That Weird Feeling You Get When it's Over...

I’m BACK!!

Loyal readers, I missed you! I hope you didn’t miss me, I hope you just revelled in the joy that was four guest posts from four excellent people while I’ve been away. One more time, people, a round of applause for Alex, Hilde, Tim and Kyle. Life savers. The lot of them.

What have I been doing this past month? Well, so much. I’ve been writing assignments, and doing online quizzes, and teaching, so much teaching! And all the planning and marking and meetings that go with it. I’m glad to report that I made the right decision to get into this teaching business; I’ve learnt so much, have found something I’m good at, and it’s been wonderful. But also, it’s been exhausting.

Today, I finally handed in my last assignment for the semester. After months of hard work, and (I think) 12 pieces of assessment, it’s done, it’s all done, I am free. But instead of feeling great, I am just left with that really weird feeling that you get when something’s over. You know the feeling, like you should be doing something, but also you should be enjoying yourself, but ALSO you should relax forever and never move again. And it feels like your body and brain are moving in two different directions, possibly more. Possibly, your brain has turned into a rubrix cube… who knows?  

In the two hours since my crazy life stopped being so crazy, I have:

Sat down to watch a kids cartoon on TV.

Simultaneously played Monopoly on my phone and therefore saw nothing of the TV show.

Spoken to my mum for 20 minutes.

Picked up Boyfriend from a thing.

Washed the car.

Planted a tomato plant I bought like a week ago because it was close to death.

Started this post.

… so, a really chilled afternoon then.

It’s like, I *tried* to relax at the start there, but I haven’t been able to sit still long enough to actually turn my brain off. Why do our brains and bodies do this to us? It’s like a long-term adrenalin thing or something, like we’re keyed up to keep running long after the race is over, instead of collapsing at the finish line and enjoying a nice cider like we deserve.

Anyway, with uni over, it’ll be back to regular viewing here at Hum Drum Plum, and I might actually get around to doing some more overanalysing of things. That was fun, and everyone was very positive about it, so I better give the people what they want. Keep an eye on my facebook page for voting regards that soon.

Cheers, yo. 

The Uncomplex yet Perfect Relationship of me and Lizzy King (We are not in Love) - Guest Post by Kyle Walmsley

Today's (late) blog comes to us from Kyle Walmsley.

I live in Darwin. I am writing this blog in Queensland. Which is where Lizzy lives. Which is poignant. I won’t be seeing Lizzy while I’m here. I’ll tell you why.  I first met Lizzy King when I was running a small bookshop in Notting Hill and she was a famous actress shooting her latest movie and I happened to spill orange juice all over myself and her.

This was not how Lizzy King and I met. That’s the plot of Notting Hill. We’re also not in love. As far as I know. No. We’re not in love.. In fact we’re not even close friends. In fact I hate that bitch. Woah. Sorry, that’s not true. But our relationship isn’t as complex as Hugh Grant’s and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill… which isn’t that complex to start with… which is what I’m writing about today as guest blogger – the uncomplex relationship of Lizzy and myself through the power of social media and words.

Lizzy and I aren’t close friends. That seems like quite a stinging statement, even though I thought about it and practiced it. I really like Lizzy. She’s funny, and clever, has mad theatre skills, we both love comedy and the Kransky Sisters. In fact, our journeys matched up quite strangely the same – we both moved from Brisbane to nowhere, different nowhere, in order to embrace a change and take a break from city living.  

So why aren’t we close friends? I remember growing up, girls especially, seemed to always be pressured into having a best friend. Or a few best friends. In the theatre too, everyone likes to greet everyone with the biggest loudest, “DARLING!!!” you can manage across the room, and introduce everyone as “THIS IS ANDREA SHE’S SIMPLY THE MOST FABULOUS BEST PERSON YOU’LL EVER MEET AND I LOVE HER AND SHE’S MY BEST FRIEND!”. Which is full of insincerity and cheapens real connections. Who I want to fly a flag for are not best friends. I want to fly a flag for those friends who you don’t ever see. Those from whom you aren’t drifting further apart from, but are in fact quite stably and comfortably secured in the perimeters of their consciousness, with no guilt or anxiety about having to climb the ranks of their priority list.

My Facebook feed is made up of three categories: 1) close friends, 2) mentals and 3) Lizzy Kings.  Let me go through these for you now for a little deepening in understanding.

1) Close friends – these are people in my real life that I know. I often see them. I work with them. I know when they’re lying on Facebook, I know when they are seeking out attention, I don’t really care what they’re up to on Facebook because I’ll either see them in real life soon and hear about it, or am involved in what they’re Facebooking about.

2) Mentals – Include people I actively seek out for my own disturbing amusement. People like Annika, a 24 year old mother of three, who has lots of fights with her on again off again boyfriend via her facebook statuses and as I look over now to see what her status is it reads “F**k off you geriatric b*tch, don’t tell me “you know” how to handle my child. You’re opinion is completely unwanted here.” .  People like Steven, 28, who insist that money isn’t real, and that you are actually able to pay bills, fines and government institutions with a piece of paper that is signed and reads “this is legal tender”.

3) Lizzy Kings - These are people that I know, have shared some sort of experience with and now exist only in my news feed. I see them in real life… never. I live in a different state, a different time zone, and here’s the real hard truth – will likely not see them again, outside of bumping into them at the in the street or theatre… or the Gatton local bachelor and spinster’s ball.

These are called the Lizzy Kings because Lizzy King is the model for this category. We met in 2010, creating poetry on stage as part of a creative team that brought an independent show to Metro Arts in Brisbane. Then Lizzy became my favourite person in the world by working her connections to get me a free ticket to The Kranksy Sisters at the Powerhouse. We laughed. We cried. We fell in love again. With the Kransky Sisters. 

And that was it. That was the last time I saw Lizzy. And it’s not because I did a poo in her letterbox, or we fell out of love (we were never in love), it’s just that in life things happen, people end up in different places in the world, and some people are closer than others.

Now here’s the interesting thing. Twenty years ago, had you wanted to keep in contact with a Lizzy King, you’d have to really make an effort – write letters or use the telephone (that’s right, TELEphone… because that’s what they called phones back then). THESE DAYS every week I have a new insight and understanding of Lizzy – through this very blog and her Facebook and her postings on both. I know lots of things about her, her likes and dislikes, political opinions, and what’s she’s been up to. If I were stalking her through a dating profile website, I could totally make the conversation on our first date amazing thanks to all the interest and study I could do around her (once again, not in love). And not just Lizzy but ALL Lizzys. I know intimate details and feelings about people that I haven’t seen in years. We exchange birthday thankyous – share occasional memories of meetings past and frequently ‘like’ each others outward creative expressions… but that’s it.

And it’s awesome. In fact it’s my preference. You get to uphold images of people in your mind with just the good bits, and the filter they choose to use to broadcast to the world, heck knows, I certainly wish I could take a few relationships and erase out the boring, or frustrating bits or the bits where they got to see me have a tantrum or embarrass myself. It’s totally non-committal – I can check in on the other person whenever I feel like it, and they me. And even if they’re sick of hearing from me, I can still check in on them. It’s perfect. It’s true love (it’s not true love).

Please note – the reason this blog is late is because I didn’t submit it on time. Whatever. It’s not like I’m ever going to see Lizzy for her to get me in trouble. (Editor's note - no, but you did give me free reign with the photo...)

Kyle Walmsley circa 2010 when we knew each other IRL - Photo by Amelia Dowd. 

Kyle Walmsley is an actor and writer based in Darwin in the Northern Territory. He writes his own blog at www.imverytiredandcranky.blogspot.com

Key Examples of Why Pokémon Creators Ran Out Of Ideas... During Gen I - Guest Post by Tim Hutton

Today's Guest Post is by Tim Hutton:

Of all the people I consider my close friends, Lizzy King is one of the only who really doesn’t give a flying hoot about Pokémon.  Therefore her blog is, of course, lacking in Pokécontent and this is a terrible shame.  A terrible shame that I intend to rectify with my post:

Key Examples of Why Pokémon Creators Ran Out Of Ideas... During Gen I:

People on the internet give later generations of Pokemon a lot of flack because the creators have “run out of ideas” for new Pokemon. 

Vanniluxe is often considered the point at which Pokemon jumped the shark.

With Pokemon X and Y coming out this week, and with me unable to purchase a copy for at least 10 days, I thought I would cause a bit of an internet shitstorm by putting forward the theory that Pokemon, in fact, ran out of ideas all the way back in Gen 1 (Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow for those playing at home but not down with the cool kids’ lingo).

Example 1: Voltorb and Electrode

Voltorb is literally a Pokeball with a frowny face.  That’s it.  In the anime it’s most distinctive feature is that it explodes.  Hell, they didn’t even bother drawing a mouth on it!  Small children draw competent smiley faces.  And when you look at Voltorb’s evolution you don’t get much better:

Wow an upside-down Pokeball!  Much finesse.  Such sophistication of design.  Many... actually it looks a little too enthusiastic to be exploding there.  Never pick a fight with a man who has nothing to lose.  I would not pick a fight with an Electrode.

Example 2: Pidgey

Pidgey you are literally a pigeon.  I’m surprised your attacks aren’t “Fleas!”, “Fracking hell is that bread?!” and “Rummage through garbage.”

Example 3: Mr. Mime

Mr. Mime is the creepy malnourished clown who lives in your roof and sometimes knocks and you can hear him in the night but nobody would ever believe you.  His fingers are long with pads on the end.  Suitable for touching you.  Suitable for touching all of you.

Example 4: Magnemite & Magneton

 

Magnemite is a magnet.  Magneton is three magnets.  And they actually paid someone to come up with this.

Example 5: Diglett and Dugtrio

 

Diglett is... a mole?  A mound of dirt?  Nobody is quite sure.

Dugtrio is three... whatever Diglett is.

I sense a pattern.

Example 6: Jynx

Jynx is the unintentionally racist Pokemon.  Jynx’ original design featured a completely black face with big oversized red lips.  Yeah.  Oops.  Though actually Jynx was designed to poke fun at a fashion trend in Japan where women would bleach their hair but tan themselves really dark, it had an unfortunate resemblance to blackface. 

Despite all this, Jynx falls into Mr Mime’s camp of Creepily Proportioned Humanoids.  Not exactly a design revolution is it?

In Conclusion:

There are actually plenty more I can go on about here.  For example:

Squirtle?  Wow a turtle!  Caterpie/Metapod/Buterfree?  Holy shit it’s actually just a caterpiller.  Poliwrath?  More like Frowning Poliwhirl.  Bulbasaur?  What even are you?!  Seel?  They didn’t even bother changing the effing name.

What is my point?  Is it that I hate Gen 1 Pokemon?  No.  Of course not.  My point is that each generation has some stellar designs and some not so stellar designs.  Pokemon is, unfortunately, heavily subjected to nostalgia goggles and this is a huge problem in the gaming industry.  We want everything to be the same because it harks back to some time when games were pure, or some such nonsense like that.  The problem is that these games were objectively much worse than the games we have now!  It’s like the person who looks back and romanticises Medieval Europe but ignores things like the feudal system, or the lack of medicine. 

Tim Hutton was that kid in Grade 5. You know, the one who knew literally everything there was to know about Pokemon. Currently he is traveling the globe with not a care in the world! Except, you know, worrying constantly about missing flights and running out of money.

All’s Fair in Rain/Drizzle/Hurricane - Guest Post by Hilde Hooper

Today's Guest Post comes to us courtesy of Hilde Hooper. 

All’s Fair in Rain/Drizzle/Hurricane: or how I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cliché.

Recently I have been writing a Young Adult novel, which is distinctly different to writing because it’s in bold. Sometimes I even write and tell people I write and that’s much worse because then they want to read and I have to produce words.

And I have a confession to make:

My YA has clichés.

But you know what? Sorry. Not Sorry.

Because lately I’ve found myself thinking - clichés can be great! In fact, not only are they great but they are TRUE and they are INTERESTING and they are IMPORTANT. 

Particularly in Young Adult Fiction.

So here are my Top 5 YA Cliches and why we should show them a little love.

Number One: THE ABSENT PARENTS

The Cliché: YA novels marginalize the role of parents in teenagers lives. If they do feature parents they are either evil, stupid or don’t care.

The first time I encountered the ‘Absent Parent’ cliché was with good old Dick and Fanny (and the other ones) in The Magic Faraway Tree series.

Damn did they have an absent Mum. I don’t even know if they had a Dad.

Every day these kids would run off down to the woods to do God knows what, only to return covered in bruises, with a series of strange friends and the odd case of PTSD.

Did their mother care?

Fuck no!

All she did was give them a plate of bananas and milk and pray they fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

But despite their loving relationship with their mother (I assume she loved them, she certainly made them a lot of Victoria sponge) the parent plays a minor-at-best role in the story.

Why we should embrace it:

Parents (often) play a minor role in YA fiction because teenagers (often) want them to play a minor role in their lives.

The whole point of being a teenager is to strive for the illusive INDEPENDENCE which your parents will never understand because parents are boring and lame and sure, perhaps they were kids once but that was, like, when dinosaurs were around or at least certainly before instagramming pictures of your lunch became a social advent.

So teenagers avoid their parents, they hide things from their parents and they lie to their parents. Even if it’s something as simple as what they learnt at school, they LIE ABOUT IT because they’re STRONG INDEPENDENT TEENAGERS AND YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT’S LIKE.

Number Two: THE ‘ALWAYS ATTRACTIVE’ LOVE INTEREST

The Cliché: The love interest in YA is always super attractive. They normally have very long eyelashes.

Why we should embrace it:

I’m just going to throw this one out there –

Perhaps the reason why the love interest is always attractive is because they’re the love interest - therefore the protagonist is sexually attracted to them regardless of what they look like?

And perhaps the reader thinks the love interest is always attractive because the writer has set them up to empathise with the protagonist… because that’s kinda the goal for most writers.

Number Three: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

The Cliché: People are always falling in ‘love at first sight’ in YA novels. And the love is just too damn strong.

Why we should embrace it:

People fall in ‘Love At First Sight’ all the time.

I distinctly remember the first time I fell in love.

I was about 11 and I was watching ‘A Night in Terror Tower’ which was an amazing movie that came out as part of the Goosebumps franchise. It was set in Tudor England and there was this boy.

He was so dreamy. He had hair. And eyes. And sometimes he would say words. Oh. The Words.

Throughout my teens I fell in love at first sight a number of times.

Once I fell in love with this man:

And this man:

Once my friends and I fell in love with this guy in the grade above us. We called him ‘Whale’. We used to go ‘Whale Watching’ which was just code for us being massive creepers.

Recently I have fallen in love with these two men:

My point here is – we fall in ‘love at first sight’ all the time.

Particularly when we are teenagers. It’s the hormones and the trying-to-be-an-adult and the… sex.

Sure, the love might not be the ‘love of your life’.

But answer me this:

If that love is the best love you have yet to experience – doesn’t that make it your great love?

Your great-love-to-date?

Come on, you’ve been there. We’ve all been there.

Let’s not deny our characters the chance to go there too.

(For the record: While my love for that actor with the hair and the eyes and the words did fade, my love for Tudor history beats forever strong in my heart. So who says 11 year olds can’t fall in love?)

Oh Henry, you sexy mass murdering megalomaniac. 

Number Four: THE UNSTABLE MAIN CHARACTER

The Cliché: The Main Character always has issues OR isssssewwwss. And lots of them.

Why we should embrace it:

My Kingdom for a stable teenager.

Seriously?

No teenager is stable.

Also, from an author/reader point of view. Who wants to write/read about a stable MC? Who wants to read about the teenager from the loving family who went to the nice school, had a B+ average, played netball, had a great circle of friends, fell in perfect love with the perfect man and was never misunderstood EVER!

Ironically, that would probably be the most unrealistic YA ever written.

Number Five: BEST FRIENDS WITH RED HAIR

The Cliché: The best friend/significant other/wise one always has red hair.

Why we should embrace it:

Look.

I have red hair.

My best friend (often) has red hair. We are best friends with best friends with red hair.

Embrace that.

  

So next time you find yourself hunched over your computer, crying the salty wet tears of the writer trying to write and drowning in a sea of clichés –

Step back and ask yourself why you’re encountering the cliché in the first place. It is because you’re walking through the valley of the shadow of writers block?

Or is it because in those clichés you have found something new and interesting?

A story you want to write and write and WRITE.

Hilde works in a museum and writes lots of words. One day she hopes to finish her YA novel. It features 3 of the above clichés.