Detainment
Tue Sep 13, 2005 07:51 (UTC -5)Today and tomorrow there is testing for the freshmen and sophomores (they’re taking the BATs, I think — not to be confused with the OWLs or NEWTs). That means that the juniors and seniors (well, the ones who bothered to come to school, anyway) are being held in the classrooms that the other students aren’t using for testing. These are rooms such as the health classroom, the band room, and the computer labs, whence this middayish midweekish entry comes. There’s hardly anyone here in the classroom of Ms. Bruton, whom I had for my first class during the first semester of my first year of high school.
Sunday afternoon was one of those afternoons where I have a little more homework to do but I’m so bored that I don’t feel like doing anything and I can’t nap (I can’t go to sleep if it’s not dark). Even blogging is boring then, but it passes the time. It was on Sunday that I got a good idea for a novel. So, I started searching the web for advice for writing a novel. There are many sites that can help you. They all say this: “Writing is really hard. You can’t do it.” Nevertheless, I persevered for a total of a few hours before I realized that I can’t write fiction and that I’d quickly lose interest in trying to drag out this mediocre story.
Here are some reasons not to write a novel.
- Months of wasted effort; no one will ever want to publish your story.
- If someone does want to publish your story, it won’t be popular and so you won’t make any money.
- You have a day job to stick to.
- This is reason number 4.
But the next day I figured why I would want to write a novel. A novel exists for the author to convey a message, and I feel that I have a message that I want to convey. Besides that, I realized that a novel has several subplots, so I threw one in. Maybe I can think of another. I’ve already finished designing the characters, and I’m currently working on outlining the plot. I’ve got that about halfway done.
But writing it will be another story. I think a work must be at least 40,000 words long to be considered a novel. I did some math with that. A seven-page story that I wrote has about 3,000 words. If a single chapter is that long, and there are, say, twelve, then that’s about 36,000 words on 84 pages – a pretty shrimpy novel. Each major event will be a chapter, except for the climax, which may span several, and the exposition, which will have its own. Of course, that’s all subject to change. Whether or not I write it is subject to change.
I don’t remember being told this. Last Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported:
Man Charged with Stealing from High School Vending Machines
By Herald staff reports
The Broward Sheriff’s Office has arrested a man who allegedly broke into vending machines at Pompano Beach High School.
Roy Hershel Johnson, 31, of Fort Lauderdale, has been taken to the Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail, where he faces numerous theft-related charges, according to BSO.
On Sept. 5, detectives were staking out the high school, looking for the guy who had been videotaped by security cameras breaking into vending machines there over the past couple of weeks, BSO Said.
When they saw Johnson pedal up on a bicycle, carrying a large duffel bag, they knew he was their suspect, according to BSO.
The detectives called for back up, and fanned out across the school grounds, looking for Johnson. They found him squeezed in behind one of the machines he was there to rob, BSO said.
When detectives interviewed Johnson and confronted him with the videotaped evidence, he confessed to breaking into vending machines and stealing the money, according to the sheriff’s office.
Johnson, who was just released from prison on March 2, has convictions dating back to 1998 for burglary, grand theft, trafficking in stolen property, and drug possession, according to the sheriff’s office. If convicted of these latest charges, he could be sentenced to more than 25 years behind bars, BSO said.
I wonder what other crimes are being committed here that we don’t know about? Google News knows all.
