This is what I get for reading too much fanfiction...

        Arr. Typing up my original story has been made difficult because I have spent the last five or six years writing Harry Potter fanfiction and trying desperately not to sound American. Now, I find that I can’t sound American if I try… And somehow, I doubt the average teenager around here would say “Comes in dead handy, having her around.” – which is the line I just found myself typing.

           

            I think once I finish typing up each chapter, I’m going to have to go through it and reverse Brit-pick it, which is not something I ever anticipated doing. This is what I get for reading so much Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Harry Potter fanfiction… I’m not entirely sure I read anything at all from America…

 

            (Which probably confused my English teacher this year on all those timed essays where I didn’t have spell check… yay for colours! And rumours! And co-operation with a dash in!)

 

(And isn’t it sad that as I was typing in “spell check,” my brain immedietly starting thinking of magic spells rather than the boring other sort? I have magic on the brain at all times.)

 

Oh, well. How do teenagers in America actually talk? You’d think I would know after living here my entire life, and, you know, being one, but apparently not. Maybe I should just set this story in England… But I’m sure I’ll make just as many mistakes, then. They’ll just be factual, instead of stylistic things. But then again, I could do research to fix those, instead of having to think very hard about every bit of dialog.

 

Mer. So- to avoid “loads”, “dead useful”, “Er” (in favor of “Um”), “a bit”, “bloody”, and sundry other words/phases, or to change the setting… Well, I know which would be easier, at least.

 

Graduating high school today! Hurray! I have a stupid marching practice in about an hour, and the actual ceremony is tonight. And then, in a few months, I’ll be off to college! Yay!

 

Anyway- I’d best go see where I need to go for this silly marching practice, so I don’t end up rushing off at the last minute yet again...

-R&d