Writing Wrongs

and so it begins...

2009-11-02T07:06:58Z

NaNoWriMo is now upon us and I am participating. From 1 AM last night until 1 AM tonight, I have written 3,762 words (the first and second chapter).

This is the first chapter. I post this as a draft (as all NaNoWriMo projects technically are) and ask that, that being said, you please be kind in your critiques if you have any. ♥

(Temporary) Title: Zombie!: The Musical
Author: itswhatido aka racistdragon
Type of Story: Novel for NaNoWriMo contest, 2009.
Synopsis: Two outcasts in a community of outcasts join together to change everyone's perception of what it means to belong.
Part: 1 of ???

Few things bothered Claire as much as the looks she got from the neighbors whenever she went outside. They made her feel foreign, alien, like less than a person. She wasn’t any different from them, really. Well, okay, she fed on the brains of the living, but otherwise she was perfectly normal like everyone else in the modest community. She slept in a bed in a house on a street. She breathed in air. And like other kids her age, she went to school.

The Weeping Willow community was a gated, high security place. Wealthy people lived there. It was safe. It was secluded from the rest of the world, but no one was upset about that. Wealthy people like their privacy. And wealthy mortal people did not want the wealthy undead around them.

This community was for vampires. There had been quite an influx of them in the town, so the mayor decided to set up a place for them to go where they could live in peace away from the “judgmental eyes of normal people.” The mayor was always trying to claim that he was not judgmental by making statements like that. The citizens of Weeping Willow had not voted for him.

Claire LaMorgue would have easily been able to fit in with the community that was not allowed to fit in with the rest of the world if she hadn’t been a pea-green-skinned, thirteen-year-old zombie with zombie parents. As it was, the community set up for societal misfits had its own misfits.

And that’s why, on that chilly October day, as Claire LaMorgue went outside to water the weeds, all blood-thirsty eyes watched her, worried for their brains.

She smiled to herself when she realized that scaring them would be too easy. Rounding the hedge, she ducked down a bit so they’d all wonder where she’d gone. Then, eyes wide and mouth agape, she popped up from behind the bush and let out a petrifying scream. The vampires screamed in response and ran: some back indoors, some down the street, but all of them away from her.

“As if I would eat you!” she shouted as the last kicked up his heels and scampered down the street. “Your brains are full of dust and cobwebs!” She buried her face in a wilted rhododendron and cried.

Mr. LaMorgue came up the stairs from his work room and couldn’t help but hear the weepy moans coming from the front yard. Folding his evening paper under his arm, he went outside to find his forlorn daughter picking the petals off the dead plant. “Did you scare away the neighbors again?”

Claire sniffled. “I don’t know why they’re afraid of me. Everything’s dead here.”

Her father took her into his arms and cradled her against his broad, slightly worm-infested but otherwise comforting chest. “You’re only dead if you stop living,” he said. “You’re just different from them and they don’t understand, so they’re afraid.”

She watched as a neighbor peeked out her window at them across the street. “I don’t understand them either, but I’m not afraid.”

At school, Claire fared no better. The Bram Stoker Academy was a large, slightly Totalitarian-run school for ages six through eighteen. The classes were large and contained students of all ages. This would have been a nice policy if it weren’t for the fact that being thirteen is awkward, and more so when surrounded by people who can’t empathize with you. That is why she was dreading the start of the new school year; what was to be her eighth year at the school. She dreaded school every day of her life, so it was hard for this year to be any different.

Shuffling into the classroom at seven fifteen on the dot, she collapsed at a desk near the back of the room and put her head down, thinking that this might help her avoid the stares of her vampiric classmates as they too came into the room and filled in the seats around her. Unfortunately, Goran Price was not the type to ignore her. When he entered the room, he knocked on her head as he passed. “Anyone in there, Zombie Girl, or are the maggots asleep again?”

Claire snapped her head up at once and glared at him. He grinned a venomous grin down at her before turning, with a swish of his cape, and sitting in the front row just before their teacher, Miss Heath, entered and went to her podium at the front of the class.

In typical teacher fashion, she was completely oblivious to what Goran had done.

“Well, welcome back to another year at Bram Stoker Academy. I recognize many of your faces as I look out at you, but there are many of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting. I hope to rectify that immediately, first by taking attendance.” She seemed a decent sort. Claire had not been in her class before. She was suspicious that the teachers were passing her around each year instead of volunteering to keep her in their classes as they usually did with everyone else. In her eight years at the school, she had never had the same teacher twice. As Miss Heath went through the role, Claire hoped that this year would be better than all the others and that this teacher would give her more compassion.

She hoped this every year, but she believed it better to keep hoping than to give up.

Suddenly, as Miss Heath was slowly making her way through the Fs, the classroom door opened and a boy trudged through the door, weighed down by backpack, books and overly long coat. All eyes turned to him. He was brown haired with freckles darting across his cheeks from eye to hazel eye. He wouldn’t have been much to look at, really, if he had been in a human school.

Miss Heath cleared her throat as if afraid to say anything. The students in the class seemed frozen in their seats, staring with mouths open at the mortal human boy who had so calmly walked into the room. All of the students, that is, except Claire. She watched the boy with unblinking fascination. On a few rare occasions, she and her parents had seen humans… but never a boy her age. At least, she thought he was her age. With his peach complexion, it was so hard to tell.

Finally, the teacher struck up enough courage to ask, “M-may I help you?”

The boy looked around at everyone with large eyes. “Is this Miss Heath’s class?”

Everyone else (except for Claire, who was still transfixed) turned and looked at their teacher for confirmation. Miss Heath looked from the boy to Claire and back again, gulped and nodded. “Are you- are you on the roster? What is your name?”

Claire’s eyes stayed pinned to his as he answered. “Mark Jones.”

The teacher looked down at her class list. “Oh. Oh!” She sounded terrified. “Yes, there you are. Welcome to eighth grade at Bram Stoker.” She cleared her throat again as though trying to regain her authority. “Don’t be late again or I will be forced to give you a tardy slip.”

The boy, Mark Jones, nodded, embarrassed. “Yes ma’am.”

“Have a seat,” said Miss Heath. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Ferratu, Nina?”

“Here!”

Claire continued to watch Mark Jones as he sat down at the desk two down from her. Continued to watch as he opened his backpack, pulled out a notebook and a pen, opened the notebook, placed it on the desk in front of him and began taking notes. Continued to watch until he looked over at her. Then, she found the chipped wood at the edge of her desk to be the most interesting thing she’d ever seen in her life. At least until he looked away.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t notice her classmates gaping at her as her name was called and she announced her presence. All she noticed was that Mark Jones wrote with his left hand and his eyebrows went down as he wrote.

Claire couldn’t say what had been discussed in the first half of class that day. All she had written in her notebook was the date. September 9. Nine nine. When recess was announced and her classmates began filing out of the room, she suddenly felt like she had just woken up. She looked around as everyone passed her, ignoring the stares because she was trying to watch him leave, but he was gone before her body could catch up with her eyes.

She pushed past everyone in the halls, getting closer and closer behind Mark. Goran Price attempted to pull her long hair, but she tilted her head away effortlessly. She was in pursuit and couldn’t be bothered by his loathsome bullying right then. As Mark descended the stairs to the front doors, Goran suddenly shouted inches behind Claire, “The Zombie Girl’s trying to eat the Human Kid!”

Screams of horror filled the hall. Mark turned around and looked Claire right in the eyes, giving her a look of horror that shot right through to her heart and made her want to cry. She didn’t want to eat him. But she couldn’t protest in time. The Principal, Mr. Gomez, rushed up behind her and clamped a hand down on her shoulder, turning her toward him. “You know what the penalty is for eating humans,” he said in a menacing snarl.

“But I wasn’t going to—”

Mr. Gomez snapped in her face and turned her body toward the detention hall, so she figured that it was pointless to try to finish that sentence. Lowering her head, she walked to the door of detention, feeling the cold burn of Mark Jones’ eyes on her back the whole way.

‘Detention Hall’ wasn’t really a hall. It was more like a ‘Detention Small Classroom That Would Otherwise Be Unusable’. But this title was too long for it to sound as terribly life-ruining as Mr. Gomez wanted it to be. When Claire entered the room, only three pairs of eyes looked up at her: Minnie Lycan (a fifth grader), Mr. Chordata (the detention monitor) and Annabel (Mr. Chordata’s pet rat). She didn’t look back at them, though. Instead, she slumped down into the nearest seat and put her head on the desk. Nope, she thought gloomily. This year isn’t going to be any different.

Class had already resumed when Claire arrived back in the room. Miss Heath cast a slight glare at her over a copy of The Outsiders as she read from it aloud. Claire folded her arms on her desk and rested her chin on top of them, doing her best to focus her eyes on the alphabet banner over the chalkboard. A is for arachnid. B is for bat. C is for cholera.

She felt a nudge against her elbow and looked over in the direction it had come from. The girl, Josephine Arcadian, sat next to Claire on the right, and she was conveniently sitting one seat down from Mark Jones. She stealthily passed Claire a note under her arm.

Black ink bled a bit through the lined notebook paper. Claire unfolded it and ran her fingers along the ripped off edge of the paper as she read it, flat on her desk.

“Why do you want to eat me?” was all it said. It was written in messy boy’s handwriting, but that was not why Claire knew who had written it. She suddenly felt hot with embarrassment and a hurried feeling as she reached for her pen and began writing her response, in green ink.

“I don’t want to eat you,” she wrote. “Goran just likes to say mean things like that.”

She passed the note back to Josephine and waited eagerly for several minutes, hearing Miss Heath’s droning voice but not paying attention to the actual words. Finally, Josephine handed her the paper again. “But you’re a zombie, aren’t you?”

Fashion is Danger, part 2 of 3

2009-08-03T22:01:46Z

Title: Fashion is Danger.
Written by: itswhatido aka racistdragon.
Fandom(s): Flight of the Conchords & The Mighty Boosh.
Synopsis: Bret and Jemaine are in desperate need of fashion help.
Part: Two of three.
Requested by: lcuddywannabe.

With no idea how they had arrived at the strangely decorated flat, Bret and Jemaine followed Naboo up a staircase. Once at the top, they saw a black and white couch and something even stranger: a big, black gorilla was sitting there, watching TV. “Alright, Bollo?” Naboo addressed the ape.

“Hey Naboo.” The gorilla looked over and noticed Bret and Jemaine standing there behind his friend, looking so lost and out of place. “Who they?”

Naboo gestured for the Conchords to introduce themselves. Jemaine stood there and stared at Bollo as if it was absurd to try to talk to him, even though the shaman just had. Bret, on the other hand, stepped forward and sat beside the ape. “Hi Bollo,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m Bret and this is Jemaine.”

Jemaine waved awkwardly. “Hey…”

Bollo looked from one to the other. “What wrong with their hair?” he asked Naboo.

“They’ve used too much Miracle Wax. I brought them here cuz I thought Vince could sort it. Where is he?”

“Oh, he and the other one go to jungle. They try to find unicorn.”

Bret beamed. “Unicorn?”

Naboo sighed. “Something tells me this was Howard’s idea. Look, I’ll go get them. You stay here with these two. And be nice.”

The gorilla grunted.

“Wait, you’re—” The little shaman turned around once and disappeared. “—leaving us with him?” Jemaine looked at Bollo, who glared back at him. “Great.”

Naboo reappeared in the middle of a dense jungle. The full moon smiled down at him. “Vince?” he called. “Howard?” He walked a little way, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of his mates. “Vince?” He looked up at the moon. “Have you seen my mates Howard and Vince?”

The moon kept grinning. “These Italians try- tried to find a name for me one day- uh, night when they was lookin’ at me. And they called me Luna. But it’s- that’s not my name. So, I told them Chester. Ahhh. Because it’s a nice name.”

Naboo shook his head. “Thanks for that.”

Just then, a blue-silver white shown through the trees, heading straight toward Naboo. He stood his ground, squinting to make out what the light was. As it got closer, he realized that it was a unicorn.

“Hi,” it said, and scuffed its hoof against the dirt. It was a shimmering bluish white with a flowing tail and mane of silver. Its horn, the source of the light, was pure white and it hurt Naboo’s eyes to look straight at it, so he elected to look into the unicorn’s blue eyes.

“Hi,” Naboo replied nervously.

“I am Remuluck, the unicorn.”

Naboo nodded. “Yeah.”

“You are not the first man to trespass through these woods tonight,” said Remuluck. “What do you seek?”

“I seek two men who passed through here before me,” said Naboo. “One is sparkly with perfect hair and the other is old with tiny eyes.”

The unicorn looked confused. “I have seen no such men.”

Naboo was stumped. “They came here trying to find you.”

“Oh, those bastards!” Remuluck scuffed his hoof again. “Yes, I’ve seen them. They came here looking for my hair. The old man wanted to cut part of me tail off, but I said no. But the pretty one gave me this.” He raised a hoof to show off the rainbow-colored polish. “Ha, I’d never even thought of hoof polish. So I let him cut off a piece of my mane.”

“Why did they want your hair?”

The unicorn shrugged. “Probably to sell it on Ebay.”

Naboo sighed and shook his head. “Typical. Well, are they still here?”

“No, they went back home. They said something about ‘I hope Naboo doesn’t find out’.”

“Great, thanks Remuluck,” Naboo said resignedly. He started to go.

“Wait!” the unicorn called.

Naboo turned around to face him.

“Can you ask the pretty man if he has any purple polish? It’s my favorite color.”

Naboo smirked. “I’ll see what I can do.” With that, he disappeared.

When Naboo reappeared, he found Bollo playing Battleship with Jemaine. He looked around. “Where’s the other one gone?”

“B-10,” said Bollo.

“Miss.”

“Ahh.”

“Bollo!” Naboo exclaimed impatiently.

“Oh sorry,” said Bollo. “He go look at Vince’s room.”

Suddenly, Bret popped out of Vince’s doorway, dressed in the Mirrorball suit. “TADA!”

Jemaine looked at him and made a disgusted face. “Are you serious?”

Bret giggled. “It’s hard to be serious when you’re wearing this. Check it out!” He spun around. “This would definitely wow the Prime Minister.”

“You berk,” said Naboo. “Go take that off. Vince’ll be back any minute and he’s very protective of his clothes.”

Before Bret could go back into the bedroom, there came the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Oh shit,” Naboo said under his breath. “Both of you, sit down on the couch. Bollo, act natural.”

Bret and Jemaine did as they were told, sitting beside each other on the black and white couch. Bollo, acting natural, started playing air drums. Naboo sat and tried his best to pretend that he was chatting with the Conchords.

Howard came into the room first. “You’ll never guess what happened to us!” he said excitedly before noticing the two strangers and frowning.

Vince bounced up behind him, dressed in flowy purple top and tight white pants with flares. He stopped in mid-bounce and looked wide-eyed at Bret in the Mirrorball get-up and Jemaine looking like Bob Marley on an off day. There was only one logical conclusion to make.

“Naboo’s replaced us!”

Fashion is Danger, part 1 of 3

2009-08-01T05:41:04Z

Title: Fashion is Danger.
Written by: itswhatido aka racistdragon.
Fandom(s): Flight of the Conchords & The Mighty Boosh.
Synopsis: Bret and Jemaine are in desperate need of fashion help.
Part: One of three.
Requested by: lcuddywannabe.

Bret leaned back on the couch, feeling miserable and agoraphobic. There was no way he and Jemaine could go outside like this. He looked over at his friend, who was licking his fingers and running them through his hair in a desperate attempt to make it stand on end. “What’re you doing?”

“It worked before.”

“It did work before…but before, we had gel.”

Jemaine groaned and fell back on the couch beside Bret. “This is all your fault. You used the gel on your beard.”

“You used the gel on your sideburns.”

“Well, sideburns are hair.”

“Beards are hair.”

They sighed in unison, at an impasse.

Bret turned his head toward Jemaine. “It’s times like this where I wish we had a genie or a shaman friend who could make gel appear.” He closed his eyes, imagining what that would be like as sitar music started to play.

“If we had a genie, we could just wish ourselves back to fashionable and popular,” Jemaine countered, his voice immediately stopping the music.

“Did you hear that sitar music?” Bret questioned with furrowed brow.

Jemaine glanced at him moodily. “No…”

There was a light knock at the door. The two friends quickly hid their hair underneath copies of Time and Esquire. They shuffled over to their apartment’s door and Bret opened it just a crack. “Murray?”

At first, they didn’t see anyone there. Then, Bret looked down and noticed a little man standing there, dressed like Ali Baba or something. He and Jemaine tightened their grips on their respective magazine hats. “Who’re you?” Jemaine asked, his usual Kiwi growl striking a more suspicious tone.

“Did anyone wish for a shaman?” asked the little Aladdin.

Jemaine shook his head and looked over at Bret, who bit his lip guiltily. “You said it out loud,” said Jemaine. “That shouldn’t have counted.”

“I said it in my head, too…” Bret admitted sheepishly. “But only quietly.”

The short shaman looked from one to the other, seeming less than pleased. “You have disturbed my trance. I was listening to Rumours on L.P. Now I’ll have to start it over.”

He turned to leave, but Bret stepped forward and grabbed him by a silky sleeve. “Wait, Mr. Shaman.”

“My name’s Naboo.”

“Naboo,” Bret corrected himself. “Sorry. My friend and I are in need of your help. We are having a fashion emergency. We’ve got a gig tonight and all of our hair gel is used up. We can’t go on stage now. Can you make us look cool again?”

Jemaine looked skeptically at Naboo. “He’s not a genie.”

Naboo rolled his eyes. “Here, you can use some of this.” He pulled a jar of what looked like gel out of the recesses of his purple silky cloak and handed it to Jemaine. “This is Naboo’s Miracle Wax. It’s guaranteed to give your hair extra volume. But don’t use too much.”

He should have spoken sooner. In the time it took him to say those three sentences, Bret and Jemaine had dunked their hands into the jar and put in their hair enough wax to cover all of The Rolling Stones.

“You idiots!” he exclaimed as they quickly shaped their hair this way and that.

“What?” asked Bret, now looking like a brunette Syd Vicious.

“Why are we idiots? You gave us the cream,” Jemaine replied, with a head of hair like Fab Morvan.

“You’ve used too much,” Naboo answered. “Now your hair will always be like this.”

Bret and Jemaine looked gleefully at each other.

Naboo blinked at them. “If your hair’s always like this, you can’t be cool. Cool is about changing with the styles.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bret, attempting to smooth his hair down. “Of course we can change it.” His hair didn’t budge.

Jemaine ran his fingers through his own hair, trying to straighten the mass of curls. “It seems to me you’ve made our situation worse, then. Thanks for nothing, Shaman.”

Naboo looked away with distant eyes. “If you really want to be cool, there is only one person who can help you now.”

“Someone with anti-wax?” asked Bret.

Looking from Bret to Jemaine, Naboo sighed. “I will take you to him…” he said dramatically. There was a long pause in which absolutely nothing happened. “But first, you must change. He can’t make you look cool in those pajamas.”

Welcome!

2009-07-21T00:29:27Z

Hello and welcome to my writing journal. This is where I plan to post all of my stories, essays (I'm not in college anymore; essays can be FUN now!), poetry and little comical vignettes. If you know me and are interested in keeping up with whatever I've been writing, please friend this journal. And, if you don't know me but you're still interested in some stories purely written for fun, please feel free to follow me, too. :)

Since this is a journal, comments regarding each bit of writing are definitely encouraged. I just ask that you please be kind in your critiques.

Each story will be posted chapter-by-chapter and every entry will have an appropriate tag so you can navigate your way around easily.

Requests will also be taken on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes, writing requests really help get creative thoughts going.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to entertaining you! ♥

~SBE