Miss Raquel's Second Novel- Part 2

[genever]

I knew 

Yep, I bet she's realizing just how difficult trying to make it in an entry level service job is. It's one thing when your barista money is for going out with friends and buying clothes. It's quite another when you have to support yourself on it. 

However, as @nastyhobbitses says, I can totally see her thinking of student loans as free money and going to college full-time for eight years, switching her major every time she gets some professor who "just doesn't understand her."

I went to school with a guy who changed his major every time he got a lousy grade, and it was always the professor's fault. Not really friends with hmi anymore and I'm okay with that.

***

I work in academic admin and am more or less the face of my department when something goes wrong for an undergraduate student. Most of the students are fantastic and I'm more than happy to help them; on the other hand, there are the students who demand that I choose their courses from them (nope, your degree) or who pay for exams to be re-graded because they want a higher mark (and notice that I didn't say that they felt that their work deserved a higher mark).

I feel as though Raquel would top all the unreasonable requests I've seen. At once. I thank my lucky stars that I work for an institution known for academic rigour (i.e. not likely to be a draw for Miss R.).

(I feel as though I should be able to produce better writing than this even on a Saturday morning, but here we are...)

[Vex]

What is with the vocal hiccups Raquel keeps forcing into her songs?

"Ru" *beat* "uuuuude"

Get a goddamned vocal coach and learn to sing in tune and well without affectations and vocal gymnastics. When you can sing a song plainly, in tune, with proper breath control then you might be able to think about fancy-ing it up a bit, but to do that well you need to do it sparingly and with an understanding and appreciation of your material.

Also that poem made me laugh out loud for a good 30 seconds.

[ari_belle]

39 minutes ago, Vex said:

What is with the vocal hiccups Raquel keeps forcing into her songs?

"Ru" *beat* "uuuuude"

Get a goddamned vocal coach and learn to sing in tune and well without affectations and vocal gymnastics. When you can sing a song plainly, in tune, with proper breath control then you might be able to think about fancy-ing it up a bit, but to do that well you need to do it sparingly and with an understanding and appreciation of your material.

Also that poem made me laugh out loud for a good 30 seconds.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBbT3SpwzsD/?taken-by=raquelmusic_official

This is the worst one

[Grimalkin]

On February 4, 2016 at 3:16 PM, ari_belle said:

Can you imagine Raquel taking a creative writing class? She wouldn't be able to take the criticism.

https://www.instagram.com/raquelmusic_official/

Oh, and she has this 2nd instagram now where she posts 15-second clips of her singing. I'm embarrassed for her every time she posts these...I don't even feel any schadenfreude.

   Is this a common thing among 'the youth of today' little sound bits like that? I'm embarrassed because my 17 yo caught me listening to them. I just don't feel like explaining Raquel to her. 

     I can't help but wonder how many takes she did and the amount of primping and posing that went into these. Then I remember she is technically an adult(how old is she?) my 14yo used to take an enormous amount of overly posed selfies and random recordings of herself with her friends like this when she was..........12. She would never post them and She seems to have a better understanding of how the Internet and social media works and not making an ass of yourself.I honestly don't understand her mindset.

5 minutes ago, ari_belle said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBbT3SpwzsD/?taken-by=raquelmusic_official

This is the worst one

I have seriouse second hand embarrassment just watching that.

[ari_belle]

43 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

   Is this a common thing among 'the youth of today' little sound bits like that? I'm embarrassed because my 17 yo caught me listening to them. I just don't feel like explaining Raquel to her.

I wouldn't want to explain Raquel either.

1 hour ago, Grimalkin said:

I have seriouse second hand embarrassment just watching that.

Yeah. I barely enjoy snarking on her shitty little video clips because of how severe the secondhand embarrassment feels.

[salex]

A friend sent me this just today and i thought it fit with the discussion of Raquel's potential reaction to workshops...http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-letter-to-my-creative-writing-class

[formergothardite]

 

1 hour ago, salex said:

A friend sent me this just today and i thought it fit with the discussion of Raquel's potential reaction to workshops...http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/a-letter-to-my-creative-writing-class

That would totally be Raquel. 

 

[Terrie]

Raquel is every embarrassing impulse and whim of our youth that we want to forget, and she's proud of it.Ugh.

[nastyhobbitses]

16 hours ago, Terrie said:

Raquel is every embarrassing impulse and whim of our youth that we want to forget, and she's proud of it.Ugh.

She really reminds me of how I was when I was 14. I thought I was the most awesome writer ever and an awesome singer and anyone criticizing me was just jealous and I was totally capable of living on my own and my parents just didn't understand.

I was 14. Raquel is in her 20s.

[formergothardite]

Raquel is writing alien invasion fictionals now.

Quote

 

They were coming for us.  They were closer than they had been the day before.

The warehouse was full of refugees from the entire state who had come to seek shelter and protection from the hoard of overtaking monsters.

Yes, monsters.  We had no other name for them.  Honestly, none of us had even seen one up close.  They're huge enough to see from a distance and the few we've seen, we've been able to take down pretty quickly.

But now, there was more than just a few.  And we would be squished like bugs in this warehouse if we stayed for much longer.

 

http://www.itsjustraquel.com/

I guess Fathom and Xaquerie have been shelved for the moment. 

[Pastors Daughter]

5 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Raquel is writing alien invasion fictionals now.

http://www.itsjustraquel.com/

I guess Fathom and Xaquerie have been shelved for the moment. 

Not quite. . . In her second chapter, the reader finds out Fathom and Xaquerie ARE the Fixtures.

[clueliss]

Raquel - do the reader a favor.  I realize you're posting this on a blog but proper spacing etc is valuable.  

yes, I realize that this is addressed to someone who thinks that left justified & choppy makes it a poem.

Speaking of choppy - first line and second line really belong in the same paragraph!

[refugee]

Must've seen one of those "alien invasion" movies over the weekend. "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise was on last night, late. "5th Wave" just opened in theaters, didn't it? 

[clueliss]

I stopped reading a couple of paragraphs down.  Because I was doing the mental critique and really wanted paper and a brightly colored (not red, I don't even critique my own stuff in red) pen so I could mark stuff that needed work.   (The word weilder needs to work on using action verbs and ditching passive voice and/or transitional verbs from my perspective - but then a lot of big! name! published! authors do as well).  

[AmazonGrace]

What's up with Noah? The smirking and laughing brother? Didn't anyone tell him that they're fleeing from a scary hoard [sic] of huge mind eating monsters? Is this really a good time to go sightseeing with a guy? Furthermore, why isn't anyone telling us if he's hot or not?

[clueliss]

My initial reaction is that she's writing some near future speculative Christian fiction.  Between the name Noah and the one I caught near the bottom of her post Shadrach it sort of screams it.  (and yes, Near Future Speculative Fiction is one of those Sci Fi subgenres).  

Oh if I don't surface in a couple of days, send the rescue ferrets - I'm reading the Raquel archives here.  

[Curious]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

They were coming for us.  They were closer than they had been the day before.

The warehouse was full of refugees from the entire state who had come to seek shelter and protection from the hoard of overtaking monsters.

Yes, monsters.  We had no other name for them.  Honestly, none of us had even seen one up close.  They're huge enough to see from a distance and the few we've seen, we've been able to take down pretty quickly.

But now, there was more than just a few.  And we would be squished like bugs in this warehouse if we stayed for much longer.

I know this is a Raquel quote and not FG, but I don't feel like fighting with the quote feature.

I'm no writer.  I apparently use passive voice, which is bad.   I can't actually figure out exactly what that means, even though I've read about it many times, but that is a whole different topic.

These 2 specific areas make my brain skip a little when reading.

Quote

They were coming for us.  They were closer than they had been the day before.

Wouldn't that be a given?  If someone is coming for you, they'd naturally be moving closer to you each day.  There is probably little chance of both parties moving at the exact same speed each day.  My not-writery self would say something like:

They were coming for us, getting closer each day.

Quote

Honestly, none of us had even seen one up close.  They're huge enough to see from a distance and the few we've seen, we've been able to take down pretty quickly.

This one also makes me go "huh?"   We haven't seen any of them up close, but the few we have seen we've been able to kill.   uh what are you using to kill them?    Air to surface missals?  Lasers from satellites? What kind of long range missals does this ragtag group of refugees have that they can easily dispatch these horrible, huge monsters that no one has even seen up close?

[formergothardite]

There are some really bad books that get published(Monument 14 is a perfect example. I actually started wondering if it was some sort of parody book) so I think that Raquel could actually get published. The thing is, she won't finish this book. On top of her poor writing skills, Raquel jumps from one book idea to another without ever finishing anything. It takes discipline to write books, even bad books, and Raquel doesn't seem to have any. 

This little bit leaves so many questions.

Quote

The warehouse was full of refugees from the entire state who had come to seek shelter and protection from the hoard of overtaking monsters.

So all the refugees from one state are at this warehouse for protection. Did the government set this up? If all the refugees fit in one warehouse, does that mean most of the other people living in that state died? 

Quote

As far as we knew, they weren't intelligent monsters.  And we had no way of knowing how they captured humans without harming them.

Since they are kidnapping humans and turning them into weapons AND they seem to be winning this war, perhaps they are a bit more intelligent than the humans are. Why did they think they weren't intelligent monsters? They had the technology to show up on earth. 

Quote

A chill of panic ran down my spine.  They were all still inside.  There was no way these people could make it to the next shelter without at least one of the four leaders.

 What sort of leaders are they that they all just abandon the refugees( we are told several times won't survive without at least one leader) to go deal with a Fixture? Shouldn't they send at least one out to help the people while the other three deal with the situation? Separating the leaders from the refugees might have been the plan of the Monsters. 

Quote

Dude, don’t tell anyone cuz I don’t wanna cause a panic but…all of the leaders are still inside.”

Raquel, please, please, please stop using the world "cuz". 

Quote

 

Noah smirked at me and turned away.  “Whatever.  You can wait here for them.  I’ll let mom know so she won’t wonder where you are if you don’t join up with us by this evening.”

Seth and he walked away, laughing.  I felt my face start to tense up with anger.  How dare they.

 

They are about to be murdered by aliens, there is an alien/human who managed to infiltrate their group of refugees, and their is a chance all the leaders will be killed meaning that the refugees will probably die too, nobody would be smirking and laughing. They would be panicking. 

 

Quote

The warehouse had been built on the outside of town specifically to be away from civilization.

Why? Was this built just for the refugees? Was it already there and they just built it outside the town for some reason? 

[Curious]

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

This little bit leaves so many questions.

Quote

The warehouse was full of refugees from the entire state who had come to seek shelter and protection from the hoard of overtaking monsters.

So all the refugees from one state are at this warehouse for protection. Did the government set this up? If all the refugees fit in one warehouse, does that mean most of the other people living in that state died? 

Hah..figured out quoting this time.

another nitpick.  Isn't overtaking an odd word to use there?  I'd use invading probably.  Sometimes a thesaurus is a dangerous tool  

[AmazonGrace]

 

Quote

"Everyone to the parking lot! Grab a car if you can and drive to the west side of the city! If you can't, just start walking!"

So the monsters are quite huge but verrry slow since you can outrun them by walking?

How come the people who have named zombies "Fixtures" can't come up with another word for monster?

Quote

To the right of the parking lot of care were the ones choosing to walk on foot.

The ones who chose to walk on their hands were to the right of the parking lot of negligence.

There are so many people she gets lost in the mass in a moment but looking over the crowd she can determine that none of the four leaders are there.

Why are the four leaders necessary to find the next shelter? No one else can follow road directions? The leaders won't tell anyone else where to go?
 

Quote

I knew my mom and brother were more than likely safely outside already so I just worried about myself and helping others.

 

There are huge looming monsters out there who will crush you , yet it's safe outside?

 

 

Quote

 

[formergothardite]

 Pretty sure she meant "parking lot of cars" but she didn't catch her mistake. The parking lot of negligence did give me a chuckle. That would make a better book than the one Raquel is writing. 

[Curious]

6 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Quote

To the right of the parking lot of care were the ones choosing to walk on foot.

The ones who chose to walk on their hands were to the right of the parking lot of negligence.

I should know better than to eat or drink when reading FJ.  I had just taken a bit of my sammich when I read your post.  Inhaling a bite of sammich is not good for you.  I was trying to figure out if I was going to have to give myself the Heimlich maneuver somehow.

Fortunately, it was unnecessary and I survived (obviously).

8 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Quote

"Everyone to the parking lot! Grab a car if you can and drive to the west side of the city! If you can't, just start walking!"

So the monsters are quite huge but verrry slow since you can outrun them by walking?

Shouldn't they fill up all the cars with people, not just a driver?  Or can only people who are able to drive allowed to go in the cars?   Maybe that's the case, so if someone dies, there are still a few other people that can drive the car.  You wouldn't want unlicensed drivers going around during a Monster Apocalypse!

[AmazonGrace]

1 minute ago, formergothardite said:

 Pretty sure she meant "parking lot of cars" but she didn't catch her mistake. The parking lot of negligence did give me a chuckle. That would make a better book than the one Raquel is writing. 

That's not one but two redundant expressions in the same sentence. Walk on foot... "on foot" is sort of implied by "walk", and "cars" are sort of implied by "parking lot". 

 

[salex]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Raquel is writing alien invasion fictionals now.

http://www.itsjustraquel.com/

I guess Fathom and Xaquerie have been shelved for the moment. 

Read a bit of this...there is a reason people don't post first drafts.

[OnceUponATime]

35 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

 

Quote

The warehouse had been built on the outside of town specifically to be away from civilization.

Why? Was this built just for the refugees? Was it already there and they just built it outside the town for some reason? 

Some drug lord from the previous generation purposely built it away from civilization so the cops couldn't notice the comings and goings so much. Or it might have been a warehouse from some chemical factory which would otherwise have been poisoning the people. Or CDC stored anthrax in it.., Or it was some paranoid guys fall out shelter, which is more likely because apparently it was well-stocked, there were abandoned shopping carts (wait, what?) and it had a parking lot. Walmart wanted to be in the middle of nowhere.

Actually nope, nothing makes sense there.