Masquerade

Masquerade!
Paper faces on parade!

Masquerade!

Hide your face so the world will never find you!

-Phantom of the Opera

Carnival Started as a time for celebration and expression throughout the classes, as wearing masks hid any form of identity between social classes.

-Wikipedia

The Mask is your new face;

The magic is your and everyone's.

It gives you wings.

Or a shroud, a cloak of riches, jewels, or threadbare fabric - that of a beggar, my friend.

But ah!- would you rather become my enemy?

An enemy's mask on a former friend and all hint of the past is gone, held inside the mask.

Tread lightly or stomp, free of judgement.

The mask is your new self.

Unless you wish.

For when you take it off again, you are nothing but who you truly are.

Summer

Before school broke for the year, I made a pile in my bedroom of all the books I wanted to read, and all the wisdom I wished to be imparted upon me. I had so many plans, I felt like Summer would be forever.
I took a breath.
And that's where I am now, at the end of the breath - it was that quick. I breathed and more than half the Summer past. I'm not even halfway through my pile, I've only spent a few days at the pool.
School is looming - I hate school. I hate how every afternoon I get home and just want to shower all the grime that the place seems to cover me in.
I don't know where the Summer went.

Today!

Today I cleaned my room.
CLEANED IT.
Every single surface, nook and cranny. The WHOLE ROOM. I sorted everything, and I THREW STUFF OUT. I moved things and rearranged, and made everything perfect. I dusted. Mum dusted. We got rid of everything I don't use.
MY ROOM IS CLEAN NOW! I mean, it wasn't messy before, but after about six hours straight, just cleaning things, I achieved a level of spotlessness that I really did not have before. I mean, half my stuff was missing, but was that really stuff I used?
-
For the most part, no.

Anyway, I am SO HAPPY to have a clean and neat room. I can actually MOVE and EXIST in that space.


So then. Cleaning is simply how I spent my day ...

On a different note, however, WHY do I find it so hard to speak to people?! I'm just like: "Blerghii har. Harr?" and they're just like: *walks away*
I mean, it's not that bad, but I just say dumb stuff all the time! I can't think of any examples right now, but ... yeah.

-Beth, the spotless and frustrated blogger.

My Sister and The Snail.

Today my little sister ran through the back door sobbing uncontrollably. I asked her what was wrong and she said, through her tears, that mum had stepped on a snail.

I thought it strange that most of the kids in her grade are the sort of people who run around and stomp on snails for the sheer pleasure of it, hearing the shell squish beneath their feet. But not her. The loss of one snail's measly little life sends her to absolute hysterics, and I love her for it. I think. There's no denying that it's sometimes incredibly frustrating, but any level of frustratingness is totally overwhelmed by just how reaussuring it is that someone - no matter how small, can care so much about the life of a snail.

Just a snail.

~Beth

Life.

Every day, more and more often, I find myself contemplating the meaning of life. The meaning of life ... - it seems like such a big thing, I know. It's more the sort of thing you'd want to mock, not contemplate. Maybe you might say, if someone was daydreaming, "so, now, tell me: have you figured out life's meaning yet?" and they might laugh and say it's 42.

I guess it's an opinionated thing, really. Maybe one person might have a belief that they live by, and that would be true to them, right? But another person might live by a different rule completely, and to each of these people - what they live by is the meaning of life to them.

I suppose mine would be to be happy as much as I can, and to not miss out on any opportunity. Maybe that's just what I'm saying now ... but hey- it's probably true. If I do that, maybe I'll find a more fulfilling meaning ... or maybe that's just the best one. Or Maybe I should stop being so ridiculously contemplative and sentimental. That too.

~Beth

New Novel ...

Back in November, the month of NaNoWriMo, I was struck with an idea for a story - but I could not write it down. This idea bugged me for the entirety of the month, growing and maturing as it sat in my mind. It tortured me, let me say, to keep on writing something else, and to have to completely ignore this other idea that I loved so much.

The idea which had taken me so very much was a story set in Paris, sometime in the future. The Government is tyrannical, making rules that make it impossible to have a different party elected, or for a person who was born from a family without much money to ever rise above their class. When a rumour that there is a rebel movement building underneath Paris - in both the catacombs and the abandoned Metro tunnels, reaches the government, they react sharply and begin bombing their own city. The upper-class families, not wanting to be disturbed or disrupted, began secretly paying the government so that their houses would not be bombed. Juliette Raquelle, the daughter of one of these families, has grown up, spent her whole life in absolute luxury. But when her family runs out of money and her house is bombed, she runs away and escapes to the place that she used to play as a child - which is actually part of the catacombs. She runs into a man called Marcello, who works for the rebel force, just as the tunnel collapses. He grabs her and runs away, that being his only choice besides letting her be crushed by the tunnel, and thus dying. When Marcello and Juliette return to the rebel base, nobody trusts Juliette. They all believe that Marcello just took her with him because he thought she was pretty.

Over the next month or so, Juliette begins to be trusted by the rebels. She wants to learn to fight in the army that they are building, but everyone believes that she is just this spoiled rich girl, who has never had to work a day in her life. So she secretly watches the army train, and begins to teach herself what they've been doing. When war breaks out and the army is fighting, Lorelei, a ten-year-old scout for the rebels, gets into trouble, and Juliette uses her fighting skills to save Lorelei's life.

Okay, it's a bit underdeveloped, and the plot near the end is really awful. BUT I love the characters, and I'm working on getting it better.

Also, I've been requesting character drawings from various NaNoers. Not many have been getting done, except for some of Juliette.

However, these drawings of Juliette are really wonderful!

I thought I'd share some with you:

~Beth

Twelve Words.

I've been writing some 'twelve word' poetry recently. Some of my best ones:

Things to do:

Sleep

Dance

Eat Peaches

Make Gnocchi

Write lists

And

Day drifted to night, drifting to day, floating away, fire and sea

To Blog.

Welcome to my blog.
My name is Beth. I'm thirteen years old.

I used to have a blog quite a while ago, but I sort of forgot about that ...
Anyway, I've decided to re-enter the world of blogging, hopefully with better outcomes. Probably I'll just post things that I've written, or maybe some things about books. I don't know. I'll post whatever I'm thinking of, so be prepared for some very strange posts.