Brittany Maresh

writer

A pair of moose meandered through our yard a few minutes ago. Not particularly pretty shots, but people requested pictures. My real camera is decidedly dead (dropped at the Field museum by a close friend), so sorry about that!

I feel the need to point out: a) this one is female and b) no, I did not go OUTSIDE with the moose. I’ve aimed my webcam out the glass in the back door.

And: c) this is the male and d) his little antlers are so adorable! This one was taken through the kitchen window. Because sometimes I’m a slightly smarter cookie than others.

And that’s what’s keeping me inside tonight!  Well, that and working on this novel.

So I was going to write about LeakyCon. About seeing Evanna Lynch in person (she’s flawless), about seeing Beverly and Lindsay and Brianna (who were my roomies last year), about meeting the amazing songbird Genevieve (she’s from Australia), about going to the panel on Pottermore (but not about Pottermore — just bragging, I suppose), about CityWalk at night with my friends, and wrock music concerts, about Karina (a contradiction — she is popular, and nerdy, and friendly, and has such a heart, she doesn’t seem real, she’s so grand), about lunch in the Three Broomsticks, butterbeer, seeing Team StarKid and Corey Lubowich, about changing a tire at the con (and the person who would think it’s a good idea to walk up and go, “hey, you’re from Alaska, we met yesterday, can you change a tire?), about the dealer’s room, and Alaska Kedavra, and the t-shirts, about the Esther Earl Charity Ball (and my dress, which I didn’t make), about the feeling of belonging, about the Green Brothers (so much taller in real life) and Maureen Johnson (well, everyone’s tall compared to me, anyway). About reading an ARC (Australia had won it), and HP7.2, the awkward Draco-Voldie hug, lines, and Conflict Resolution.
There’s so much I was going to write about, so much I felt I had to share before I ran out of memories, and words, and the right time to share it..

But I’m not going to, right now. I’m going to risk losing it. Because this novel is begging to be finished, and the words are flowing easy today, and I have half an hour before I go back to teaching archery.

Don’t let the muggles get you down(1). This star won’t go out(2). You’re the part of me that makes me better wherever I go(3). We don’t need to say goodbye(4).

Pretty sure y’all get the idea by this point(5) — LeakyCon 2011 was full of all those little phrases you say to make things seem better, or to help you cope with being a Harry Potter nerd in a non-nerd-centric community.

Only they were all meaningful, and full of heart, and somehow they actually make things better even when four thousand miles from where we heard them, all thrown over the globe in weird places.

I woke up this morning thinking, “it’s not over yet.” Also, “where are my glasses(6)?” but mostly just that LeakyCon 2011 is not really over, even if I am all the way back in Alaska. Leakycon’s technically done, sure, but the friendships and connections we’ve made? They’re still there.

Leaky to me was reconnecting with people I already love, and making new friends. It’s over, but right right now? I can’t help but smile.

I’m working on a longer post about the convention, about what went on, who I saw, what I bought. There will probably be pictures, maybe some videos. For now, though, I’m going to go climb up a mountain and teach archery to small children, sans my glasses.  Be afraid. (7)

(1) Remus Lupins t-shirt

(2) This Star Won’t Go Out Foundation

(3) and (4) Days of Summer from AVPS by TeamStarKid (yup, it’s stuck in my head – no wonder, given I heard it so many times this past week).

(5) There were a lot of other ones, but I’m pretty sure my brain was swapped for Audrey II seedlings some time before I left Orlando.

(6) I’m only 90% sure I had them in the Orlando airport. Beyond that? I really don’t remember what I’ve done with them. Maybe I left them at Hogwarts. Or Salt Lake City. Or in my brother’s car last night, when he picked me up from the airport. If only accio glasses worked in real life.

(7) It’s not really very far up the mountain, and the arrows aren’t sharp or anything. And the kids are like, six to eleven, so they’re not super-super young…

EDIT: Too tired to fix all my links, so I’m just going to fix the important ones. The inter-post links are just going to stay gone. Sorry!

I’ve been going to karaoke with my friends on Thursdays, and I’ve discovered two things:
Most of my friends sing well and the music I listen to is not karaoke music. Neither of these things are startling revelations, to be honest. I get all my music from my four weird siblings, and my friends are the sort of people who, y’know, go to karaoke.

My current “top five” are all a little different, but they work for what I’ve been writing lately. I was going to make some argument about it not really being representative of the novel I’m currently working on, because the novel itself is weird, but I think that would probably be a lie no matter when I was saying it.

I re-set my song plays every so often, because for whatever reason the top played song get played more frequently. Here are my current top five played songs, with 15 plays in the past two weeks:

• Help Me by Alkaline Trio
• Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been by Reliant K
• Secrets by One Republic
• Spaceman by The Killers
• Certain Tragedy by Saves the Day

Take from that what you will, because just looking at that list, I have to wonder what sort of monster I’m currently writing. Yikes.
-Bri Maresh

Lines Written in Awe of the Theropoda

Sharp gnashy teeth,
In a fat head,
With stubby little arms,
And giant stompy feet.

Oh, theropoda,
You’re the prettiest thing,
I have ever seen.

-B.M.

I may or may not have ordered the dinosaur hoodie from Thinkgeek that will turn my arms into the jaws of a t-rex.

Based on a day of watching bad horror movies and reading “real life experiences” from a variety of paranormal magazines and books (research, I swear).  Don’t take this list too seriously, because “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” is my idea of research

1. Before you buy a house, do some research!  Find out what it was before it was a home. Make sure it’s not built on old Native American burial grounds or a moved cemetery, an old prison, or the site of a particularly horrible catastrophe, like a fire that killed 15 people, or that girls don’t mysteriously disappear from the home.  Find out how often the house has changed hands. If it seems to be plagued by bad luck, and people abandon it or leave it all the time, I’d be wary. It might just be that the neighbors are bad, but maybe it’s not the neighbors you need to worry about. Maybe it’s the former occupant who didn’t quite leave.
2. Make sure the house passes the “small child” test.  Get a kid, say, ages 3-8, and ask them to find all the “scary” parts of the house.  See if they notice any people that aren’t there, or identify rooms they won’t go in to.  Or you can do the mini version, the pet test – like the “small child” test, except done with a cat or dog. Are they chasing invisible things, barking at nothing?  Did your goldfish go belly-up overnight?
3. Talk to the neighbors – and I mean all of them, even the creepy house to your right.  Have they noticed anything funny about the place?  Do they think there was ever a witch there? Have they had any strange incidents in the area? Are they living in a haunted home, themselves? Where is the local haunted house?   Are you living over an abandoned silver mine? Don’t leave out the local children – with parental supervision and permission – to find out if they think the house is haunted. Do they avoid it on Halloween?  It might just be for a reason. Also remember to check up with the area paranormal agencies, to see if the place has any reports of activity. Sure, the odds are someone might have told you, but maybe not.  People don’t want to look crazy.
4. Invite a pack of young adults to test the house out – if they survive the night, you’re good. Ghosts and demons can’t resist the lure of the young adults. Alternatively, if they flee before dawn, you might want to pass on the property.
5. Do a walk-through of the house, on your own. How does it make you feel?  As in all good horror movies, sometimes you just need to trust your instincts.

Confession: I run into things. A lot. And I have a hard time crossing the street, because I get really nervous about where things are compared to where I think they are, and sometimes it takes me a little too long to figure out where the cars are going to be given how fast they must be traveling, and quite possibly before I’m actually aware of what I’m doing, I’m panicking a little.

Or a lot.

It’s not a big problem, here in Alaska. And when it’s going to be, I usually have a buddy to keep me out of trouble.

In Chicago?

Oh my Gundam.

I think this probably makes me a really difficult person to deal with, on a day-to-day basis, I feel really… defective, I guess, following people around because I don’t trust my own judgment about where I am in relation to the world around me.

Here, everyone knows I’m a little bit of a basket case, and that if you walk up to me just the right way I will probably cringe or apologize profusely. Down with the lemniscates, my Harry Potter fan group from Infinitus 2010, I at least like to pretend I’m normal.

Even then, it often feels like I’m trying to remember how to speak a language I never learned, every time I visit.

I got off the flight and fled for Ashley, trying to not run into anyone, but she wasn’t there yet. We’d gotten in early, and being the tough Alaskan I am, I stood outside, watching for her car. It wasn’t cold, at first, but then she got lost at the airport, and it took a little longer than I expected.

Pretty sure I was on my way to popsicle by the time she showed. But it was all okay, because she found me, and we got

… um.

Some fast food stuff.

From a place.

Honestly, you all have so many! How do you keep them straight?

Then we checked into an inn, and fifteen seconds, it was day again. Wait, no, that’s the Cloud Song. Yeah, I have it stuck in my head today, sorry.

We crashed at Ashley’s, and plotted to wake up early for an epic adventure of museums and aquariums and Team Starkid’s Starship. Also, there was a ThinkGeek beaker-glass late Christmas, which went perfectly with the lab coat Lemniscates Sea and Bonnie conspired to get me.  I’m pretty sure they’re okay with my planning to take over the world. Or they’re trying to bribe me into giving them Australia, whichever.

The next day we had grand plans to meet up with people at the Field Museum, do lunch in their food court, and then head to the Shedd until 4:00, when we’d attempt to cross town during rush hour to get me to the theater in time to see StarShip, by myself because none of the other Lemniscates felt like coming out to the show, except Megan, who is a miracle and a half, but I’m getting ahead of myself right now.

I wanted to see the Adler Planetarium, Legoland, and the Museum of Science and Industry, but there wasn’t time for everything, so I just went with Ashley’s recommendation. That and, hey, dinosaurs. How can you possibly have a bad day, when your day includes real dinosaurs?

Angela was the first big surprise of the trip. She’s in a Harry Potter Chicago-based fan group with Ashley, and she was easily the most adorable person I met the entire time I was there. And I’m pretty sure I was at least introduced to a lot of people, so that says something.

Angela knew the museum better than Ashley, so with a little prodding (okay, a lot) I got her to lead us about. But first, I spent about ten minutes babbling about how amazing Sue the T-Rex was. Conspiracy, I say, putting the dinosaur right in the entryway, where it can trap unsuspecting Alaskans like myself.

I was somewhat tired (okay, we were all dead tired), so instead of going to the Evolving Planet exhibit, we first went through the Americas exhibit. Plus, hey, I wanted to see everything.

It was interactive, complete with mini-games and touch screens, but half of them didn’t work. It’s probably a good thing, because we spent a lot of time there. We would have spent more, but the last half of the exhibit was Alaskan native materials, and my interest in Alaskan history is pretty low, given the amount of time and the number of classes I’ve already spent on that particular topic.

The Evolving Worlds exhibit was great. Angela adorably hopped over every mass extinction. I may or may not have stomped over them, cackling madly. Somehow I think this is probably less adorable.

After the dinosaurs (I think I spent an hour staring at the Apatosaurus), we swung by the Egypt section of the museum to see the haunted mummy, a figure that security guards say moves its head off center during the night, all on its own, and has been known to throw itself about. It was freaky, but more in the “you could be that in very little time if you’re not careful crossing the streets” sort of way than in the “haunted mummy, oh my gosh,” sort of way.

Besides, it’s not like it was shuffling about the halls trying to strangle people.

I may or may not have sung “Killing the baby seals” while skipping down a flight of stairs as we left the museum for our next destination.

I maintain that it’s a perfectly legitimate camp song.

I’m not sure I can say enough cool things about the museum, but my mind was flat blown away by the Shedd Aquarium.

I had no idea you could pack that much life into a building of that size. I mean, I’ve been to an aquarium in every major city I’ve ever been to (except ours, here in Alaska. I somehow have neglected that, oops), and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a variety of aquatic creatures.

We may or may not have stalled on the jellies, leaving us very little time to flee from the aquarium to the theater.
We took Angela to her bus stop, anyway, because we would have felt mean if we hadn’t. Besides, I wasn’t really ready to say goodbye to her yet.

That’s the thing about only visiting my friends, instead of living near them. I feel like I’m always saying goodbye.

We headed to the theater, listening to music I’d never heard, talking about our crazy friends – Spain (both of them), Bonnie, Megan, Chel, the Lemniscates.

Bonnie and Ashley both opted out of seeing StarShip because they didn’t want to have to deal with screaming fan girls. Legitimately, they pack in so tightly you can’t take a step without running to someone. On the other hand, it strikes me as sad to think you would think that you couldn’t go see something you love because other people will be behaving like, well, screaming fangirls.

Anyway, when we got there, Ashley felt like she was running late, I got no cell service, and I realized I’d forgotten to get Megan’s phone number off of Facebook. No big, right?

Except that I’ve met the girl one time, and I’m really bad at finding people, and I was pretty sure she was only putting up with me out of a sense of obligation (and because everyone else bailed on me, after having been horrified by fan behavior at a previous play they went and saw in Ann Arbor).

I knew Megan was in Whole Foods, so I wandered there, trying to find her. I was pretty near to tears when I ran into a Ravenclaw outside heading to the theater and convinced her to take pity on me and help me find Megan.

We struck up a conversation wherein I went, “Hi! I’m from Alaska! I’m supposed to meet a friend, but my cell broke, and I can’t find her, and you look like you’re going the same place I am!” and she went “um, yeah, let’s go!” and then turned out to have been part of Megan’s group of friends in the first place.

We found Megan, and just like magic, all the terror of being alone in a big city without a functioning cell phone or a single friend vanished.

Funny, how that works.

Beyond Megan, the only other person I was vaguely socially aware of previously was Corey Lubowich, scenic design guy for the play and strange Infinitus 2010 acquaintance (is there a word for “person you know the name of, who may or may not know your name, who you find amusing in a Twitterville sort of way, but mostly just try not to annoy?” Acquaintance is really too strong a word, here).

I won the nonexistent prize for “flew the farthest,” before it was stolen away by Australia the next night. I was okay with it at the time, but retrospectively, I really need to stop going to StarKid shows a million miles from home. It makes me feel like a little bit of a creeper, instead of a former theater geek with close friends (The Lemniscates!) that live in Michigan, Chicago, and Florida.

Especially when said friends ditch out on me.

My “friends” (read: Megan’s friends) chose to sit in the front row, right in front of the stage (and the girl three seats over kept putting her feet on the stage – do I have to express my inner cringe?).

On one hand, this made everything a whole lot bigger.  On the other hand, I wondered more than once if someone wouldn’t miss their mark and fall off stage. Not that I’ve ever seen THAT happen before (Winni-the-Pooh at VPA, anyone? I’m pretty sure only an act of god kept those of us who were part of the custard from rolling off stage during The Clumsy Custard), right?

Part of me really loved StarShip.

I laughed the entire time, scene one up to a few moments before the very end when I realized all the plot threads they’d thrown out weren’t going to be resolved, at least not in this one play. The antagonist that served as the final boss was more like a mini-boss and the final boss never took the stage. The heroes didn’t get to bring down the ultimate evil, and for whatever reason, it felt more like a dropped plot thread than a “just wait until next time!” I suppose there’s only so much you can do when you basically throw down an Evil League of Evil.

Dylan Saunders played Ursula meets Oogie Boogie, and totally blew me away. It went so far beyond what I’d seen from him at AVPS, I can’t even begin to say how amazing it was.

The puppets were really great, too. And then there were the sci-fi and video game jokes, like the character who was a dead ringer for Solid Snake, or the reference to Gundams, or to Vasquez from Aliens, and I could probably go on, but I won’t.  In short, the play was awesome.

I bought merchandise – a shirt, a hoodie, some buttons. I listened to little girls go on and on about how in love they were. And I failed at conversation, big time, because sometimes that happens to me.

Then some poor fan dropped her freshly purchased “I heart StarKid” button, and I thought… oh, that’s just really sad.

I work with kids in the summer, and I don’t know if I can impress upon you how something small like that can just crush them, and ruin their day. It was such a great day, the idea of anyone having a bad day just killed me.

So I did the big girl scout thing and tried to turn it in to the lost and found. I don’t need to tell you how ridiculous this idea was, and retrospectively, I’m an idiot.  At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Megan got lost in the crowd, off with her friends, and I wasn’t about to try and navigate a swarm of people at that point, so I fled before the cast members even really got out to greet the audience.

Which, well, I was there for the play, not to mob the actors.

I couldn’t get to the elevator, so I took the stairs, and then realized my phone still wasn’t working, I had no idea where Ashley was, and it was actually a little cold outside.  Insert more mad panic, and possibly dark muttering while resisted the urge to throw my cell phone, and instead held it up and prayed to get even one or two bars.

Ashley found me before I ever found reception. She’s pretty good at that, I guess.

We then followed the GPS through bad neighborhoods to get to the bus station to pick up my Bonnie.

Bonnie and Bri: A Brief History

I’m a little bit of a geek. No, wait, a lot a bit of a geek. So when I decided I’d be going to Florida for Infinitus 2010 (after my friends in Boston expressed interest), I went to the forums to make friends.

I found Bonnie. Nerdly, patient, nice, and looking to game the ticket request lotto-style drawing for AVPS by getting our names in the pot as many times as possible.

Working together, we concocted a strange mathematical deceit wherein siblings and friends submitted ticket requests. We’d known each other for days, and I’m pretty sure neither of us thought we would actually get the tickets.

And then we did. And I flew down to Michigan to meet Bonnie for the first time, and to see AVPS, but meeting Bonnie has probably had a bigger impact on my strange little life.

At the bus station, Bonnie waited, only a bag for her luggage. She didn’t need much – we were going to bus to her home near Detroit the next day, anyway, after a trip to Legoland. Turns out, if you stay up too late talking and watching silly movies, you don’t wake up in time to go to Legoland. In fact, you make the bus, but only just.

During the bus ride, Bonnie and I spent half the time bickering back and forth like we always do. The rest of the time, she was reading my novel. I don’t know if I need to try and explain how very anxiety-prone artists are, having their work critiqued by someone they adore.  I may or may not have told her to shut up more than fifty times. Also, I feel bad for the guy sitting across from us, even if he did think we were the most hilarious invention, ever.

One night at Bonnie’s house, wherein we played a survival board game and had an amazing dinner, stayed up late talking, and basically just goofed around, and then I was back on the bus heading for Chicago and my flight home.

I tried to decide, the whole way home, if it had been worth the money, and the time, and the stress that it created for everyone.  It’s a few days later, and I’m still not sure, but I know I want to go back as soon as I can.

EDIT: Mop pointed me towards my bigger dilema — I’m a fangirl (as if there was any doubt in Nyeusigrube about that), but I’m not the kind to glomp.  In fact, I’m the sort that turns and runs the second people start glomping.  Yes, this is a problem for me, especially at conferences, live shows, and other social settings.

Also, I pretend my visual impairment doesn’t bother the heck out of me, when in truth sometimes it actually is a legitimate impairment.  I don’t think I like being reminded of that.

I’m going away for a few days, and thought I’d leave you with something fun to try while I’m away.  I did this all in about 30 minutes, but I imagine it could take a little longer, too.

-Brittany Maresh

Ingredients:

Pre-made pie crusts (2)

Pie filling

Step one: prepare the bottom of the pie, start oven (pre-heat at 450 degrees)

Step two: draw the crest on your dough.

Step three: Cut out the crest

Step four: transfer the top crust over the bottom crust

Step five: secure the edges

Step six: ready to go in the oven for 20 minutes (or until crust is golden brown)

Step seven: take pie out of oven

Step eight: admire pie

Step nine: quit admiring the pie and eat it, already.

My little brother watched Nick Jr, or Noggin, or some show like that. In fact, he watches these shows often enough that I’ve seen most of the programs. If not all.  Lately, they’ve been going on about these Dora the Explorer cupcakes. You make her hair from frozen chocolate.

I can’t be the only person who looked at that and went… GOOMBA!

I enlisted the aid of the four-year-old, and we set to work making Goomba cupcakes.  It was a fun afternoon project, even if he did get bored and wander off before we were done.

Everyone else in the family liked the taste of them (there’s dark and milk chocolate on them, plus vanilla icing.  We used yellow cake mix). I’m not a fan of chocolate, but I did have fun figuring them out and making them. Next time, I’m going to have tooth picks and a paint brush on hand, so I can make smaller Goombas and actually give them details. I think I’ll also use gel frosting for the black lines instead of trying to use dark chocolate, because the chocolate was harder to work with than I expected.

Another mistake I made was picking the cupcake up and trying to tilt it towards my webcam.  Go figure, chocolate gets heavy.  Yeah, it slid towards the ground when I tilted it up. Oops.

PS Yeah, we were celebrating my little brother’s successfully defeating a villain in Wind Waker, ON HIS OWN. He’s four, so these are the sort of milestones we get to look forward to.  I can’t wait until he’s coordinated enough to start trying to reenact Mario in real life!

-Brittany Maresh

PPS Sorry for the bad photo quality.  I couldn’t find my actual camera, so I used the computer’s built-in webcam instead.

Infinitus 2010 was a bit like walking on a white, sandy beach that just happens to have a thriving knife population–overall fantastic, but not the sort of place you want to walk without some thick shoes.

I’m not going to talk about the programming or the structure anyone’s ability to cope or communicate- – they’re all knife blades, left scattered about at random.

But the other people, strolling along on that same sunny beach? To quote Bartok, the Magnificent: “Wow! I tell you what, wow!”
Before the convention, I’d befriended a hodgepodge of interesting characters. We’d banded together to form a group, calling ourselves “The Lemniscates.” Pretty much fulfilled my life-long urge to join a secret club, without having to actually join one. We even have a hand sign greeting and matching t-shirts, and in-jokes, like a real secret society.
Of the characters, the most notable was Cee, from Spain, with her silent partner, Debbie. Cee’s a musician, of the broken heart string variety. Beautiful, slightly exotic, and absolutely self-depreciating. Debbie was a dark-haired enigma, someone talked of but less real. I had no concept of her. Together, they were exotic, beautiful, and a bit distant, not just in miles but in feeling.

In reality, they are much as they were online, only more inclined towards kissing and hugging people. Still, I can now snap my fan open, all sharp and feminine.

Which is how I’d describe Cee, knowing her better.

She’s also got this spark. Think Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Molly Mahoney—that little prickling of talent, that interior light that alerts you that there’s something more there, and even if all it ever becomes is a sad girl playing her harp alone in her room, it’s there, and you can see it, waiting for a chance to really come to life.

And then there’s Chel. A pink-haired theater kid with a thing for Wrock. She’s a flittering sort, and so much more brave than I’ve ever been. She was there with her family (who I adore) and within five minutes seemed to know everyone, and every thing, but not in a bragging sort of way. So casual, as though she absorbed things from the air and just happened to come upon ideas like that.

I can’t not mention Bree. She was a strange sort, with an inclination towards “creeping.” I’m not sure it was appropriate at all, and probably borderline stalker behavior, actually, but she had guts. She wasn’t afraid to walk up to people she liked and say “hey, take a picture with me,” or “hi, I love your CD!” Which, well, I am. Way too shy. Like, really.

There’s Bonnie, who was my co-conspirator for AVPS in Ann Arbor, for Infinitus, and especially for organizing the Lemniscates. I wish I’d seen more of her, because I miss her like mad and feel that my having four roommates to schedule around really impacted our ability to hang out. On the other hand, she brought Vernor’s and Michigan chips, and she made me smile when we WERE together.

There are so many others. Ashley, who had a Deathly Hallows tattoo and works an awful lot. Joe, who is Sonic, whose team won the Quidditch match. Agostina from Argentina, Beverly who was so excited over the HPA winning $250,000, Zach from Florida, Megan, Sarah, Lindsey-with-a-sonic-screwdriver.

That’s them. The Lemniscates. And I really hope it is “To Infinitus, and Beyond!” with them, because they’re that beach party that welcomes any random passerby, and sometimes I do feel a bit like that’s me, some sort of drifter.
And there were many a non-Lemniscate passerby worth noting, too–Marina, and Gretchen, and dozens of others that didn’t stick around nearly as long. They were just out having fun, and knowing each of them made the trip happier for me. Christina, Volunteer coordinator, was so sweet. I was alone a lot, and she always stopped to exchange kind words. It was a relief, since I was really actually a little bit afraid to BE in Florida.

Team StarKid gets mad points for being there, too. They’re always fun to watch (and with A Very Potter Sequel recently online, I recommend doing just that: http://www.teamstarkid.com ). Major props to them for being that amazing treat that just makes everything better, like snow cones on the beach. And especially to their costume guy, Corey L-not-even-going-to-try-to-spell-it, because $5.00 hasn’t brought me that much amusement since the days of play dough, glow-in-the-dark army men, those foam “grow your own dinosaur” pills, and bouncy balls (alternatively: pogs, warheads, and pokemon cards).

To kill the beach analogy, since I’ve never actually GONE to the beach, I’m back home and settling back into the whole camp/archery thing.

One week until I’m cut free from that, and then who knows?

Semester starts soon enough, but if things go according to plan, it’ll be my last. The novel’s in pieces, my focus is shot, and NaNoWriMo is creeping up on us, slowly but deliberately. The people I care about are thousands of miles away, and before I know it, snow is going to be choking out all the sun and green and color. And I think I need to find a real job. You know, the sort that pays regular wages and sucks out your soul, or something.

But really, who knows? At this point, the future is a blank piece of paper, waiting to be filled with words. And even if I don’t know where my story’s going, right now at least, it’s going.

Long nights and late mornings to you,

Brittany Maresh,