It's Just Abbey

And. She. Is. BACK!

Okay, guys I have been gone for about a month. Where have I been? I have been marathon training and writing. Aaaaand that's about it.

The marathon training isn’t too eventful. I run. The end.

Writing wise I’ve been working on editing my old NaNoWriMo novels and starting a new one. The new one is a little less creepy than my NaNos. (Seriously, what is wrong with me in November? BLOOD AND SOCIAL CHANGE! Yes! Let’s write about that!!!!) I have been trying to blog and write but for some reason I can’t do both. I took a small hiatus to focus on my super important writing.

Then the other day I was sitting at work when my phone beeped. Oh! I know that sound! Someone @ replied to me on Twitter! OH HAPPY DAY!

Someone misses me! So if you are thinking to yourself, “Man, I wish Abbey would blog more…” Whelp, you can thank Annie for that very stern kick in the ass to get in gear! Say it with me kids, Thanks Annie!

So I thought about what to blog about in my big comeback and I sat here at my laptop. I have nothing guys. I’ve been traveling, growing a garden, tending to the growth of Patrick and I can’t seem to get my words out. How do you get Writer’s Block about real life? It seems like such an odd problem.

Then I started thinking about how I got into writing in the first place. Oh dear sweet baby Jesus, buckle up everyone! Let me take you in my time machine of shame.

In my tender youth as an eighth grader I had one friend. Let’s think of a code name for her…. I’d call her Crazy Pants but that part of the story is for another day… Her code name will be… Screw it, her name was Ashley.

Ashley and I were all we had in the world. Both outcasts in the turbulent years of puberty and gossip. We were an odd pair to be honest. I was bursting out of my personality shell and she was shy and timid. These traits worsened over time but again, another time. Our one common bond was NSync.

Yeah, you read that right. NSync. Five gorgeous men dancing together singing songs about life and love. Who wasn’t in love with them?

One night after staying awake to watch the boy band’s latest performance we started babbling about how AWESOME it would be if NSync’s tour bus was driving by then broke down in front of the house! AND THEN they didn’t have a cell phone so they needed to stay with us for the WHOLE weekend. THEN, oh, THEN they thought we were so totes cool so they ask us to go on tour with them! Oh they lives we would live!

So my awkward self bounded home the next day and then wrote our tale. Twelve pages of pure magic written in orange glitter gel pen. I only wrote as far as we had discussed so the last page concluded with “… TO BE CONTINUED???” I gave it to Ashley and she looked at me with her big glassy eyes and told me to keep writing.

And that was how I survived the remainder of 8th grade. Every day in seventh period study hall I would write her one more page in the story. Over the weekends I would write about 5 pages. It was always written on standard, three hole, lined paper (you know, so I could write but look like I was doing homework. I was like James Bond of fan fiction…) and it each page was a different color gel pen.

Let’s all take a moment to remember gel pens and how freaking awesome they were. Anyone who was anyone had at least a dozen different colors. I had a few but Ashley was the queen bee of gel pens. She had a Detroit Red Wings cup that she had every gel pen imaginable in. Each different series were rubber banded together to help with organization. Milky gel, glitter gel, metallic gel, bold gel, pastel gel, gels that climbed on rocks. She was extremely protective of those pens. Each day before study hall I was allowed to use one and it had to be returned to her by the next class along with the page of sweet NSync story. She never really trusted me with those pens and who wouldn't? I get easily confused and tend to eat things at random. She was just being careful.

By the end of the year it was all carried in a giant, blue three ring binder. It was bursting at the binding with a rainbow colored story. She carried that thing with her everywhere. I was never clear if she was worried that I would give her a page randomly and she would need to file it immediately or if she had the same worry I did about locker safety. If anyone in our class had found that book we would still be swinging from the flag pole by our underwear to this day.

Now here was the thing about this story I concocted. It didn’t make a lick of sense. There was no plot. It was just a series of events that subscribed to no known calendar of time. Things just happened as I saw fit and that’s the way it was. Most of it was just stuff to keep us amused and survive the hell hole that was our lives at the time. So what if we had hopes that our 16 Candles romance with the quarterback of the football team never panned out? We were dating NSync! Take that you football playing asshole! Who’s a dogface now?! HUH!?

Breathe Abbey.

Anyway, that was my big break into writing and it was one of my favorite memories of junior high school. No wait, scratch that. That was my only happy memory of junior high. It was something that got me through the days and notebook paper was way cheaper than therapy! Huzzah! I didn’t care if it didn’t make any sense and I still don’t. I just loved escaping to my fantasy world where I was 18 and freakishly hot. And to give you a taste of the gems in that story (that I now realize never had a title…) here are a few.

-Justin once tried to make Ashley pancakes but he can’t cook! What happened? They turned out hard as rocks and broke someone’s toe!! LOLZ!

-The guys had a 10 foot tall body guard named Clyde that did my bidding.

-I had an ongoing prank war with Lance that usually involved Clyde or trapping him in closets. The second part is much funnier currently than it was then.

-There were three villains. Two girls who may or may not have been modeled after the two most popular girls in our class who we may or may not have thrown in a pool and got into fist fights with. (NSync likes their ladies classy.) And the third was Britney Spears. We did many terrible things to her too and I blame myself for her bald K-Fed days. Sorry Brit!

Yup. Compelling stuff right there! Anyway, I finished it over the summer and I was so proud of the ending. It was all a dream!

GONG!

Ashley didn’t like it as much. Mostly because it took her a few reads to get what I was saying. I don’t have a copy of the story but the ending went something like this….

I had never been prouder. It was my big M Night Shyamalan ending! What a twist! Ashley was pissed and wanted a rewrite but I wouldn’t. I was an artist and my work remains untainted. I had never done a rewrite before, why start now?

So there it is guys. That was how it all started and I’m not going to lie to any of you and tell you that it was my last NSync fan fiction. I also won’t try to convince you that I don’t have an NSync blanket that I still use on rainy days and text Hoppie about how I am cuddling with 5 guys. I also won’t say that I don’t know all the moves to Bye Bye Bye and once preformed it at a Homecoming Dance.

Now if you’ll all excuse me I have to go take a drive and belt out the lyrics to It’s Gonna Be Me for an hour and a half.