The Midnight Train Going Anywhere

I've stared at this blank text box for about ten minutes now, racking my brain for any possible thing to write about. Sad, isn't it, when your life is so boring that all you have to write about it how boring said life is. And then I began to wonder when I last posted an excerpt from my sequel. Being pathetially lazy, as usual, I decided not to check and just post something. But as I am writing this, I realize that I should probably check, forcing me to open a new Internet Explorer browser. Ah, alright. The last thing I posted was from chapter 43; I am currently writing chapter 50. I'll post the excerpt at the end.

So it seems that today my life took a downhill turn. I cut my finger open on a knife and, sadly, did not slice a nerve (...Sarah...). Along with that, I have to read a book on World History. I admit freely that I greatly despise nonfiction, my passion for reading and writing aside. And what's worse, it's the history of the world through drinks. Yes, I get to read about wine, beer, tea, coffee, and soda. The ironic part? It's school-assigned. I'm supposed to read it for AP World History next year. Now don't get me wrong, I love world history. Just as long as I don't have to read a novel about it.

Alright, I wrote the first paragraph of this post at 10 am. It is now 8 pm. The reason is that I started looking for an excerpt then needed to cross-reference something with the first book, so I opened that document. Then I got distracted reading it; I'm about halfway through at the moment. It astounds me how much my writing has changed. Besides that, the first book seems so much lighter. Funnier. More innocent. All the characters are much more serious in the second one. My little children are growing up! *Tear* It's hard for me to recognize how I feel about my writing in the first book. It's pretty good, in my opinion (sorry if I sound ridiculously conceited), but I think I like my recent writing style more. But I suppose the second book is supposed to be more serious. And damn, is it going to be long. I've covered about two weeks of Kia's life so far and there's one week left. Or six and a half days, to be exact. Right now the page count is at 142 pages, just five pages short of the first one. And there lies another oddity: though the second one is only five pages shorter (as of now) than the first, it's nearly five thousand words less. The first one has 42,891 words, and the second only 37,007. Strange. So I suppose I've done two-thirds of the sequel. That means I have half of what I've already done to do. Half of 142 is...seventy-one. 142 plus seventy-one is...213. And if you add a few pages for an epic ending...215-220 pages. Dear God. And the third one is going to definitely be longer. Am I looking at a three-hundred page ordeal for the final book? Lord knows I might have shot myself in the head by then.... And how am I going to manage this all when school starts?

I'll be taking all honors classes, which guarantees several hours of homework each night. Not only that, but we have a year-long research project for biology. Lord knows English will be as easy as it's always been for me (except when some teachers decide my essays are too long....), and I've never had a problem with History/Civics. Biology (nix the research project) will be simple enough since I love science. And then we have Geometry. I hate math; I always have. I'm not very good at it (just taking a different grade-level of it), and it doesn't seem to like me. I nearly failed 6th grade math, although I blame it on a totally different curriculum and a horrible teacher. Seventh grade math was perhaps the easiest class I've ever taken since it was so simple it could have reduced me to tears. And then last year.... I had an amazing teacher, but still managed to get mostly B's all year. I did end up with a 4.0 in the end, but only because of my final exam. If you look at my report card it goes: A, B+, B, B+, and then the final exam was an A. Thank God that my average first quarter was a 98 or I never would have made it. So I ended up with an A. But enough about that.

That's why I have to at least semi-secure an agent before the summer ends in September (all you starting-school-in-August-people fail epically). If I don't, I'll be absolutely swamped. my writing will trickle to a slow halt around October, before starting back up again at Thanksgiving. I'll have to put away my storytelling until midterms are over, but during winter break I can revitalize my writing. After that is a myriad of three-day weekends, then the inevitable trip to Cancun. Before I know it it'll be spring break and I hope to go somewhere. Whether it be on a school trip (probably France since I'm taking French, although I wonder if I could go to Germany if the German department does a trip there) or with my family (New York, please!) is yet to be decided. And then it'll be my birthday, which will lead into final exam season at school where the life will be sucked out of me by studying for Geometry. Finally I'll finish all the tests, and I won't give a damn about the score because I'll be happy it's over. Then the week-long movie marathon in classes starts. Before I know it, it'll be the last day of school and Susannah will be crying of course, and she'll make me cry like last time. The next day I'll be sitting at home, lounging around being my old boring self. Two weeks later I'll be off to camp and get to escape Virginia. I'll see everyone again, and I'll be an LIT so it'll be even more enjoyable. I'll get to see Annah, and Hollis, and Sarah, and JR, and Papi, and Mommy.... And then, three weeks later, it'll end. I'll fly back home with Sarah. And a year from today, I would have only recently dropped Sarah at the airport so she could fly back down to Alabama. Who knows: perhaps I'll be writing a blog post a year from now. Maybe I'll be a published author. Maybe I'll have a boyfriend. Who knows? Who knows what the future's going to bring?

Gosh, that did spiral into something. I suppose what the point of that evolved into was that time goes by so quickly. Time is a curious thing, after all. It absolutely fascinates me. If you're ever in a horrid situation, I'll probably something along the lines of: "Just think: in no time at all you'll be lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep. And this'll all be over." Most people don't truly understand that. What I think I mean is that time goes by so fast. And there's always something to look forward to. Because you won't be stuck in one moment forever. (I won't even start on what just came to mind because I fear this blog will explode from too much content.) It must sound horribly cliché to say this, but: things will get better. If you wait it out, it'll be okay. And by wait it out, I do not, by any means, mean to sit back and watch it happen. Change comes to those who instigate change. If there's something wrong in your life, only you can change it. The future isn't set in stone, and you can't take back things that have already happened. Time's a tricky fellow, if nothing else. He gives nothing back and gives no hints as to the future. Forgiveness is the only key to changing the past, and then you are only changing your feelings about an incident. And the only gateway to the future is planning. Even then, you don't know for certain. But time will pass, and soon the present will be what you used to know as "the future." And the present will become the past. I doubt that there should really be anything called "the present." Because even when you finish the word "present", that word has already become the past, and it is already describing what you though of as "the future." So how do you make the most of your time? You become perfect in your own eyes. Yours. No one else's. Be the person who you truly want to be, or I fear that time will envelop you and you will be naught but a memory to those of us in the future. Care about not what people think, but about what you think. Learn to think as a single entity, rather than in a group. Personalize your opinions and ideas. Do not apply general labels to your beliefs. I say that I am a Christian, but that I do not agree with everything in the Bible. Does that make me not a Christian? If someone belittles you, stand up for yourself. And if some belittles someone else who is not strong enough to stand up for themselves, stand up for them.

I feel almost hypocritical. Seeing as a year ago, I was on the brink of suicide. Now I sound like a brochure for a fucking self-empowerment seminar. Anyways, I think I should just publish this post now since Internet Explorer just crashed as I was writing this.

I’ll post an excerpt tomorrow, I promise. It just seems that this post has become a bit too long for it to be an acceptable length.

Ciao