I know, I've been gone forever. I'm a horrible person. Whatever. The 21st was my best friend's birthday and I wasn't going to get to see him, then some shit I didn't want to deal with came up and I said fuck it and ran ten hours away to spend the weekend with him. And for the last few weeks I've been being an adult about stuff and taking care of business and being kind of sick. So that's the scenic route of the fact that I've been gone, but here I am.

Let's talk about: Things that Happen in Books (But Not Real Life)

Usually.

1. Characters do everything perfectly on the first try

This happens so much and I'm bored of it. I'll admit, sometimes you just pick up some things quickly, but you can't do everything perfectly every damn time. Honestly, if you make people fail at something, your story will be a million times better.

Like, the MC always lets her love interest talk her into doing something she's never done and she just owns it. Never played guitar? Five minutes and she's playing fucking Clapton or something. Never been on a skateboard? Here, watch her do a backflip on it from a standstill (I read that once. Like, the fuck? No). Never cooked anything before? Watch her make this amazing four course meal you'd find at a five star restaurant (do they get higher than five star? I don't know food). Never thrown clay? Check out this vase she sold at an auction for two million dollars.

Some of my favorite moments have come from the failure of trying something new. Like I was seventeen before I ever decorated a Christmas tree (don't ask) and lemme tell you, there is an art to that shit. I did it with some really good friends of mine and they thought I was insane. Seriously. I had no idea what I was doing, and coming from a pretty extensive art background, they were surprised I didn't pick it up very quickly. But it was great. I fucked everything up but it was fun. When else is it okay to get completely tangled in lights and get covered in red and green glitter from some gaudy ornaments. Or to cut yourself on a broken ornament or get a concussion from the falling top star, thingy, whatever (again, don't ask). It was great to be so bad at something.

No one thought less of me because I sucked. They thought it was fun to give me tips and fun to watch me screw up again and again.

And once, I went on a date with a guy, and he took me to play mini-golf with him, which I had never done. I don't even have to tell you how badly I sucked. It was so bad. And he wanted so badly to teach me, but that's awkward too, so it was better to just let me drown. (Then my best friend sent me a text that said not to play the nineteenth hole with that guy and it got even more awkward, because I don't like people reading over my shoulder for the soul purpose that I tend to send and receive a lot of obscene jokes). But it's okay to let people see you fail. They aren't going to hate you. They're going to want to help you.

There is nothing better than being able to laugh at yourself and your characters need to learn that lesson. You, personally, all need to learn that lesson. I'm still learning that lesson and it's a fun ride.

2. Moving in with a boy you just met

This happens all the time in fanfiction. "Oh, I just met this incredibly popular band/artist/show character. And I'm fifteen and we're so in love and my once overprotective parents let me move in with them or move all the way across the world with them or go on tour with them." Yeah, no.

It happens in teen fiction too, when the girl moves in with her bad boy neighbor because there is something wrong with their house and/or he's the father of her baby via one night stand and his parents are cool with it all. Or in romance where she moves in with her multimillionaire boss/boyfriend via contract that is eerily similar to what I'm told is in 50SOG.

Can I just be for real? My dad asked me not to move in with my best friend until after we graduated high school, because even though I was eighteen for seven months of my senior year, he didn't want people talking. And I did wait, because it would have been disrespectful for me not to.

My dad and I have a great relationship and as a coach at the high school, people would not have liked that his daughter moved in with a boy. That's not something every parents wants their kid to be exposed to and not everyone would have wanted an educator teaching their children when he let his own daughter move in with a boy she wasn't married to and wasn't related to.

And it didn't help that my best friend's house was kind of party central. Let's face it: no parents, always full of liquor, minimal rules, and secluded in the middle of nowhere so cops hardy ever came out and neighbors pretty much never complained (because they lived forever away). There were always lots of party people there.

At one point I remember my best friend trying to kick people out after a really long weekend and he was telling one guy "You realize you're the reason we have the mandatory clothing rule now, right? Because I never wanted to be that guy, but I've seen your dick more than I've seen my own and I shower regularly. You ruined it for everyone." So I was scared about moving in. I like wearing pants, personally.

But there is never any sort of immediate conflict for this kind of thing. I don't think it should be an issue, but pretending that it doesn't come up and just assuming that things go off without a hitch because that's how it should be does not make it how it is. No one seems to care and no one struggles with these decisions, but let's be honest, moving isn't easy.

I hate when things go smoothly. You're supposed to make everything go wrong for your characters. That's just how things go. That's what makes for good stories.

3. Getting Extremely Hurt (For Only 5 Minutes)

I see this all the time and it's just another way to create cheap drama. If something happens to you that necessitates a trip to the emergency room, you're probably not going to go partying and having sex and drinking and doing drugs in an hour (note I said probably). I hate when people just throw in a scene like this just so they can throw a pity party for the MC before going back to letting them be normal.

Now, let me be one of the first to say, sometimes there are false alarms. Sometimes, you think that you have pneumonia when really it's just the common cold (my poor brother can't deal with colds). Sometimes, especially when you're an athlete, you take a hit that worries people and you go to the doctor just to make sure everything's okay. But, if you get a concussion from passing out and falling off a building, you're probably not going to just magically be fine in two hours. I get weird things happen, but I'm tired of this shit happening.

If you're going to have a dramatic hospital scene, it has to have a meaning, which means, the repercussions have to echo through to following events. The visit doesn't have to last an entire chapter. You don't even have to give a play-by-play of absolutely everything that comes afterwards. You can have a time gap. But you cannot throw in a dramatic scene where someone gets extremely hurt and is fine five minutes later.

I've seen freak accidents. Honestly, I have. My sophomore year there was an accident at one of the schools my high school played and it was a bad deal. Three guys on the football team had been out partying and they wrecked their car. Two of them died. One of them walked away without a scratch. And it was a bad accident. But he was miraculously okay. I get that that happens. I really do. But if you're going to commit to actually giving a character an injury, you can't turn around and pretend it doesn't exist just because it's hard to write around.

Everyone wants to make their characters infallible. They don't want to give them weaknesses or let them show any emotion or any kind of Achilles heel, but they want drama. So they have these insane scenes where it's amazing anyone survived, then they talk about these head wounds their characters sustained and all the bumps and scratches and broken bones. Then, two minutes later, they're running out of the hospital, disconnecting IV cords as they go.

I'd be okay with this if the writer hadn't already committed to giving them worrisome injuries. Seriously. If you add it, own it. You can't throw out things just because you want to add another layer if that layer in no way affects what happens and never pertains to the story again. Even if it just explains one event, I'm cool.

And, yeah, people handle things differently. To sit here and pretend everyone has the same pain tolerance, body type, mental stability, or even just bone density is stupid and I won't do that.

People are different. Everyone responds differently to treatments and information. My best friend has an insanely strong mental game. He's a big mind over matter person. But his emotional game sucks. (He tried to tell me one time that his unnaturally high pain tolerance worked on emotional pain too, but he drinks a lot so I don't have to believe him).

I have a really high pain tolerance, but when I fell off a building, I didn't just walk away. It hurt like hell and even though I tried to go back to my normal life as quickly as possible, I still had problems from it. I couldn't just ignore it because I was tired and wanted to be done with it. I lived with that pain for months. I still do. Getting seriously injured isn't something you shake off that easily.

And this rant has gotten away from me...holy shit. What a tangent. Anyway, lemme recap here:

a) If you include a serious injury for the MC (or even supporting characters) it has to be relevant

b) Freak accidents happen that leave no injury. But recovering from an entire broken skeleton doesn't happen overnight

c) People are different, so their recovery will all be different. That being said, it's no excuse to skip recovery completely

d) Addy needs to stop talking so much because she gets really lost in where she is going with things

4. Meeting everyone always goes really smoothly

You know how they always say first impressions are the most important thing? How many times have you made a flawless first impression? I can think of maybe one time when I made a good first impression on someone. The rest just make me really glad I'm a pretty forgettable person for the most part.

And it's not even just that they have to be horrifically embarrassing meetings. I'm cool with anything besides locking eyes across the room and grinning shyly at each other or running into a "brick wall" that is a guy.

So let me give you examples of some of the best first impressions I've made on people/they've made on me.

One of my absolute best girlfriends I met my sophomore year. I was in a junior math class and I didn't know her that well, but she had dated one of my brother's friends so I knew of her. But she came and sat by me and as she started trying to talk to me her gum just went flying out of her mouth onto her Batman backpack. And she just went red and started apologizing and swearing she wasn't crazy. And I couldn't stop laughing, because that's a horrible first impression. We were instantly friends. You can't embarrass yourself that badly in front of someone and not expect to be either dear friends or horrific enemies. That was great.

And I met my best friend's big boss (as in CEO of his fucking company) when I was my best friend's date to this big charity event thing that was being hosted by the CEO. Like, it was a black tie affair and apparently no one told the CEO, because he looked just like one of the little event coordinator people that run around telling people where to go and keeping everything on the tight schedule. So anyway, my best friend was off doing his important stuff and I was making friends with the event staff, because that's what I do (and you should always take time to appreciate the staff at any event, they work their asses off for you).

And his CEO walks up to me and starts just chit chatting (because I didn't know this guy was the kind of guy that spent shit tons of money on a black tie charity event where important people go). And I said some things I NEVER would have said if I had known who he was (like, he asked me if I was having fun, and I jokingly told him I was bored, even though it was the least boring place you could be). Then, when I found out who he was, I seriously almost cried because I thought I'd just gotten my best friend fired from his dream job. It was that bad.

BUT, apparently, his CEO liked me. Like, a lot lot. He invited us to sit with him at the important people table (instead of the starving artists' table). He called me a fire cracker. And my best friend got to show the guy his work and a few weeks later (I like to think it was thanks to me), he got some invaluable exposure to other very important people. Which was basically a promotion. Thanks to me. Because I don't know how to keep my mouth shut.

When I met my brother's best friend for the first time, he hit me in the face with a basketball. When I met my college roommate in first grade, she had just fallen out of her desk. When I met another guy I ended up being really good friends with, he slapped my ass because he thought I was his girlfriend from behind. And once I pretended to be deaf when I met a guy because he was bombarding me with questions and I hadn't been paying attention and I was overwhelmed.

So that was fun. And my point is, you don't always have to make a good first impression and neither do your characters. So tell me about some first impressions you've made (or your friends or acquaintances have made on you). That's always fun. I love hearing stories.

And that's my rant. That's all I have.

What are some things you see that happen in book but not real life? Anything else you want to add? Feel free.

And, special for you guys, I have a legitimately funny story this time. When I was at my best friend's for his birthday I needed a band aid (long story, also totally not funny) so I was in his bathroom trying to find some (which, I swear I've seen him tape cuts back together with fucking duct tape so I'm not sure why I thought he had some), but I miraculously found a box. But they were those themed ones you get for kids or whatever. And they were Star Wars. Fuckin' Star Wars, like the kind they sold in the 90's, you know?

Anyway, so I took him the box (which had been opened and appeared to have some missing) and asked him why he has kid band aids (not that I was judging him, because let's be honest, when I'm at my dad's house and need a band aid, I always opt for the super cool ones we have left over from my childhood) but it's so not like him. And he takes the box from me and says "Excuse me, those are for special occasions. But, since I care about your wellbeing and I want it to heal properly, you can have one."

So, yeah, I took one. I'm not gonna pass up having fuckin' C-3P0 on my band aid. But it gets better.

Later that day, after it got dark, but before we went out, we were hanging out in his living room, watching Step Brothers, and out of nowhere he asks me if I want to see the coolest thing ever, which of course I did. So he turns out all the lights, grabs my bandaged foot, and low and behold, the band aid was glowing in the dark. GLOWING in the DARK! He was not exaggerating when he said it was the coolest thing ever, because I've never had a band aid glow in the dark. Did you know they could do that!?

But apparently, a friend got them for him as a joke, but he said the joke was on his friend because he loves them. And so do I. It's going to be hard to go back to stupid normal band aids. Really hard.