Step 56: Confess (Day 11/12/13)

NGL, I've been slacking off on #authorconfession because I've been playing waaaaaay too much Final Fantasy XV.

Just look at this smarmy fuck. How can you not spend obscene amounts of time gazing into his sultry eyes?

So without further ado, here are my catch-up answers:

Day 11. WORD COUNT REPORT!

At the present time, I have three WIPs in various stages of completion. Their word counts are as follows:

• WIP #1: ~90,000 words (way too long)
• WIP #2: ~70,000 words (much more reasonable)
• WIP #3: ~50,000 words (but I expect it to land somewhere between WIP #1 and WIP #2's length)
• Final Fantasy XV: 90+ hours (I have no life)

Considering it's only been fairly recently that I've taken writing seriously, the fact that I've literally written nearly three entire books in less than two years definitely feels like I've leveled up as a creative artist.

Fist bump, anyone? No? Well, okay then.

Day 12. Rate your WIP from tame to steamy.

Here's a little TMI tidbit about myself: I love steamy books. When I was an early teenager, I used to pilfer my mom's trashy romance novels from her when she wasn't looking and skip ahead to the hot stuff. I wrote filthy Star Wars fanfiction long before I ever lost my virginity, and now that I'm hoping to write professionally for a living, you can bet I'm going to try and shoehorn sexy scenes into my WIPs when and where appropriate.

Final Fantasy XV: The gif(t) that keeps on giving.

That said, there actually isn't a lot of gratuitous smut in any of my WIPs. They're contemporary YA books, not adult romance novels, which means that the sexy stuff serves the plot instead of visa versa. WIP #1 has a few steamy kisses, but no actual copulation; WIP #2 does have a sex scene in it, but the deed is less Cruel Intentions-level sexy and more The 40 Year Old Virgin-level embarrassing; WIP #3 depicts yet another sex scene, but one of the characters is fantasizing about a former lover rather than the one currently between their legs.

Like this, but even more awkward.

Day 13. Who'd make the worst couple in your WIP?

Focusing on the most "complete" of my WIPs, I'd argue that the worst couple in my MS had already gotten together and broken up prior to the events of the book. It's one of the sources of conflict in the story--ex flame meets new flame, chaos ensues--and as bad as they were for each other when they were a couple, at the same time they were seemingly the only people on the planet who could love the other in spite of their faults.

I'm terrified of accidentally spoiling the FFXV plot by looking for more gifs, so here's one from the Bad Romance video instead.

And that's all for today! Keep an eye out for more thinly veiled excuses to spam this blog with Final Fantasy XV trash #authorconfession posts!

Step 55: Confess (Day 9/10)

I finally figured out how to save all those photos Prompto takes in Final Fantasy XV to my hard drive, and boy do I have some gems.

brb getting my ass kicked

I still have a million about 149 more to go through, so until I get them all downloaded I'll catch up on yesterday and today's #authorconfession:

Day 9. Meanest thing you've done to a character?

I suppose the easy answer to this would be to simply refer readers of this blog to yesterday's post, but where's the fun in that? Other than physically killing one off, the second meanest thing I've probably done to any character is put them through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. A series of unfortunate events, if we're running with the bad literary puns. Their day starts off with so much potential, but after stepping in puke, discovering their car won't start, having their secret outed by a friend, and ending up in one of the most awkward and embarrassing sexual situations of their life, their spirit is finally broken.

And then someone dies.

My MC, after Chapter 18.

Day 10. You'd be most excited to see your WIP _______.

Embraced. That's all I could really ask for as a writer--to have readers embrace the story I've woven. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the best I was able to spin with the literary skills I have currently available to me, and if even one person reads the book and then immediately hugs their Kindle after finishing it, it would make me a very *happy camper.

*You know what else makes me a happy camper? Ignis camping happily.

A secondary pipe dream would be to see either parts of the book illustrated, or eventually entirely adapted into graphic novel form; the story began life as a comic book, and I think it would be really cool to watch it come full circle from how I had originally envisioned it ten years ago. One person on the #authorconfession Twitter feed mentioned how they'd love to see their story on the big screen, and while I don't think my book would really be great movie fodder, I could totally imagine it being translated into a shōjo-style anime à la Kareshi Kanojo no Jijō.

Where it's hard to tell apart the boys from the girls.

Step 54: Confess (Day 8)

Today in Final Fantasy XV news: I need to work on my aim when spellcasting.

Even Noctis is judging my poor hand-eye coordination.

Which is tangentially related to today's #authorconfession:

Day 8. How do you cope with killing your darlings?

To date, I have only killed off one character in any my WIPs, which is one more than my liking. The answer is: it was hard. I knew when I started that particular manuscript that the character was going to die, and had hoped that by accepting their fate early on, I'd be able to fortify my resolve to go through with it when the time came.

Spoilers: I waffled. A lot.

In the end, I did manage to pull the trigger (so to speak), but I experienced an odd period of mourning over the loss of a fictional character conceived entirely in my own head. Said character wasn't particularly likable, to be perfectly frank--they were always meant to be somewhat of an antagonist to the MC. An antithesis, if you will, of what the MC could have been had their life taken a different path.

But the character grew on me over the course of writing the book, and their untimely death was a direct result of the tragedies they sustained in life. In some ways their demise was preventable, and in other ways it wasn't; in the end, my hope is that the impact they left in their wake will keep them alive in the minds of readers and other characters alike.

Step 52: Confess (Day 7)

I'm going to start tagging some of these posts with a #FinalFantasyXV label becAUSE OMG THIS GAME GIVES ME ALL THE FEELSSSSS

CHOCOBROS 4 LIFE Y'ALL

Ahem. Onto the #authorconfession:

Day 7. Tell us about a CONFLICT in your WIP

My current MS is a YA contemporary romance, so most of the conflict in the book revolves around the usual teen angst: bad grades, problematic exes, school bullies, etc. The two MCs find common ground that helps them to resolve these issues, but there's a slow-burning mystery that I think is the real meat-and-potatoes of the plot.

LAYERS UPON LAYERS

Without delving into massive spoilers, my hope is that upon finishing the book readers will realize how this mystery ultimately influenced the choices of one of the characters throughout the story, and perhaps encourage them to reread the novel with this newly enlightened knowledge. Barring that, it certainly sets up some interesting dilemmas for any *future installments!

*Which may or may never see the light of day depending on whether my first book crashes and burns.

Step 51: Confess (Day 4/5/6)

I didn't keep up with #authorconfession over the weekend because I was too busy being complete and utter Final Fantasy XV trash (apologies to my Twitter followers).

I REGRET NOTHING

But I'm back at it again with the white vans, so here are my answers for the last three days worth of questions, compiled into one blog post for all two of you who might be reading this!

Day 4. Which celeb would play your MC?

The narrator of my WIP is sort of an everygirl, and is essentially just an avatar for the reader to project themselves onto. To that end, I spared most of the details of her appearance so that the reader might conjure up their own image of her.

The secondary MC, on the other hand, has a very specific set of physical attributes defined in the novel. I described her as a strange beauty with "elven-like features that were angular yet delicate" and hair so red it was "as if Hades himself had lit a pilot light over her head and had forgotten to turn the stove off". I've cycled through various celebrity comparisons in my brain over the course of writing the book, and I think I've finally settled on the love child of Tilda Swinton and a young David Bowie.

They're kind of the same person anyway TBH

Day 5. Be honest: How's your world building?

One of the earliest critiques I received from a beta reader was my weak world building. The setting of my current WIP is a small town in New Hampshire, and yet I had done nothing to really describe the uniqueness of life in the far Northeast. Sure, there was snowy weather in my book, but exactly what kind of snow? Was it the fluffy kind that feels chewy when you eat it, or the miserable wet kind that leaves residue from the salt-treated sidewalk on your nice leather boots? It took this Southern California native going to New Hampshire over the course of three Christmases and strolling around rural neighborhoods in sub-freezing temperatures to fully absorb the nuanced details of what living there was really like.

It's kind of like that.

So I can confidently say that my world building has improved a great deal from my earliest drafts. I may not have invented a whole new Planetos à la George R. R. Martin in A Song of Ice and Fire, but at least my teenagers are now eating lunch in the dead of winter inside an actual cafeteria building instead of outside on a quad because that's all I knew when I was in high school.

Day 6. How do you show diversity in your work?

We're treading dangerously close to spoiler territory, so I'll have to remain tight-lipped on the details of this answer. Admittedly, my cast is almost entirely white (an unfortunate byproduct of it being set in Caucasianland, NH), but I hope to rectify that oversight in future novels. What I can say is that this book is firmly rooted in the LGBTQ+ genre, so hopefully some underrepresented voices will find enjoyment with my story.

It's gonna bE FABULOUUUUUUUUUSSSS

Step 50: Confess (Day 3)

Day 3 of #authorconfession! Today's prompt(o)***:

What is the best compliment you've had?

This is a tough question to answer, because A) I haven't shown my WIP to too many people yet, and B) validation often comes disguised in the form of a rejection. I've had several agents read my full and compliment my strong writing and voice even when they've passed on the MS, and my current WIP was selected for #PitchWars, which says to me that someone out there felt like I had a story worth telling.

I write lies for a living. Please buy my lies.

Still, I haven't had anyone say in no uncertain terms "ZOMG BEST BOOK EVAR!!!11oneeleven", and the longer it's been since I mailed out that first agent query, the less confidence I have in my own storytelling abilities. Some days I wonder if I'm chasing a dead dream, if my book sucks monkey balls, if I'm wasting my time trying to answer a question no one asked. But then I think about the characters in my story, who live and breath and triumph in my imagination, and I'm compelled to continue moving forward.

So maybe the best compliment I ever received is from myself: Yes, Shea, your story does matter.

***I finally (heh) picked up Final Fantasy XV yesterday. Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto send their regards from my Xbox One.

This .gif about sums up my feelings.

Step 49: Confess (Day 2)

I just got word that an illustration project I've been working so hard on has had its original February 17th deadline pushed back to June. What a relief!

I'M FREEEEEE for now

Which means I can blog without feeling guilty for wasting time hahaha. Onward to Day 2 of #authorconfession:

What is the WORST thing you have written?

Since this is #authorconfession, I confess: A fanfiction.net account I created in 2001 is still in existence to this day. And before you ask, the answer is: No, I will never tell you what the account name is. I'm taking that shit with me to the grave. It's filled with a handful of Star Wars Expanded Universe fanfiction focusing on my favorite EU characters (Jaina Solo and Wedge Antilles) and one mushy Rurouni Kenshin fic. If you want to do the digging yourself and see just how bad of a writer I was as recently as 2008, by all means, go for it. But to quote the great Jedi Master Yoda: "If into the [depths of Shea's fanfiction.net account] you go, only pain will you find."

And that's not even the worst fanfiction I've ever written. When I first got into the Star Wars EU back in 1997, I used to write scenes featuring Jaina Solo by hand in the back pages of my notebook during class, and I'm sure I still have them laying around in a storage box somewhere because I'm a hoarder and can't bring myself to throw anything away no matter how awful it is. I'll give myself a pass on those ones, though, on account of my being 12 years old at the time.

Looking back, some of my writing at the height of my fanfiction.net days still retains some of its charm. I made a ton of rookie mistakes, to be sure--purple prose, beat tags with EVERY line of dialogue, repetitive adjective use (seriously how did I not know of the existence of a freaking thesaurus)--but I can see the influence of my favorite author, Aaron Allston, in those early works that I still carry with me in my writing to this day.

I also drew copious amounts of bad fan art, but that's another beast entirely.

On a more recent note, I was digging through my hard drive in search of who-the-fuck-knows-what and I stumbled upon my very first draft of my current WIP. NGL, I almost died of secondhand embarrassment reading just a few short paragraphs, and I cringe just thinking about the wannabe author I was trying to portray myself as in that early draft. Thankfully, I've improved in leaps and bounds in just a few short years I think, but it's humbling to recall just how awful a writer I was not even that long ago.

All I gotta say is, thank GOD for beta readers.

Step 48: Confess (Day 1)

Now that I've returned to the Twitterverse, I ran across a fun little game J.M. Sullivan is hosting called #authorconfession for the month of February. Since I'm in dire need of things to blog about other than the fact that the world going to hell in a hand basket, I thought I'd expand on the short answers I posted on Twitter here. It goes a little something like this:

Every day asks the author a different question, and today's prompt is: 

What do you listen to while writing?

My answer? Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing. I have to write in near-total silence in order to concentrate, and in the past I've even taken to using ear plugs to block out the sound of birds chirping and the husband playing Fallout 4. And it's not because I'm a heathen who hates music; on the contrary, I love singing badly at the top of my lungs to my favorite tunes. I even have a "Book Playlist" on Spotify with songs that correspond to certain chapters of my books, because obviously there is plenty of music out there that inspires me.

But I have a tendency to get distracted easily, to the point where sometimes I have to pause a song just to write a tweet, and oftentimes I'll interrupt my own half of a conversation just to belt out an awesome jam that came on the radio in my car. Oddly enough, I don't have this problem when I'm drawing; throw on a good playlist or a Ken Burns documentary in the background, and I can zone out for hours on end. It probably has something to do with using different parts of my brain (or lack thereof, in the case of doodling) when I'm working.

That said, there are a few songs out there that I listen to when I'm re-reading certain chapters of my WIPs, and one in particular has me obsessed to the point that I fear if I listen to it one more time I'll get sick of it. It's a cover of David Bowie's Life on Mars? performed by Aurora for HBO's Girls soundtrack (get some tissues ready):

Step 46: Give The Middle Finger To 2016

I think we all can agree that 2016 has been... somewhat of a shitshow.

2016 WYD???

A lot has happened since my last post in August, and none of it is particularly interesting so I'll spare my readers the details. But just yesterday I read the news that Ron Glass of Firefly fame had passed away, and it was on a morning just like this a few months ago that I was drawing a line illustration of Shepherd Book for the Serenity Adult Coloring Book published by Dark Horse, musing that Book was perhaps my favorite character of the series.

The sky is yours, Shepherd.

Speaking of books, there's been some developments with my own, but I'm not at liberty to discuss that right now. What I will say is that I finished writing a second book since August, and I haven't quite recovered from it yet. I didn't expect to become so emotionally invested in the lives of people conceived in my head, and I'm surprised at how much their fates are weighing on my shoulders. I'm sure a lot of artists struggle to separate their personal lives from their work, and the affection I carry for my characters hovers annoyingly between fantasy and reality. Perhaps I'm living vicariously through them as a means to escape the ugliness of society and my own unfulfilling existence, but I better start writing something more upbeat here pretty soon before the fictional landscape I've invented begins to mirror something altogether more awful--in the real world, and in my heart.

Here's a cute .gif of Bowie to cheer you me up.

Step 45: Get Stuff Done

ICYMI in my last post, I was picked to be a 2016 #PitchWars Mentee!

I was saving this .gif for when I got an agent but I think its use is warranted here!

Pretty sure I cashed in the last of my karma chips because the odds were fairly steep. Like, Han-Solo-successfully-navigating-an-asteroid-field steep.

Maybe I should go out and buy a lottery ticket or something.

As exciting as it is to be selected, I know this is but a single battle in a much longer war. Many awesome people have made posts varying from how literary contests are just one avenue toward authorship, to even hindering their publication timelines. Pitch Wars does not guarantee me an agent in November. I repeat: Pitch Wars does not guarantee me an agent in November. In fact, it doesn't guarantee me anything at all, but I suspect my awesome mentors Sonia Hartl and Jennifer Hawkins will utilize the next two months wisely and help me whip my manuscript into steroid-induced swoleness.

My word count just increased by OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND

To say I am nervous is an understatement. I haven't received my edit letter yet, but I've spoken to another mentee who told me her mentor asked her to basically rewrite her entire book from the ground up. I think I know where the weaknesses in my manuscript lie, so I fully expect my mentors to poke giant ego-deflating holes in those delicate spots, but I'm also aware their suggestions might make me see my MS in a whole new light. And that--for better or worse--is not something I can completely prepare for.

I bet you thought you'd seen the last of these rewrites.

But getting an agent at the end of Pitch Wars was never the goal. The goal was to take my book and make it into something great. If I have something stellar on my hands, the rest of the pieces will (hopefully) fall into place. And a secondary goal was to connect with others in the literary community and to locate my tribe, which I've found in spades. Sonia has taken on three mentees in total, and we've already become acquainted with one another. We even have a name--with our powers combined, we form to become #TeamBossBitches!

It might take 20 cases of Two-Buck Chuck to get me through to November, but I will persevere! #apologiestomyliver

Step 44: Find Your Tribe

I sent this tweet last night while the folk behind #PitchWars were making their preparations for today's mentee reveals:

In case you're wondering, I am absolutely going to milk my screenname for all its worth.

I wrote it in regards to Pitch Wars, but there's more to it than just a dick pun and hashtag. Because, in my journey to become a storyteller, I've discovered two things:

1. Writing is absolutely a solitary lifestyle, and
2. The loneliness will drive you batshit insane if you don't find a community of people to metaphorically wrap their arms around you.

Essentially, it's of the utmost importance to surround yourself with others who understand the struggle you are going through in order to retain your sanity. A tribe, if you will. And this is a bittersweet notion for me, because I once had a tribe--many tribes, in fact. I rode horses with a group of ten women from the ages of 11 to 21 who I considered my tribe; when we disbanded, I found another tribe among the costumers I met when I was active in the cosplay community throughout my twenties; I was embraced by yet another tribe of artists when my illustration career took root.

As my interest changed and my priorities shifted over the years, so has my sense of belonging. I am still friends with many of these people--equestrians, cosplayers, and artists alike--and many more have continued to support me throughout my endeavors, but the feeling of togetherness that originally brought us together has waned. I hold no ill will towards anyone who has felt the drift, and I hope they feel the same about me.

But I've discovered a new tribe of fellow pre-published authors through #PitchWars, those who have an intimate understanding of the sting of rejection and continue to preserver through overwhelming odds. I miss my old tribes, but I am looking forward to immersing myself in this new one. Each tribe holds a special place in my heart, and nothing short of a well-placed anvil falling on my head can take that away from me.

So as to not keep you in suspense any longer: I'm officially a 2016 Pitch Wars Mentee!

Step 43: Prepare For War

I know it's been forever and a day since I've posted on my blog, but it's for a very good reason I can sum up in two words: Pitch Wars.

It's something like that.

When I first heard about the #PitchWars hashtag a few months ago, I noted it in my calendar along with the rest of the Twitter literary pitch events. Little did I know that it would consume my entire month of July.

BRB SLEEPING FOREVER TT_____TT

In a nutshell, #PitchWars is a contest that pairs up aspiring authors with published "mentors" who spend two months helping you rip apart your manuscript and piece it back together stronger than it was before. An agent window then opens in November for mentees to parade around their newly polished and publication-ready books.

It's a ridiculously amazing opportunity to be brought under the wing of people who have been in your shoes and understand the hard work that goes into taking a good MS and making it great. The catch? Last year, 1600+ entries vied for approximately 150 spots, and this year is expected to garner even more entries.

I spent the entire month of July dusting off my old Twitter account, getting to know potential mentors, and swapping query and first chapter critiques with fellow #PitchWars hopefuls. After several weeks of reading and re-reading my MS until my eyes bled, I finally took the plunge and submitted my beloved brainchild to six carefully-selected mentors.

Now what?

With the excitement of the submission window closing on Saturday night wearing off, I am beginning to temper my expectations. There's a lot of things you can do to up your chances of being selected as a mentee--picking the right mentors who are asking for exactly what your book has to offer, perfecting your grammar and prose in your MS, etc.--but what it really boils down to is sheer luck. Imagine, if you will, perusing a bookstore; sometimes you're in the mood for a corny romance, and sometimes you're in the mood for something more fantastical. #PitchWars works in much the same way--your best shot at getting selected is having something that just happens to align with a potential mentor's hankering at just the right time.  You can have the next A Song of Ice and Fire saga on your hands, but if your chosen mentor is dying for a good vampire fic, them's the breaks.

That's not to say I haven't gained anything from this experience--on the contrary, I am infinitely happier for having participated. Sure, I'll be as disappointed as the next person if I don't get picked, but realistically speaking, I might as well be disappointed in not winning the lottery. What I have acquired from participating in #PitchWars has been invaluable: I've connected with people in the writing community that I would not have otherwise met, and I've made my MS even better than I ever thought it could be. Ultimately, though, I've learned an important lesson in perseverance, because not winning #PitchWars does not equal defeat. Whether I get into #PitchWars or not has no bearing on the potential success of my manuscript, and pushing forward in the face of staggering odds is what makes or breaks a writer.

To Brenda Drake and all of the amazing #PitchWars mentors: I salute you!

Step 42: Answer The Ultimate Question Of Life, The Universe, And Everything

If you don't get the reference to this post title, that's okay. I've never actually read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I consider myself to be one of the foremost experts on geek culture.

Shame indeed, Septa Unella.  SHAME INDEED.

The Twitter event #PitchWars is coming up, which is sort of like a pre-published author version of The Hunger Games. Or Battle Royale, if you're an 90's anime weaboo like I am.

If you weren't ~*blessed*~ to grow up with Sailor Moon, I feel sorry for you.

Some writers are pimping out their Author Bios under the cleverly-titled hashtag, #PimpMyBio. So I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring, even though for me writing a personal bio is about as much fun as jerking off using a hedgehog.

On the one hand, ow. On the other hand... I mean, you're still masturbating. /letscallitadraw

Shall we get started?  First and foremost, here's some basic stats.  I am:

• 31 years old but forever 17 in my head
• A cisgendered female
• Happily married to a man but would identify myself somewhere on the queer spectrum
• A San Diego native
• A 2007 alumna of the University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in Visual Arts

I've worked professionally as a freelance illustrator in the comic book industry since 2009, but my real passion has always been in graphic novels (Blankets changed my goddamned life--seriously, go read it right now). My short graphic story, Strawberry Wine, was a winner of TokyoPop's 2008 Rising Stars of Manga contest and was published nationally in their anthology book. The manuscript that I am currently peddling about, Defining Lines, actually started life as a graphic novel, and I would love to revisit the medium one day (time and finances permitting).

And so long as my drawing hand doesn't fail me.

At any rate, this little spiel of mine is starting to sound suspiciously like a query letter, so lets move on to the fun stuff.  In my spare time, I like to:

• Cosplay
• Draw
• Read
• Play video games

Pertaining to that last one, I am an especially avid fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. My all-time favorite game is Final Fantasy X, and I will fight anyone who says Final Fantasy VIII is a shit game and not worth playing.

Take your FFVII superiority complex and shove it.

I also enjoy decorating my Lakeview Manor house in Skyrim with the bones of fallen dragons I have slain:

Unless they slay me first.  It happens.

And to round this post out, I'm going to link to a few random .gifs that are relevant to my interests:

When u sneeze so hard u regenerate

Exhibit A: My first sexual awakening

Real men wear pink.
(Alternate caption: Bye Felicia~)

Data with his emotion chip is just the best I can't even

Welp, that about sums it up!  I hope you enjoyed this little stroll down .gif lane, and I'm looking forward to #PitchWars! May the odds May the Force Live Long and okay whatever good luck everyone!

EDIT:  Most mentees appear to be including some info about their manuscripts along with their bios, so here's mine in a nutshell--

DEFINING LINES is the story of an awkward girl who suddenly becomes popular and--hahaha just kidding, awkward girl stays totally awkward and unexpectedly finds her Prince Princess Charming! YA Contemporary LGBTQ+ Romance with a sprinkling of David Bowie and pop culture, complete at 92,000 words.

Step 41: Life Goes On

I feel my crippling grief starting to ebb. I've made it a couple of days without crying, and while it's still hard to look at photos of Niles, I don't fall to pieces in a puddle of my own misery upon viewing them. Which is a good sign, because I really don't have the time to come apart at the seams right now. I've been hired to illustrate five detailed drawings on an incredibly tight deadline, and I really shouldn't even be taking the time to write this blog post unless I'm in the mood to pull an all-nighter tonight.

This is fine.

I'm certainly not complaining--while I can't talk about what I'm working on just yet, I can tell you it's a licensed franchise that I'm a big fan of--but boy howdy, it's been a chore. I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe I'm not cut out for this type of work; deadlines are not particularly lenient to the whims of creativity.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” -Douglas Adams

Still, I don't have much else to keep me busy. On the literary front, things are progressing about as quickly as can be expected (which is to say, not that quickly). My full manuscript is out with two agents at the moment (and a partial with a third), but I've played the waiting game before so I know how the process goes. Interestingly, one of my characters from my book visited me in a dream during my mid-afternoon siesta today; it was strangely comforting to be able to interact with them as if they truly existed. We drove together down a road, chitchatting about what we meant to each other, and headed off to explore the basement of my old high school.

Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that cold pizza right before I fell asleep.