Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sock Drawers

WARNING: Will contain the random and probably offbeat observations of an untrained, inexperienced self-psychiatrist.

More footwear, hm... I wonder if I should worry about this or not. I get addicted to something and then simply love it for awhile before it goes out of phase of awhile until it comes back, strong as ever. Talking about footwear seems to be on my mind a lot. Strange.

Anyway, so many people say that looking someone's sock drawer is like looking into their mind and their personality and whatnot. I say rubbish! My sock drawer doesn't really hold only socks and it's mostly a mess. Unless Mom's put my clothes away for me, and then the socks are all matched together in their neat little pairs and piled on top of each other... I, honestly, prefer that my socks are jumbled about. I like wearing mismatched socks because it reminds me that clothing really aren't important.

>.> Not that I need that reminder often. Hm...

I prefer to see my sock drawer as a bank for my stories. Most of my stories lie in jumbled heaps piled every which way, sometimes tangled together to form one great big story. And my stories are not my mind at all.

Anyway, I've got Ales to thank for starting the whole sock thing. Although, I suppose I should thank Mig, because he was the one who gave me the idea for that "short" story from which Ales's character sprang. Ales was a major character, then a minor character, and then a major character. She literally changed so much she unraveled and fell apart until there was nothing more than a heap of yarn. That's when I first thought about the socks. As Ales developed, there came Peredith, who was a crisp, little sock. Peredith never did gain any holes, one reason I think I never did get around to working further on Two Moons, or whatever I was calling Ales and Peredith's story.

The socks with the biggest holes are the best developed characters and stories. They're the ones I've worn the most, and loved the most. The ones with no wholes or the socks that have completely fallen apart are the ones that have absolutely no character or epicness about them.

Noise is like a big pair of fuzzy socks that I pull on whenever I'm not feeling so great. That usually means I end up just sitting around and not doing anything, but I like my Noise socks. Keil's this big rainbow strip running down the whole outside of one of the socks. Ashleigh and Neptune are big blotches on the other side of Keil's sock, with Cascade and Drew stuffed in between them. Adrian's mobias strip earrings are the major shape on the other sock, with the New Genesis symbol, Eloise's little brown teddy-bare, Graze's guitar, Olson's briefcase, Sierra's and Kat's symbols, and the other various things I like about Noise.

There are a few pairs of socks that I wish I could forget about. Rebellious Stars is a pair of socks that was handknitted by a five year old. Meaning that that pair of socks is all brown, have no shape, and will never fit anything. Fall of the Fox isn't much better, looking exactly like the Rebellious Stars pair except for the fact that they have "Star Wars spinoff" plastered over them. Mags falls into that kind of smelly, worthless sock category. The only sock that I keep in that part of the draw that I actually care about it Pellie. Pellie was my first story. 9 pages long, typed, and about a girl named Pellie (duh). At the time, I and the person I named "Cruwa" after, thought it was simply amazing. Epic in epic proportions. Let's just say... it's not.

Count the Rocks is another pair. Well, actually, it's a handkerchief stuffed with several different character socks, because I definitely think CtR is "strong" because of its characters, not it's story like. Kal, Rick, Marisa and Constance are my favorite. They're all brightly colored, with several nice holes. Kat, Vladicof, and Rina are almost as good, but not quite. Laru, Jacob, Mary and most of the other characters from that story fall a little flat and could use some work, but I really do enjoy that story, occasionally.

In one corner of the drawer are the socks that I've stolen. I do enjoy fanfiction, occasionally. Mostly Percy Jackson and the Olympians, because that's what I've written the most of. Some Doctor Who too, although most of those are very blank, drab socks. There's a mixture of Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Narnia, lots of great stories and characters thrown in that corner too.

The biggest mess in the current one, a concoction mixed between Cheerful Goodbyes, Night Sky, Phoenix, and Shackles. They're all together, but those four stories are the only one that will simply not blend with each other. They're all so different. And yet, I never seem to be able to separate them for long, because they all want to get written. I've got other stories of course, but this is long enough already without me going into any more beyond these four.

Cheerful Goodbyes is the one that's changed the most. Seriously, that story idea started when I imagined a princess and prince jumping on a big bed together. Actually, the bed I was picturing is the king's bed from Sleeping Beauty, I believe. I mean, that bed is huge! That has shifted to become a arranged marriage situation. Then I threw in a cousin who happened to be a seer. And then the story shifted to be more about the girl, Jocelyn and the Prince, Stephan and how they handle this seer who gets men to rise up around her and fight. Anyway, that story is the dainty, delicate argyle socks that I don't wear often but I can't seem to give up.

Phoenix is... hm... I'd say Phoenix is the running pair of socks. I mean, a little bit of everything happens in Phoenix. It's even got elements from the Ales and Peredith story that I mentioned above (which is completely debunked, by the way). But Phoenix is probably be my most normal fantasy, simply because it's probably my only fantasy that's got regular, fantastical creatures in it and even then... just the phoenixes and fairies. But it's full of action and some tragedy, so, yeah. Definitely the running socks.

As for Night Sky (working title), I'm not sure. Right now, it's my favorite pair, but I really don't understand. Why do all my stories end up addressing racism? I suppose I'll have to rant about that in another post. Anywho... Night Sky started as almost a crackstory. So many stories have been written about a girl becoming a knight, and so, of course I go and ask the unaddressable question. Sigh... I'm not even that well educated in the subject! NS has developed into the sword and magic story that I think almost every fantasy writer needs to try at least once, but with a few twists. I think Night Sky is the fuzzy socks that aren't as warm as the Noise socks, nor as comforting.

Shackles (-snorts-) is the black socks, the ones that can't get any dirtier than they already are because it's so tragic. I mean, seriously, I do everything possible to Ohtli short of killing her. Wait, sorry. That's a lie. Ohtli dies. So... I do everything possible short of killing the majority (minority, maybe? =P) of her friends. It's such a dark story.

Black socks, they never get dirtier.
The longer you wear them,
The stronger they get.
Sometimes, I think I should launder them,
But something keeps telling me
Don't wash them yet,
Not yet,
Not yet.

1307 words. Wow. I think I lost track of my word count. Anyway, there's my sock drawer.

2 comments:

  1. Only you would find a way to compare stories to socks =)

    Oh, goodness...Pellie...*laughs*

    Great...now you've got me trying to figure out what kind of sock Fireflies would be...perhaps a handknitted one, still unfinished, that was knitted to match a sock I had owned and loved for five years?

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