Still Hardly Working

So two and a half years ago, I made a post called "Hardly Working" that showed all the random pictures that I drew while I worked at Random Department Store, Inc. Well, here is the sequel, only this time I shall paint you a picture with WORDS.

Oooooooooh.

So, the queues at my current job are completely empty and have been for the past four hours. So, because my supervisors are cool and devious at the same time, they sent us creative writing prompts to keep us busy. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I'll admit, I've actually been having way to much fun with these. Just like Obama & the Kangaroo, I decided to let my mind wander off the beaten path and just do whatever the bleep it wants.


Prompt: Create an advertisement (three to five paragraphs) using this image as your inspiration:

"Allow me to sing you the song of my people."

Now, to me, it looks like these guys are sharing in some particularly hilarious joke. As a result. here is what I spawned:

=====

Do you ever feel like the Netherworld is just a little too dreary at times? Our home may be riddled with trillions of dead folks, but that doesn't mean we have to act like it! Even Hades needs a chuckle once every few millennia.

As the sole proprietor of "Funderworld," I am here to bring the gift of laughter back into your afterlife. My improv training seminars give you the tools you need to tickle the funny bone of everyone you meet.

Whether you bump into the head of a somber guillotine victim down by the River Styx or a dispirited pioneer who has still not gotten over their death from dysentery on the Oregon Trail, I teach you how to transform any situation into a gold mine of comedic wonder. Along with my fellow humor instructors and the jocular antics of Cerberus, my in-depth classes are sure to make you a veteran member of the Army of the Fundead in as little as 37 years! Transform your eternal afterlife into the Laughterlife by enrolling today.

Contact Komos on the outskirts of the Fields of Asphodel to register for his posthumous and post-humorous training sessions.

=====

AKA; My life in a nutshell.

Also, shout out to the person in Romania that's actually reading this. "Vă mulțumim!" ;)

House Cups & Prompts

At the behest of Amelia de Mimsy Porpington (yes that was a Harry Potter reference), I was told to put my latest prompt writing on here. So here I go!

Prompt: Write about an injury.


This was it. I was dead.

By the looks on everyone's faces, I knew.

The pain was excruciating -- it was an intense searing the likes of which I had never before experienced, and I knew I never would again.

The wound was deep. My enemy had sliced me clean through.

Cold. Mechanical.

Deliberate.

Agonizing screams erupt from my throat and fell deaf on my ears. I drifted in slow motion towards the ground, seemingly defying gravity.

I was floating, my body now in two pieces.

I landed almost poetically on the ground, my eyes fixed upward. I saw the glint of steel and felt the cold, snipping voice whisper in my ear.

"I'm sorry, my friend," he hissed, grinning. "Scissors cuts paper."



==================


I'll admit, I had way more fun writing that than I should have. ;D

Oh, and speaking of Harry Potter from earlier, Shellie and I went back on Pottermore last week after two years of inactivity to read the newest JK Rowling story (awesomeness), but we decided to create new accounts. So we both re-took the Sorting Hat quiz.

Both of us were in Hufflepuff originally (shocker there), so we were curious to see what would happen.

Two years later, I am a Ravenclaw (ka-KAW!) and Shellie is. . .

. . . A Slytherin.

I knew that chick was evil.

All Roads Lead to Murder. . .

This week's prompt, as stated before:  You're in a motel.

Go.

~~~

He comes here every Thursday like clockwork.  He walks in the room, takes off his trench coat, and throws it on the broken armchair.

He thinks no one can see him.

But I do.

From under the bureau I can see him.  I can smell his cologne.

He pushes the rickety bed across the floor with a screech.

Every time.

The trapdoor is exposed.  He opens it and lowers himself down gingerly.  He stays down there for forty-five minutes exactly, a constant thump thump below the floorboards.  He climbs up and moves the bed back to its original position, as if nothing happened.  He lies on the quilt, wiping the sweat off his brow, a serene grin on his face.  He dozes.

He thinks he's alone.

He thinks he's free.

He thinks no more.

~~~

I know, it's really dramatic for a comedy blog, right? Eh, but what're ya gonna do?  Another thing we like to do is Amy (whom I have now dubbed Crown Grandmaster of Writermonies) will show us a picture and we have to write a line or so based on the picture.  I wish I could show them to you, so instead I will describe.

The first week was a picture of a broken window in an old wooden house.  This is my response:

"Hello, again," he whispered with a smirk, his pliers grasped firmly in his weathered hand.

The second week we saw a picture of a white sandy beach with mountains in the background.  Pretty much a screensaver.

The scenery is beautiful here.  Rumbling waves, the green mountains, the sand. . .  The sand that is currently in every annoying crevice of my body as I'm buried up to my neck, completely alone and helpless.  Oh no, my nose itches!

Kinda lame, but whatevs!  And finally, this week's picture prompt was a pair of red loafers placed neatly leaning against a plaster house near some white ropes and some stairs.

Maybe no one would notice that his dark red boating shoes had once been a pristine white.

Soooo I'm sensing a pattern here.

Apparently everything I write has to involve death or murder in some way (with the exception of the sand one.  Well, maybe he dies if the tide comes in.).  I need to stray away from this madness!  Not every story needs murder!  "Only the ones worth telling," says my creeper murderous alter-ego.  "Who doesn't love a good murder?"

Yesssssssssssssss. . . *Insane creepy grin*

Okay so I'm gonna go attempt to work on my play for NaNoWriMo again.  We got 21 days left and I still have 12,500 words left!  Aaack!

P.S. Next week's prompt is this:

Once, when no one was watching. . .

All roads lead to murder!

The Writers Meeting & NaNoWriMo

Hey everyone!  Sorry it took me three months to write again. . .  I'd come up with excuses, but I seem to do that a lot sooooo I'm just gonna ignore that and act like absolutely no time has passed.

Hooray it's still March!

Anyway, so back in February my friend and fellow writer Amy and I started a weekly get-together that we have dubbed the Writers Meeting (how original!).  She is in the process of writing this wondrously awesome novel (a trilogy, as a matter of fact!) and I am writing a musical set to the songs of the band Ludo!  Whoo!

We started this meeting as a means of sharing ideas and helping each other further our creativity, and it's been great!  Recently we even expanded our group to include Shellie (remember her???) and Amy's roommate Jamie (Amy and Jamie.  Yup.)

Shellie, Amy and I decided to try our hand at participating in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  You write a novel in an entire month and get help from fellow participants online.  It's technically in November, but they've started something really cool called Camp NaNoWriMo where it takes place during July.  Yay, virtual summer camp full of geeks!  My kind of crowd.  =D

So I'll be focusing all my time and energy on this play because it's been a year in the making and I finally am going to complete it!  Whoo!  =D

I've found a good way to keep up with Midnight Porkchop while simultaneously working on the play!

Recently at our Writers Meetings, we have been using prompts just to get our creative juices flowing.  So I am going to share them with you!  Every Monday night at 5:30, 4:30 central, yo!  (Well, that's when our meetings are.  I'll probably publish them that night sometime.  Oh and also not next week because Amy has to hang out with her fiance instead of us.  What a horrible person.)

But here's a little ditty to hold you guys over for a while!

~~~~~

Prompt:
You're standing in a doorway.

"Don't forget to pack your underwear," she said, lazily leaning against the door frame.  Did she think this was some kind of joke?  Lives are at stake here!

I threw the jackets haphazardly in the corner.  I wouldn't need them where I was going.  I heard a loud rumbling noise above me and I gasped and jumped under the bed.

"It's just an airplane," she scoffed.

I climbed over a pile of boots that I wasn't bringing either.  I looked down at the settings on my ankle cuff.

Fifteen seconds until detonation.

I didn't have time for anything.

I breathed deeply and turned to Robin and grinned.

"Well, you might wanna move quick, or soon we'll both be artwork on the walls."

Her eyes widened.  She looked at my ankle.  I closed my eyes.

Beep.  Beep.  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

~~~~~

Prompt:

You found out something you weren't supposed to know.

I run.  I run with all my might, leaves and trees a dark blue blur in the cold night.  My breathing is harsh and ragged and there's a stitch in my side, but I have to keep going.

Oh God, I can hear him behind me!  Calling to me, pleading to me in a hauntingly harmonic voice.  He doesn't sound out of breath.

Keep moving!

I gasped and suddenly the ground becomes my sky.  I tripped on a root, or was it a corpse?  I land with an echoing crack on the forest floor and the most excruciating pain enflames my ankle.  My eyes are closed as I will the pain and nauseating dizziness to subside for even the briefest of moments.

Silence.  No noise at all except the cacophonous drum beat of my heart.  Oh, God.

He's here.

 I dare to open my eyes.  I am met with a pale blue moon.  No, two moons.

His eyes.

"Darling," he whispers, like the purr of a lion.  He smiles, a serene, enchanting mask that covers the madman within.

My heart freezes as if I have been doused in ice-cold water.  He seductively caresses the silver of his revolver, a dark substance glittering on his cheek.  His eyes are now black.

"Darling," he coos, "you should have told me you'd be home early."

~~~~~

All right, guys, stay tuned for the next installment!  Maybe I'll even post Shellie's or Amy's excerpts next time, depending if they allow me the honor.

The prompt for next week is:

You're in a motel room.

Why, anything can happen.  ;)

UPDATE: Apparently Google Chrome is trying to tell me that "enflames" is not a word.  Well, in my world it is, so I'm keeping it.  Good riddance!

It's España, My Main Maña.

Hello, everyone!  Or should I say, "Hola!"

I'm in Spain!  What what!

I'm on a study abroad in Santander in the north of Spain until the end of July.  It's pretty sweet.

Oh, how sweet, you ask?

Well, this is the view from my room.

Is that the beach right there? Um yeah, I think it is.

Suck on that, fellas!

Hahaha But anyway I have been drawing a comic but my computer decided to be evil last night when I was finishing the last frame and DELETED IT so I have to draw that part all over again! Gah!  But it should be up soon!  And I will post some stuff about the crazy people here too later.  This upcoming one is work-related.

The next one shall be pleasure-related. ;D

(Not really.)

(At least, not in the sexual way.)

(Yeah.)

Okay adios por ahora!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Research Method

I have the hardest time writing research papers.

Yeah I know, everyone has the hardest time with that.  But I can only begin to write them when they are literally due the next morning as soon as I wake up.  Otherwise I will never write them.  I've tried making outlines beforehand, I've tried highlighting and dog-earing and all that other crap, but nothing works.  I just have to sit down and just do it.  It's work under pressure or don't work at all, and I usually prefer the not at all part.

However.

I recently rediscovered this...let's call it "research method" that I had written a couple years ago for my European History class (called Core II).  It was every M-W-F at 8am.  What was I thinking?

We had to write three six-page papers throughout the semester, each comparing and contrasting ideals between different books and essays from dead guys I could care less about.

And I never read any of them.

I got away with Sparknotes and skimming through used highlighted copies of the books I got from the bookstore.  But even that was not enough to get me to write that first paper.

I sat at my computer, staring at the blank Microsoft Word document, contemplating how in the world I was going to fill six pages (with parenthetical citations) of constitutional monarchies and oligarchies and other archies I didn't understand.  Finally I decided that I was just going to start typing and see how it all panned out.

The result is the following:

 ________________________________________________________________

P-- Hello and welcome to my freakin’ awesome core two paper. Here with me today are Misters Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill. Say hi, fellas.

J-- Why hello there, young lady.

E-- Yes, bonjour.

P--They are going to help me with my paper about their books! No offense, guys, but they were both pretty grueling to get through.

J--Oh, no offense taken, Miss Ganzelli! Our essays were never actually intended to be analyzed for mundane school assignments.

P-- Really?

E-- Oh, indubitably! We wrote them just to be annoying and boring!

P-- Well, it sure worked, Ed. It sure worked.

E-- Why, thank you!

P-- Anyway, how should we start this thing? There are so many aspects of your essays I have no idea where to begin!

J-- Well, the prompt is to write how we view restrictions on liberty and revolution, correct? So we should just categorize the points: Start with what we actually think liberty is and the differences between civil and social liberty (and social contracts). Then move to the importance of this liberty, but include how it should be regulated so as to avoid things like tyranny of the majority and prevailing opinion. Be sure to include things such as religious tolerance, although Mr. Burke here believes in an established church, the weirdo.

E-- Hey! I have my reasons! And you shall hear about them soon enough when she actually starts writing this paper! Besides, you’re anti-Catholic anyway and Patty here is a Catholic!

J-- Oh… Well this is awkward…

P-- ANYWAY!

JE-- Sorry, Miss Ganzelli.

J-- Now, remember to include that we don’t want complete silencing of opinions because this would create chaos and would indeed lead to revolution. Then, with that, you segway into our thoughts on revolution and how it should be limited and only used as a last resort.

E-- Yeah, like how I felt that the French Revolution was a complete screw-up and should have been dealt with differently. If you’re gonna change a government to a democracy, copy off the Americans! They know what’s up!

P-- Whoo! USA! USA!

J-- Yes, yes, America’s awesome, and Burke’s in love with William and Mary and the Glorious Revolution—

E--That’s the right kind of revolution!

J--But where are you going to fit in his ideas for governmental changes such as the balance of power and absolute versus constitutional monarchies?

P-- Hmm… I guess maybe if I don’t have enough with all the other stuff I’m going to write about, I can throw that stuff in there somewhere. Who knows, maybe it’ll help make my other points about revolution stronger when talking about slow, gradual reforms and such.

E-- Alright, that sounds like a plan. Even though I don’t appreciate having my genius ideologies randomly tossed into a paper like a Waldorf salad!

J-- Oh, can it, Eddie.

E-- Up yours, Johnny!

P-- Okay. I think I’m starting to feel pretty good about this. I think I can do this!

J-- That’s the spirit, Patty!

P-- Alright, I’ll save the introduction for last because that’s always the hardest part and I always change where my thoughts are going and never stay true to what I originally put, so I’ll start with the liberty paragraph!

JE-- Huzzah!

P-- Okay, here I go! And thanks, guys!

E-- Ah, ‘twas our pleasure, mademoiselle. If you need anything, feel free to pick up our books!

J-- And don’t forget to use the word “despotism” no less than a dozen times!

P-- I will! See ya later, Eddie and Johnny!

JE-- Farewell, Miss Ganzelli!

*POOF!*

P--Now to get cracking on my paper… 

 _______________________________________________________________

And I got a 103% on that.

Since then, this has been my core means of completing research papers and essays.

Since then, I have aced every single one of the aforementioned research papers and essays.

 Since then, I have come to the following conclusions:

Number One:

I highly recommend you try this.  It turns something horrible and potentially suicidal-thought-inducing into something fun and easier to understand.  It's a slightly more enjoyable and interesting version of an outline.

And Number Two:

I would be the coolest friggin history teacher in the world.

You're welcome.

SHELLIE HAS OVERTAKEN THIS BLOG!!!!!

MWA HA HA HA HA!!!!

NO MORE LAME JOKES AT MY EXPENSE!!! :P

Aaaaand I'm gonna go! Bye viewers! Feel free to read this blog now that it's about to become more awesome. :D

- Awesome and not at all lame Shellie