Decoder

I was legitimately offended last night when the punk at Wendy's asked if I wanted my Frosty to be chocolate or vanilla. I was born in an era in which all Frostys with chocolate. Vanilla Frostys are almost as white Oreos. If you want vanilla ice cream, go to Dairy Queen.

Anyway.

I am sincerely terrible at fiction.

My first story was about a little mushroom who got kidnapped by...some other evil food - they may have been eggs. We were going through our third grade reading books and I saw the title "Mort and the Sour Scheme," and I used it as a prompt to start my own story. One long paragraph typed in WordPad. In italicized cyan ink. 10-font.

I got close to a decent plot (if not the decent writing of a plot) in high school, inspired by "Beauty and the Beast" to take down the tale of an orphan boy whisked away to England to be a servant to an eccentric old man. Very Downton Abbey "focus on the servants" feel. I even had characters drawn out - one of them looked like Ratcliffe from "Pocahontas." But a friend lost my only printed manuscript and all of my typed work was lost in a computer crash. All I had left was about a third that I had handwritten - not to mention a very Jo March, my-whole-life's-work-and-purpose-down-the-drain feeling. And while I tried to get it back and have even thought about picking it up again with my now-more-mature writing style, the magic of the original is gone.

My later attempts have been depressing little scenes about rebellion, death, heartache, fear, isolation by and from others. I've started several times to pen the idea in my head of a rehab house where the inhabitants/patients/inmates/what-have-you are trapped there by a greedy counselor who uses his state funds to fuel his drinking habits. But my problem is, I can't write it down in a story.

I hear the dialogue, I see the details, I have the movements all planned out. But to write them down in a "John paused in his journey across the green linoleum" format is appalling. The lines become cheesy, the details unnecessary; and the whole thing takes on the feel of a Nicholas Sparks book that says "pick me up in your beach hotel gift shop when you finish everything else you brought to read."

I.e. "shiterature."

Hold on tight, we're shifting now.

I think I've narrowed down my near-but-not-total-future choice to two options: find a totally-unrelated-to-writing job (a "Muggle job," if you will), or proofreading. I really enjoy editing for some reason. Which is awesome, considering I have about two inches of essays to grade this weekend. If I could find a job where I can read, maybe stay at home for a lot of it, and get ideas for my own writing - that would seriously be awesome.

Unrealistic? Maybe. But I'm a dreamer, don't you know.

So I have some avenues. I can always look at Career Services at the 'Ville for options. My cooperating teacher said she has a contact who quit teaching to work in editing, maybe she could hook me up. And there's always freelance - certainly not as a full-time job but definitely as a means of some work if I were to just stick with a Muggle job. Which I'd be cool with.

Gah. I can't even decide what I want for lunch, how am I supposed to make these grownup decisions about my life?