In Young Adult literature there's always a Type-A... or so it seems, leading the pack, standing back with an unreachable glower, ready to swoop in for the troops at a time of need. They're usually the love interest, the unfeeling bad boy that needs the gentility of a mousy creature to whip them around. I hate it, I really do, the distortion of the Type-A with romance, because real Type-A's can stand alone. Whether you swoon over them or not in private is your own thing, but REAL Type-A's keep it real. REAL Type-A's say it like it is, even if it's embarrassing or uncomfortable or crass. They get a bad wrap these days, but I'd like to vouch for them--even though, frankly, they can stand on their own.

I've been writing a Type-A character over the past few months who has brought me back to my roots. Long ago, after the inability to sleep, or study for a french final, I streamed Stand By Me on my ghetto laptop... I think I might have even used the all evil Limewire--yes, this was forever ago.The way I understood storytelling changed dramatically, the way I viewed the protective Type-A altered too. Stand By Me isn't about the soft side, it's about the truth, seeing it for yourself, accepting life at face value, but not accepting it for your future.

The irony of the Type-A in Stand By Me is that Chris Chambers, our specimen in question, doesn't stand alone. The love he has for his companions is the source of his strength, making an already solid character even more resilient. Does Edward need Bella and Jace need Clary, is romance the source of their strength? What YA novels are saying about the Type-A is that the brutish male lead is made human by the female love interest, somehow softening the core of the Type-A. What YA lit does--in general--is strip away the strength from the Type A under the asinine assumption that we all need romantic love to survive. Honestly, I just want to see less of it. Most of this is rambling, but I'd just like to see a male lead with a strong sense of self not have to fall for the average chick who's the main character and prance off into the sunset like the gay man he was really hiding inside. I'm sorry. 


Below is the clip that I think fully defines a strong Type-A, a stand alone from Stand By Me. Be warned, there is mild language in this clip, but it is my favorite scene in the film that so artfully portrays the complexity of friendship and inner doubt:  

I don't have a fancy camera, I've always wanted one, but with the age of smart phones and high resolution digital cameras built into them, it seems a little irrelevant at times... Here and there, though, I take a picture or two I'm proud of. Above are a collection of photos taken from a trip up in NorCal. Jeep winding through pines under a brilliant sun with my cousins was the dose of nature I'd been needing for weeks. Many ideas were birthed beneath the trees and I think my characters will be all the better for it. Thanks to my wonderful aunt and uncle for lodging myself and my bro. We always love visiting and can't wait to go back!

-A&J 

Bottom line... it's fun. I little inspiration for you:

I'd like to talk about the usefulness of walks...

I take them often. When I can't sleep, when I can't think, when I'm restless, when I'm stuck... to feel like I'm moving, and with every step answers come. While we might not all live in areas fit for midnight walks, I do like them, but don't forget your pepper spray.

Allianora likes her walks, like her maker. She is a lass after my own heart ;)


**Excerpt from The Company - copyright Amalynne O.**


The City Walk:

Allianora was still groggy that afternoon as she slouched over her easel. She usually enjoyed art lessons out on the beach, the instructor was dismissive, and her fellow amateurs refreshingly silent as they slaved methodically over their canvases, but after last night's discoveries, Allianora's mind would not let her find solace. The sun was at an unmerciful position as it dipped into the horizon, it's golden light painting the waves with ribbons of blinding brightness. Her canvas looked nothing like the Midas-coated afternoon, it was, instead, a tornado of blotchy blues, like the rampage of a dream, sea and sky meeting in confusion. She hoped the instructor wouldn't come by to comment on the mess with his usual “interesting...” He already cast her funny looks for using her front skirt pockets to store her softened collection of smeary pastels, her little yellow dress streaked with the battle scars of a clumsy artist.

A yawn escaped her lips as she rubbed her bleary eyes, the creamy blue from her fingers smearing on her cheek. The exhaustion she felt went straight to her heart. She wanted to sleep, but she hadn't been able to. She'd turned herself off after Demon had left, turned out the lights to her chamber, slipped under her covers, and stared at the ceiling until daylight swelled about her room. She didn't move until noon, grumblings, soft grumblings had started to grow in her chest, a wounded monster sniffling to itself inside her.

She didn't even know how to feel, she needed time, she needed answers... she needed to take a walk... Allianora didn't even bother to remove her canvas and easel, she liked the idea of its enigmatic abandonment, pulling out the ribbon that held her messy braid in place and releasing it to the wind as she picked up her shoes and trudged, unnoticed, off the beach.


Allianora had never walked the streets so late, though she had always fantasized about crossing gently arching bridges at midnight and gazing into the canals to see the moons reflected in the rushing water. Her stroll this evening was more thoughtfully mournful than ever as she passed the rows of white townhouses off Temple Square, spindly gray trees coated in violet flowers lining the walk, their buds breaking off and taken away into the night by a lover breeze. Such a maddeningly perfect sham, all of it, the white wash, the sparkling windows, the facades worn at the surface. No doubt there was a hell behind these doors, families that hated each other as much as Allianora's own. Hate... no, it wasn't hate, Allianora stopped in the middle of the street between the houses, not hate, but betrayal.

Everything she thought she'd known about her brother had been challenged. She'd only known about him what she'd read, and deeper than anger was fear. A cold, bile-like feeling curdled up in her stomach at the thought of the tabloids ever pinning him right.

She'd ambled into a marketplace, street vendors since packed away, their carts and storefronts boarded up for the night. The trolleys had stopped running here for the day, she reads the signs fleetingly before she was halted by a glossy advertisement in the trolley stop hutch. In a light green suit, velor and perfectly tailored, lounged a dreamier version of her  brother, Langdon, than reality would ever permit. He sold himself more in the advert than he did the suit, the words “Hotel Marxame, Couture and Fitting House,” splashed regally below his perfect pose, the hazel green eyes vapid, the very thing he wanted the world to see.

Her mouth contorted as she started to swear at him, pummeling her palm hard against the billboard. She was so seething she was about to scream, what an idiot, how long did he think he could hide his black market secrets...? The night was starting to get chilly as she glared at him, thrusting her hands in her pockets to feel the remains of her melted pastels. She removed one broken red stick, rolling it in her fingers deviously as she looked up the advert...*

What would you do if you were Alli? I'd draw a uni-brow on the billboard.

Don't get caught dancing to this in your bedroom that looks over the community pool... in your skivvies as a gaping gaggle of junior high kids pass. Just don't. It's awful. Really.

Yes, the beta read Comely blog is coming to amalynne.com, for weeks I've been working on content for this and I'm so excited to share it. Debut starts 7/15/13. As the beta has been delayed due to formalities with the publisher, I'm pleased to start sharing specific character content based on Company interests that are generally, refreshingly inappropriate. When I say "inappropriate," I'm mean in it in the best possible way. I don't write the blogs, the lads do, so you see, I'm at the mercy of my characters. (PG-15 warning) Please be aware content from The Company is intended for individuals over fifteen years of age due to sexual implication, drug use, language, and strong violence.


A taste of some Comeliness **Excerpt from The Company, Copyright Amalynne O.**

The Nysian Lofts were on the top floor a boutique hotel in the pretentious art district in the heart of the capital. Young people of money spent their evenings bathed under bright moonlight on the rooftop of the club, as the chill steely beats of the dance floor below resonated up into the night, swallowing them into illusions of superior pleasure. Washed from top to bottom in white, blue dreamy light sprouted out in pulses from the foggy glass walls, fading and flashing with the smooth cruising symphony of chords and disorienting beats.

“You know I agreed to this job because we’re almost broke, not because I wanted to play games,” Demon said to Langdon under his breath, drowning his words in the clear liquid of a long-stemmed martini glass. He brought his face back with a scowl, examining the lonely bobbing olive at the bottom perversely, as though it were an eyeball.

Langdon was leaning lazily against one of the white patio pillars, an empty martini glass held in his hands, his arms crossed loosely as he looked Demon over with a smirk, “It’s the not same quality as Purg, but they try … Look, I’m sorry,” he said, unlatching his ankles to stand tall with as much seriousness as he could muster, “But our employer checks out, despite what you think you don’t trust about him… I’m not saying you’re wrong, feelings are useful, you know… like I have a feeling that curvy little blond over there,” Langdon pointed past Demon, winking to the figure across the patio, “Will make me very happy by the end of this evening, and I have a feeling that after another,” he twiddled the martini glass in Demon’s face, “I’m going to have to piss, but until you have more than a ‘feeling’ about the boss man, you can’t really expect to pull everyone out of the job, especially if you really are… broke, that is.”

Demon’s jaw tightened, nodding, despite the irritation rumbling behind his calm eyes. Langdon was right and something about that peeved him.

“You know,” Langdon started off a little awkwardly, shrugging his slim shoulders, “Money’s not exactly a problem…”

“Don’t be stupid, Princy,” Demon cut him off, “Draining your little allowance isn’t going to help us. I’m talking real money, money you can blow like we always do…Besides, no matter what we make, it’ll be gone in four months anyway.”

“But this job would change everything,” Langdon uttered in half a whisper, “For all of us…”

Demon looked up stiffly, chest tight as he nodded quietly.

“In the meantime,” Langdon sighed, throwing an arm over Demon’s tense shoulders to steer him in the direction of a beckoning skinny-dipping trio in hot tub elevated at the center of the rooftop pool, “Try to enjoy yourself…”

Langdon missed Demon’s expression, one plastered with withering amusement, as he dislodged himself to lunge after a passing bar runner, snapping and pointing to his empty martini glass loudly, “Hey, Hey! Another one of these!”

Demon shook his head, dumping the remaining ounces of the foul tasting martini onto the glowing glass patio floor before he turned to make his leave… apparently there was a job to plan.*

It's Saturday and I forgot to Word Ninja so you're going to get some retarded poetry.

Burn, burn, burn. Broken so fine, bitterly bitter. Black, steamed, roasted, toasted. Charcoal waves, volcanic, hissing out our ears. I've chosen to love you, despite your ugliness, your pig face painted pretty by cream and sugar. Looking into your tar-like depths I face the lie of our shallow love. How you've used me and I you, selfishly, wantonly for you caffeine. Let us remain in this union of bitter convenience.
Yes. This was about coffee.

This is why I get stared at weirdly at poetry readings, because I can't take myself seriously. Pffft. Hope ya'll are alright. 

Press play for a Happy Saturday!! 

Your day needs a little Bean, I think. 

Improv Everywhere needs to orchestrate and entire Central Park flash dance to this.