part of the whole novel, as it...

Defeating the Galactic Empire “My father is dead! Obi-Wan said you murdered him!” A defiant Luke Skywalker stared at his nemesis, an intimidating, black-clad Sith lord. “No, he’s not,” Darth Vader objected. “He’s at work.” “That’s so not what he says! He says, ‘No, I am your father’.” “But how can I be your dad exactly?” said the tinny voice from within the plastic, yellow bucket helmet. “I’m your brother!”

Here’s another thing that originated from a creative writing course, but this one’s been translated from Swedish. The object was to try out different narration perspectives, or whatever you might call them. One scene, three perspectives: first person singular, third person singular, omnipotent/third person plural. I took it quite literally and did the exact same scene, but seen from three different angles, but others wrote three different stories altogether. Huh. We had a character constraint, which I’ve ignored because the texts have been translated, and had to include the basic story of Frank who dates George’s daughter (which George disapproves of), who waits for George in George’s house. They have an argument and Frank shoots George. We had to come up with the setting, the reasons for the argument and the shooting. I found it very difficult at first, because I could think of half a dozen reasons for George to shoot Frank, not the other way around. :) Here’s how it turned out: F...

Originally posted 3 April 2010 on a different blog. Another hand-written draft. This was written shortly after having watched some of the 2006 adaptation, so I felt as if Rochester's voice was coming through loud and clear for the first time, because it was as if I could hear him speak, telling his story, and me being there to write it down. It was rather pleasurable, really. :) And yes, it's back to first person, because it felt like the most natural way to write Rochester. I suppose I should tell you of how I came in possession of the litthe French girl, but in order to do so, I must first introduce her mother. Céline Varens, a danseuse at the Paris opera, where I happened to be taking in a fine performance one night. It was the day before New Year's Eve, the event spectacular, yet I can no longer recall the subject of the performance. There was this young woman among the dancers - everything so perfect, just what I was after. Her dark eyes mesmerised me; I could no...

Originally posted 3 April 2010 on a different blog. (Another handwritten draft, but this time, I've corrected a couple of places where I had left out some words. Here, I'm trying out a third-person narrative. Which didn't feel quite right either, as it happens...) Black like night the birds in the nests on top of the roof of Thornfield Hall. They had been told many times they were not allowed up there, but when you're an invincible youth, you don't always heed warnings from those of superior age. A boy appeared through the hatch from the attics below, his hair as black as the rooks in their nests.    "Come on, Edward! You're not scared are you?"    From below, the voice of a younger boy was heard: "Mamma said we were not to go up there. You should come down."    "Mamma is in Millcote all day, she will never find out. Unless you tell her. If you keep quiet, all will be well. Do you not wish to see the view from up here? All this ...

Originally posted 23 January 2010 on a different blog. I recently read that new writers often find third person narrative to be very difficult, because they are more accustomed to first person, and writing things from their own perspective rather than someone else's. While this might be true in some cases, perhaps a lot, it is not true for me. I struggle with it immensely. It's uncomfortable and weird. Most of the stories I have ever written, regardless of which age I was at the time, have been in third person, either in the mind of one character or switching between them, or omnipotent. This whole "I", "me" and "my" business feels unnatural, somehow. Not sure why. Okay, blogging and letters and that sort of thing I have no issue with writing in the first person (obviously), but stories are a problem. It doesn't flow as easily. There might be many reasons for it. First of all, I'm definitely more used to third person narratives, but eve...

What do you get if you mix JRR Tolkien with Arthurian legend, throw it in a blender and add some general insanity? You get this thing, which is something I wrote a few years ago just for the hell of it. It's very silly, but I've been feeling quite down and tired and generally fairly BLEARGHH sod the hell off this week, so I believe a dose of silliness might be good. Also, there's so much talk of The Hobbit in various places that I just felt like jumping on the bandwagon - without actually jumping on it at all. So take your Hat of Seriousness off and jump into Non-descript Fantasy World for a bit! "The Fellowship of the Grail" ^^ HOLEE GRAYLE ^^ "Have I told you about the time when my uncle went to the City to see--" "Where babies come from. Yes, you have." "Oh. What about the story of the Witch Who Would Not?" "Yes." "So …" Grandfather Byl looked down his pipe with a frown. "Where has Samawel got t...

Here's something I wrote for a creative writing course. These were our instructions: You will try writing two different versions of the same story. The first story should be a detective story; the second one a romance. Following is your topic: two people meet after having been separated for 20 years. One of them has stayed in their hometown, and lives a traditional family life; is married and has two children. The other person left home in her/his early twenties and experienced various things that you are free to imagine. /.../ It should be clear to the reader why they meet again after all these years. There must be a conflict of some kind. Is the conflict something that happened recently/is about to happen, or is it an old conflict that has been going on for decades. It couldn't be more than 400 words either, but I changed a few bits to post it here (according to the feedback the teacher gave me at the time), so it might be slightly different than it was to begin with. An...

Celebrating NaNoWriMo, I might decide to become rather (more) obnoxious (than normal) with posting random writings. This was something written for a creative writing course, and was supposed to portray a turning point in someone's life. I decided to write about the turning point for an alcoholic widower - the father of one of my roleplaying characters that I care a little too much about. "Resolutions" At the beginning of every year, Robert Malford decided to do something useful with his life. It normally didn’t last very long, as he always found something to remind him of times gone by, and it hurt too much. Every year gone by was another year in which he couldn’t read his daughter a bed-time story or help his oldest son with schoolwork, or kiss his wife. They were gone, and no matter how much he prayed for them to return, they never would, and the pain was unbearable. The only thing stopping him from going under completely was his son Christian, who was in school at t...

Every November, there's a Thing going on around the world, called the National Novel Writing Month. Should be International and not National, really, but I suppose they prefered NaNoWriMo to InNoWriMo or something. It's a writing challenge, so that all those of us who say we're going to write a novel "one day" stop making up lame excuses and get down and actually DO write it. Not "one day", but rather "starting today". Or, actually, starting yesterday. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days - and you have November to do it in. My NaNo history so far has been mixed. The first attempt was made in 2006, but I started writing it by hand and didn't know what to write about so just wrote a lot of nonsense. Gave up after 3000 or so words. Not willing to be deterred, I went back for a second try in 2007. To begin with, I was going to be writing something along the lines of an autobiography, but that idea was slated on the forum, be...

Here's a story I wrote in 2004, just for the fun of it. It's jam-packed with references to movies and shows - and some off-screen stuff - with one common denominator. Guess who! :) (Not that the post tagging or 10-second Photoshop job of a picture gives it away or anything...) "Who Am I?" Mr. Actor-in-Cleverest-Disguise-Ever! Or not. Let's face it. To be the Antichrist isn't all it's cracked up to be. You can never find a decent girl, because all the ones you hang out with look at you with a dumb expression of awe. It's nice to be considered a god on occasion, but sometimes you just want to be loved. There is the proper kind of woman you want, of course, and if she has a kid, it's great! Package deal: pawn and mistress for the price of one! She might object to using her only child as a satanic agent, but hey - if you get bored, just tell her a dingo took her baby! She might object to being raped, however, and she might also end up stabbing y...

Writing interlude! This one, apparently is in the style of Kurt Vonnegut . I really haven't got a clue, but I seriously doubt it. It was written, I think, in 1999, and I've not changed it - simply because I think it's cute in all its naivité (hey, I was 17!). At the time, I had never been in Koblenz, so really had no idea of what the town looks like, what the temperature is actually likely to be in December, and so on. Today, I would've said "why on Earth would they pick a spot half-way across town to meet? They could've just said THE BLOODY SQUARE OUTSIDE THE TRAIN STATION". But I digress. The funny thing is, this got published in a Vietnamese students magazine, or something like that, back in the day. Had an email from someone about it and got into a hissy fit at first, but was happy about the unauthorised use when I found out that I was properly credited in the magazine, the emailer had not been paid for it and he even offered to send me a copy, which...

Part 1 is here: "Country Roads" - a bit of Jane Eyre in the 21st century .While part one was chapter 12 of Jane Eyre , this is chapter 13... sort of. Brontë tells these bits in ~7000 words, I had 2500 in total, so it feels quite rushed and I'm not particularly pleased. I prefer the 2500-word version with all parts put together and rearranged slightly to these 1000-word bits I've posted here. Either way, constructive criticism is appreciated as always. :)

Okay, patience isn't really my cuppa tea, so here ya go, the first two parts of the final writing assignment in Creative Writing II, in which I've happened to be writing a modern-day take on Jane Eyre . For the assignment, we had to write no more than 500 words, so this is just a draft. Part one deals with setting, part two with characters and dialogue. Part three has a plot twist ( anyone familiar with JE will know exactly what the twist is from reading the stuff below, and others will probably be able to figure it out anyway ;)), part four is supposed to be a sort of conclusion, but I'm not sure what that's going to be, as I've not come that far yet. The Jane substitute would have been introduced at an earlier stage in the story - as this would not be chapter one of a novel, it would be further in - so that's why she's not described in much detail. Please tell me what you think of it so far - both in terms of story and writing; I love to get feedback...

Aye, I'll jump on the bandwagon too! :) Although, instead of pictures of RA, I thought I'd show some pictures I took this morning, as I wanted to try out the camera on my new old mobile phone. (I don't buy mobile phones anymore, I just use the Squeeze's old one when his contract gets upgraded. I didn't want the previous one, so haven't had an upgrade for quite some time, so yay, the new one is pretty damn cool!) This is Daisy. It's not a very good picture, admittedly, with the light coming in through the window and all, but hey, we'll ignore that. She's about 10 years old or so, but we don't know for sure. She was a stray originally, who one day just appeared in the cellar of a friend's house. They advertised and went to the police and things but she wasn't chipped and no one came forward to claim her, so they kept her. Three years later, I came along and wanted a cat, and seeing as how the new-born stable kittens (of which I was to get...

First post of the year, yay! Hope you all had a fab New Year's! :) Safely back in the UK again (OMG, we have snow!), I thought I'd kick off the year in a slightly unusual fashion, by posting something I've written. Err. Okay, yeah, I normally post stuff I've written (duuh), but I mean a story. Or not strictly a story, it's more of a letter, and it's a sort of summary of a storyline in a roleplaying game. Reason for posting, more than feeling like it, is because I love the whole angst-ridden loveliness of the character, and it's a feeble excuse to post gratuitous pictures from North & South , as the letter-writer happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Richard Armitage. *cough* Pure coincidence, as it happens, as I decided what he looks like before I decided to cast RA in the role. ;) (The blackbird thing is his nickname for her, because her name is that of a blackbird, in Latin.) But anyhoo, tell me what you think, I love to get feedback / construc...

Barty Crouch Jr. meets the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup arena (I might have been a little bored when writing this. You might recognise it. ;)) [trumpets] [clap clap clap] ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen. The next contest is between... Serbia, the Balkan baby-crushers, and Mongolia. BARTY CROUCH JR: Want some... VOICE: Thank you, fellows. BARTY: Popcorn. Chocolate buttons. Snickers. Mars bars. Nachos with cheese. Get 'em while they're hot. They're lovely. Potato wedges, only half a sickle. Chilli poppers. ALECTO: I do feel, Lucius, that any anti-establishment group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base. LUCIUS: Agreed. Amycus? AMYCUS: Yeah. I think Alecto's point of view is very valid, Lucius, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man-- MCNAIR: Or woman. AMYCUS: Or woman... to rid himself-- MCNAIR: Or herself. AMYCUS: Or herself. LUCIUS: Ag...