We leave the sound on, 'cause silence is harder...
Insomnia blows. I shouldn't be awake right now. Really, I shouldn't. It's half past three in the fucking morning. Nyah.
I've been feeling somewhat prolific lately: I churned out a couple projects for school, took a few exams (and did well on both--bam!), and sent my resume out to a few places in search of summer employment (and I landed an interview for a really cool internship this Friday, so wish me luck). I've also gotten over my mild case of the writing blahs! The other night I started testing the waters for a new project, another zombie project. Sadly for all you QAF-ers, though, it's original fiction. Whomp whomp. This time 'round I'm looking at the effects of a zombie plague a few years down the line, the "containment zones" set up for the infected, moral issues, survival, etc. It also takes place in Washington, D.C., so I can be a bit more intuitive about my setting. Fact-checking some of the NYC details for Zombie Nation was a bitch!
This isn't to say that I'll never go back to the QAF!zombie fic, either. I really liked the dialogue (funny how a zombie plague can get the emotions rolling like that), and I liked where Ted's character was going--I really enjoyed having him stand up as a leadership figure. Still, I had a ton of problems with the plot, and for a long time I totally blanked every time I clicked open a Word document. Looking back to last November, and having now taken Psychology of Death and Dying (glad to know my uni education is going somewhere, eh?), I can now look a little more objectively at why it was so difficult to write. I had a ridiculously hard time killing off my characters. Specifically? Gus. I was going to kill him off, and the way it went down was extremely vivid and kind of sadistic to Brian--it was this whole sequence involving a laptop web cam, Brian trying once more to contact the lesbians, zombie!Mel just out of frame, and oooh no, it was way too horrific. Once this scenario played out in my head (and it did, just like a movie...it was so strange), I realized it was so effective that it was overriding my ability to not feel like a terrible person, so I never wrote it. I also came to the conclusion that it was the only way that part of the story could end, because as Kurt Vonnegut once said, "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of." I just couldn't bring myself to be that cruel. So, after deciding that I wouldn't write the Gus scene, things kind of fell apart from there. Someday, though. Someday I'll find a way to face it and deal with it, that universe I fucked with for those couple months last year. Until then, let's just say that the good guys win.
Odd, isn't it, how a silly story about zombies could make me question my own sense of morality? I know it sounds stupid, but writing about death turned into this crazy life-altering experience, and I didn't know at the time how unprepared I was to deal with the psychological consequences.
GW's annual Spring Fling was last night, and Regina Spektor headlined. It was amazing! Her voice has this quality to it that is so pure; she can make the ugliest noises and yet you just know it's still beautiful because it's so soulful. I almost teared up during "Us", and during "Summer in the City" I hardly the missed the ethereal-sounding chords of the background vocalists that appear in the studio version because there were shivers running down my spine. Oh, and another highlight: Regina Spektor played electric guitar for one song. It was totally sexy.
As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I went to see my advisor recently. It scared the bejesus out of me. The real world is looming, and the implications of that fact break my heart to bits.