Elizabeth Reuter's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Aguni Island Caves
I went to Aguni Island, a tiny satellite island of Okinawa, yesterday and today on a business trip. It's a tiny place you can circle in a car in maybe 20 minutes.
There are these caves underneath the island's temple that are the most perfect setting for a horror story I've ever seen in my life. Victorian mansions have nothing on this place. I took pictures until my cell phone ran out of memory.
There are these caves underneath the island's temple that are the most perfect setting for a horror story I've ever seen in my life. Victorian mansions have nothing on this place. I took pictures until my cell phone ran out of memory.
Another reason the Okinawa Diet is bull
Attempting to be pescetarian in Okinawa:
My Friend: (calling a restaurant) So, we have one person here who doesn’t eat meat. Do you have anything she can eat?
Restaurant Owner: No problem, our special today is a tofu dish.
Me: Great!
(At the restaurant, a dish with loads of pork is plunked in front of me.)
Me: Um. This is meat.
Restaurant Owner: No it’s not, it’s a tofu base.
Me: Yes, but there’s meat in it.
Restaurant Owner: (blank look) Well of course.
Me: I, uh. I don’t eat meat.
Restaurant Owner: (Frowns in confusion, as though she’s just been told mice will inherit the earth and penguins enjoy classical opera) You mean...no meat?
I’m going to write a scene into the DoRD sequel where Jimmy tries to explain that he’s Muslim and can’t eat pork only to find ground pork has been mixed into his burger. “Well sure, it’s just ground pork, right?” -_-
My Friend: (calling a restaurant) So, we have one person here who doesn’t eat meat. Do you have anything she can eat?
Restaurant Owner: No problem, our special today is a tofu dish.
Me: Great!
(At the restaurant, a dish with loads of pork is plunked in front of me.)
Me: Um. This is meat.
Restaurant Owner: No it’s not, it’s a tofu base.
Me: Yes, but there’s meat in it.
Restaurant Owner: (blank look) Well of course.
Me: I, uh. I don’t eat meat.
Restaurant Owner: (Frowns in confusion, as though she’s just been told mice will inherit the earth and penguins enjoy classical opera) You mean...no meat?
I’m going to write a scene into the DoRD sequel where Jimmy tries to explain that he’s Muslim and can’t eat pork only to find ground pork has been mixed into his burger. “Well sure, it’s just ground pork, right?” -_-
Inspiration From Real Life
Anyone ever heard of Steve-O? From the MTV show Jackass?
I hadn't; I have no interest in that show. I first "met" Steve-O on Dancing With the Stars, when his story of struggling with drug addiction--from age twelve--came to light. He worked so hard to better himself, as a man and in the momentary dancing challenge on the show, and left me weeping more than once.
Yet he's the type of person I usually can't stand. He has that Peter-Pan masculinity based around fart jokes and childish stunts, a personality I usually equate with jerkish behavior and stupidity.
He has, in other words, forced me to re-evaluate a lot of my own prejudices. Something else to be grateful to him for.
I must write a story about it!
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
I hadn't; I have no interest in that show. I first "met" Steve-O on Dancing With the Stars, when his story of struggling with drug addiction--from age twelve--came to light. He worked so hard to better himself, as a man and in the momentary dancing challenge on the show, and left me weeping more than once.
Yet he's the type of person I usually can't stand. He has that Peter-Pan masculinity based around fart jokes and childish stunts, a personality I usually equate with jerkish behavior and stupidity.
He has, in other words, forced me to re-evaluate a lot of my own prejudices. Something else to be grateful to him for.
I must write a story about it!
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
National Novel Writing Month
Iiiiiit’s NANO!
…as it has been for over two weeks, but. *laugh* I’ve been busy, so there we are. Work has been insane with back-to-back events...and then, of course, writing!
I’m writing a story I’ve had in my head for years, one I really think I can make something out of. Who knows, it might be my next novel. Either way, I'm having a lot of fun writing it.
Elizabeth's Author Bio
Other Na-nites (?), friend me and I'll friend back! I love the creative energy that goes into this month.
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
…as it has been for over two weeks, but. *laugh* I’ve been busy, so there we are. Work has been insane with back-to-back events...and then, of course, writing!
I’m writing a story I’ve had in my head for years, one I really think I can make something out of. Who knows, it might be my next novel. Either way, I'm having a lot of fun writing it.
Elizabeth's Author Bio
Other Na-nites (?), friend me and I'll friend back! I love the creative energy that goes into this month.
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
Love at first sight.
I used to believe that love at first sight was a fantasy. I still believe that the way it's portrayed in movies--looking across a room and BAM, you're in love--is fake.
However, I have found that the deepest and most lasting friendships I've ever made started with a kind of instant recognition. At a party, or out with friends, I saw someone I didn’t know. Yet the way they moved and talked was instantly familiar, and spoke to something inside of me that was comforting and uplifting at once. And, after a single conversation, I felt as though I’d known this other person for years, and that I wanted to know them forever.
I thought it was just me, the way I formed attachments, but recently I spoke to a man who lamented that a friendship he’d formed while here in Japan was being interrupted by the friend leaving for his home country. He struggled to explain how from their first night out drinking they’d “told the same jokes” and “understood each other’s half-finished sentences.” This man had plenty of friends, and other people he loved, but the instant ease and familiarity he’d found in his leaving friend had never happened to him before. And perhaps it never will again.
None of my “love at first sight” experiences have been romantic, nor was the young man’s example from above. Maybe that’s why love at first sight as it actually is doesn’t interest a lot of writers, who would rather show sexually-driven chemistry. Yet having experienced how truly special it is to look at a stranger and know that they will become dear to me, it’s something I’d like to try and write. It’s a small bit of magic in day-to-day life, not an incomprehensible miracle, but a wonderful slice of reality. Life has too little magic. It’s good, to celebrate when you find some.
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
However, I have found that the deepest and most lasting friendships I've ever made started with a kind of instant recognition. At a party, or out with friends, I saw someone I didn’t know. Yet the way they moved and talked was instantly familiar, and spoke to something inside of me that was comforting and uplifting at once. And, after a single conversation, I felt as though I’d known this other person for years, and that I wanted to know them forever.
I thought it was just me, the way I formed attachments, but recently I spoke to a man who lamented that a friendship he’d formed while here in Japan was being interrupted by the friend leaving for his home country. He struggled to explain how from their first night out drinking they’d “told the same jokes” and “understood each other’s half-finished sentences.” This man had plenty of friends, and other people he loved, but the instant ease and familiarity he’d found in his leaving friend had never happened to him before. And perhaps it never will again.
None of my “love at first sight” experiences have been romantic, nor was the young man’s example from above. Maybe that’s why love at first sight as it actually is doesn’t interest a lot of writers, who would rather show sexually-driven chemistry. Yet having experienced how truly special it is to look at a stranger and know that they will become dear to me, it’s something I’d like to try and write. It’s a small bit of magic in day-to-day life, not an incomprehensible miracle, but a wonderful slice of reality. Life has too little magic. It’s good, to celebrate when you find some.
-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive
Elizabeth Reuter's Blog
As a huge fan of dark fantasy, horror, and the like, that's most of what I'll write about here. Most horror/fantasy/sci-fi is badly made, and there's this silly idea that that means the genres themsel
...more
- Elizabeth Reuter's profile
- 22 followers
