Sunday, March 12, 2017

***2017 WRITE: PEOPLE: My Name Is Jane. Plain Jane. Part 1

My Name Is Jane.  Plain Jane.  Part 1
A short story as a writing exercise
The writers group at Nara's Nook has started a learning and production project using the guide book "The 90-day novel," by Alan Watt.  To contribute to the project without spending the time on a novel, I wrote a short story or small play using some of the guidance from the book.  

  • The writer's meeting at Nara's nook meets Mondays, 6 PM California time.
  • Scroll down for instructions on how to get to the meeting.

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My Name Is Jane.  Plain Jane

I'm Jane.  Plain Jane.  I'm the girl with the great personality.  You know, when the neighbors visited, they wanted to say something nice, all they could think of was, "She has a great personality."

Even that was a lie.  I don't have any personality at all.  I'm too shy to have a personality.   I'm just the extra lump on the couch.  

What I really want is to have a personality.  I've got brains  I was the valedictorian in high school graduation.   I had to do it because I had the best grades in the senior class.  It almost killed me.  I vomited all day before the speech.  

I was sort of popular with the boys in junior college.  Not that they liked me.  They needed me to fix their computers.  They called me the geek.  Nobody ever said I had a great personality.  I was just the computer whizz.  And I was way ahead of the boys in differential equations.  Yeah, that really made me popular.  

What I'm most afraid of?  Well, I could say other people.  I'm that shy.  But I can't really blame other people. Nobody has done anything bad  to me.   I've never even been raped.  Can you believe that?  I'm not even worth a rape!

And nobody has even been really mean to me,  Except maybe Jason.  But when the neighbors said I had a great personality, they were trying to be nice.  It bothered me because I knew that was the only thing good they could think of to say about me.  Did you get that?  It bothered me because I was too smart to feel good about a compliment!  You know you are in deep shit when a compliment makes you miserable. 

But I am smart enough not to blame it on other people.  I"m shy because of me.  I must have been born that way.  Hermione says I'm shy because I choose to be shy.  I don't believe that.  Why would I make a stupid choice like that?

Hermione is a friend of mine.  She works in the same place I do.  But she is in sales and is really good at it.  I guess she likes me because I can do a little fixing on the software when one of her customers wants something special.  I'm in software, of course.  That way I just have to talk to the computers.  I'm not shy around them.  And that is really funny, because computers have given me more trouble than people ever have.  But I know how to handle computers.

The people where I work, we have a happy hour on Fridays after work.  We go to a bar for beer.  I didn't go when I first started at the company.  I made up excuses.  But some of the people kept after me to join them.  I don't know why--I'm really a klutz at conversation.  Somebody will order a Caesar salad and I will say something like "I come to bury Caesar, not the eat him."   Then silence.  Nobody can think of something to follow that line. 

Well, Jason could.  He said, "The voice of the super-geek is heard in the land."

Then Hermione chimed in, "Thus spake reverend Jason."' 

And then somebody called for more beer.

I heard that beer is supposed to loosen you up.  Not for me.  Well, it makes me piss a lot, so I could say it loosens my bladder.  But it doesn't keep me from being shy.  I drink, I'm just a shy drunk.  See?  Nothing is going to help me.  "Nothing to be done."  That's my favorite line from "Waiting For Godot."   

But I did figure out what I am afraid of.  I am afraid of getting a personality.  That is really weird.  I just said I wanted a personality.  Now I said I am afraid of getting a personality.   That is not logical.  But if a genie magically gave me a new personality, I would not know how to run it.  I would be just as much of a klutz as I am now.  Just a klutz with a personality.
Damn!
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This (the multi-part series starting with this part) could be a short story or a one-act play for one or three actors. I relinquish all claims to the copyright and declare all work by me under the title "Jane, Plain Jane" to be in the public domain.    

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  • The writer's meeting at Nara's nook is on Mondays, 6 PM California time. 
  • HG address: 
  • world.narasnook.com:8900
  • In a virtual world connected to the Hypergrid:
  • put the HG address in the Find bar of the world map, click Find, TP
  • If you are not connected to the Hypergrid: 
  • visit Nara's Nook and find out how to join Nara's virtual writer's colony.

Related


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    News and Notes

    The Hypergrid WIP Show

    • The Hypergrid WIP is a one hour "show & tell" of works in progress or recently completed. 
    • Everyone is invited.  Building, scripting, promotion, entertainment-- whatever you are working on.
    • Selby will be doing test video capture of presentations in voice.  These may be posted on YouTube.
    -
    • Presentations are in voice and text.  
    • For text presentations, best bring the text in a notecard and paste it into chat.  
    • Voice presentations may be captured in video.  
    • Stills and videos from the show may appear in this blog and elsewhere.

    Next WIP show

    • Next WIP show: Sun. March 12, Noon SLT 
    • Pandora Location: (second Sunday of the month)

    • Pandora Location: (second Sunday of the month)
    • Pandora allows presenters to run high threat OSSL functions.
    • world.narasnook.com:8900
    • Put the line above in your World Map next to Find.  Click Find. TP
    • At Narasnook, use World Map to search for Pandora

    • Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
    • HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
    • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
    • in Kitely: paste into Nav (top) bar of Firestorm, Enter.
    • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Cookie II/68/369/22

            Previous Articles from the WIP show 

            HG links-- depending on your interests 

            Communities in the virtual worlds

            Radio in the virtual worlds

            Metaverse beginner help

                                  Schools in virtual worlds


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                                  1 comment:

                                  1. Navya KumarMarch 17, 2017 at 11:06 PM

                                    Very nice post here and thanks for it .I always like and such a super contents of these post.Excellent and very cool idea and great content of different kinds of the valuable information's.
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