To Days of [Lacking] Inspiration [Rapunzel]

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“It was one of those days that every television show geared towards children tried to say was the perfect time to unleash your imagination. A day when of course you could turn your living room into the tower where you would save the princess, or the African savannah where you would take photographs of exotic creatures, perhaps even a new one you just made up. The fact was, however, this trick tended to die down after said children hit middle school. It was probably why that age was so terrible, since the let down of that kind of thing not being nearly as powerful as they liked was such a letdown.

But there was a girl who never knew that letdown. Her name was…

Frak, what was her name? Della could practically hear the scratched record sound effect that movies and TV shows loved so much. Instead, however, all she heard was a new silence, since her pen wasn’t scratching its way through the pages of her notebook. This was the sort of thing that put even her father in a bad mood, the sort of thing that could drive anyone mad, because she was realizing that even if she could figure out the name, she would have a very difficult time in continuing her train of thought now. This could only mean one thing.

Freakin’ writer’s block.

Letting out a groan, Della set down her pen and massaged her temples. You know, she was starting to think she was better off when she wasn’t sure if this was really what she wanted to try. It didn’t really matter if she couldn’t think of something to write back before she was really bitten by the bug, as her dad had put it. It didn’t matter if she was having second thoughts about the whole plotline, because it wasn’t something she was feeling really serious about. God, why had she started taking this whole hobby seriously? When had it even happened that it actually mattered to her if she were a decent writer? Because this whole story wouldn’t have had a chance to see the light of day if she didn’t care, and honestly, the whole idea of this kid being able to create her own world? Hadn’t that sort of thing been done about a million times anyway? Even if it hadn’t been, wasn’t it so obvious who it was mirroring?

Cradling her sure to be migraining head in her hands, Della was probably not the ideal person to be approaching at the moment, but it seemed that she had the luck of always meeting people when she wasn’t in her best of moods.

[blondie]

There were so many books, and if Rapunzel wasn’t careful, the library might just swallow up her whole first week of school. But she couldn’t let that happen. She needed outside time to herself, too. The grass, the dirt, the trees, they all called to her, beckoned her to come outside and play with them. Not to mention, she had a fierce desire to paint some of these beautiful landscapes, so that she could keep them forever as a token of her freedom. There was no way that after 17 years locked away in a tower that she would stay inside and ignore all of this.

Bursting through the doors that led outside into the courtyard, Rapunzel giggled gleefully, and like the spastic girl she is, clapped her hands together before flopping down on the grass and proceeding to roll down the slight slope into the middle of the courtyard, her hair wrapping around her entire body. This, of course, made her giggle all over again. Oh, Mother would be so furious if she could see Rapunzel now.... Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, and she stopped giggling just as quickly, her eyes opening to glance around her. She could feel someone watching her, and sure enough, she’d rolled right in front of a very stressed looking girl.

“Oh, hi!” the words just seemed to jump right out of her mouth before she could think the better of it. It seemed she came across moody people quite often here.

Squirming her way out of her hair, Rapunzel brushed the dried grass off of her flower-printed dress and knitted stockings, and gave the girl the brightest smile she could muster, “Are you alright? You seem...” She didn’t know the right word for the angsty aura the girl was giving off, so she just kind of let herself trail off.

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Della, of course, had never been the sort to jump around and clap her hands over, well...anything. It just wasn't what a self proclaimed cynic did. Self proclaimed cynics made fun of girls like the blonde who seemed to be rolling around in grass and...her own hair.

Well, I'll be damned. Of course Della knew the story of a girl with insanely long hair, what rock did you have to live under to not know it? And she knew that this place was a magnet for fairy tale characters...but still. For a city girl from the "real world", this was still a freaking huge deal.

Still, there was that damn writer's block, plus little Miss Rapunzel over there was looking insanely perky and...oh God, she was coming up to her. Great, just perfect. Well, it wasn't like staring vacantly was getting her anywhere, and maybe she wasn't the annoying kind if perky...y'know, if such an alternative existed?

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine, just peachy. Nothing you need to worry about," she answered, perhaps a touch sarcastic, but that was just how she rolled. She raised an eyebrow then. "I'm gonna guess you've never had the pleasure of a nice sort of summer day, huh?"

[blondie]

“You could say that,” Rapunzel replied shifting her feet in a child-like fashion, and although she found the question to be a very big understatement, she didn’t comment any further on it.

The girl in front of her didn’t seem to be too excited to see her, but on the other hand, she wasn’t as standoffish as Beowulf had been -- she swallowed a giggle, because his name still made her crack up. So, Rapunzel decided to chance it and sat down next to her, still smiling.

“My name’s Rapunzel,” she offered politely, her light green eyes falling onto the book in the girl’s hands. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she noted the pen and the look on the girl’s face, as if Rapunzel had interrupted something potentially important with her antics. “What are you working on?”

Her first thought was homework, after all this was a school, and she silently hoped that the assignments here wouldn’t be too difficult. Maybe she could ask? On the other hand, it might be personal work, and if it was, Rapunzel might possibly maybe feel bad for asking.... Not that it would dull her curiosity any.

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Something about the way the girl shuffled her feet almost made Della laugh. God, she looked like a little kid…then again, she supposed if you were locked in a tower for years like Della was certain she was, anyone would be a little childish…y’know, unless your life was more like an episode of Law & Order SVU than even your average Grimm fairytale was. Of course Della thought better than to make a reference to actually knowing of Rapunzel. Chances were she had no idea that she would go on to tell a hell of a bedtime story, and to draw attention to the fact she was famous where Della came from would probably just succeed in creeping her out. So she simply nodded and answered “I’m Della, nice to meet you.” Yeah, she perhaps wasn’t the most polite person ever, but hey, the girl hadn’t given her a reason to be a hag yet, had she?

Della actually wasn’t all that used to being asked what she was working on, come to think of it. It was actually a rare occasion that she was found writing in public, which she supposed the courtyard could count as. Usually she’d do this at the dog park, keeping a sharp eye on Rook, of course, or in her dorm room, and most of the people who stopped by there knew the story there…or at least, knew that she was working on figuring out what the story was there. Come to think of it, she wasn’t entirely sure why she had decided to try writing out here today, but that was basically what had brought her to this point where she was thoroughly unprepared to explain what exactly she was working on. There was something awkward about saying you were writing a story, because then people would ask what it was about and if they could have a copy if you were finished and it was just irksome, to be honest.

Still, something about the girl made her not want to be cross with her. Sure, she looked like some smiley faces puked all over her, but that wasn’t always the most annoying thing ever. Della had grown to appreciate nice people more over the years, mostly because she realized that some of them really were just trying to be nice instead of being total fakes. Might as well give Rapunzel a straight answer. “Oh, just…a little thing I’m working on,” she answered, coming upon another reason why it was always so weird answering that sort of question…ugh, being vague was worse, turns out. “A book, actually…not sure where it’s going at this point though.” And with that she shrugged. She always was a wizard in conversation, wasn’t she?

[blondie]

So this girl, Della, was a writer! Rapunzel beamed. Writing was something she knew a thing or two about. Actually, quite a few thing or twos. When she was stuck at home she read books like mad. Her mother had to bring a new one home every afternoon with the supplies she bought for dinner. Of course, Rapunzel would have it finished by the time she went to bed that night, and then would read the whole thing over again the following morning. So, yes. She did consider herself to be quite the literary connoisseur. So, she -- still smiling -- sat down next to Della, gazing at her curiously.

If Della didn’t know where the story was going, clearly it wasn’t finished, and on top of that, Della was having trouble with it. And Rapunzel always loved being helpful. So she rather blatantly asked, “Would you like someone to talk to about it?”

Once or twice she’d actually tried her hand at writing, but found that, though she was inspired by the works of her predecessors, she much preferred reading. It’s not that her imagination couldn’t come up with the stories. She just found it much easier to paint them than to try to come up with words to properly convey the feeling of the scene. Her writing usually end up being rambly and convoluted and there were way too many heavy words for it to be assessable to the public. All the same, if there was a problem with creative thinking, Rapunzel was head-over-heels interested. Totally absorbed. Completely involved.

She loved it.

“I know a thing or two about books, if you’d like to run your ideas by me,” her voice bubbled with the excitement she was trying so hard to contain.

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And there it was. Della wouldn't have needed all those years of experience with her dad to know to know that this was one of the most awkward questions a writer could be asked, and it honestly took every ounce of tact and willpower for Della to not wince at Rapunzel's question. And she couldn't even blame this on Rapunzel living in a tower (or perhaps there was a different scenario here...after all, Merlin had no white beard to speak of). This was the sort of question that people who didn't quite realize was so difficult to answer unless they themselves had attempted to write. They didn't know that the temptation to second guess yourself, the instinct that your idea is very likely to sound stupid, could rival some venoms in how paralyzing they were.

Yet she couldn't even find herself feeling even annoyed at her...jeez, it was like the girl before her just oozed so much sincere friendliness that it shut off all receptors to negative emotions associated with her. It was the sort of thing politicians (and their annoying pubescent counterparts that nearly drove Della to murder in middle school) would've killed to have. Yet it was given to a girl who was probably still in the single digits of people that she actually knew. Go figure...then again, it was more likely than a politician having the sincere part, wasn't it?

So what did she do? She actually started explaining her book, even though it all sounded so awkard in her own head. She wondered if maybe this Rapunzel had some super power of persuasion or something. That'd certainly explain it.

"It's...I mean, I know the whole "imagination is real" thing has been done before, but ever since I came to this school, I just kind of wanted to play with it myself...so I know that the main character's a girl, and she can sort of make things that she imagines real..." And yes, Della was aware that this girl was bearing a very strong resemblance to her roommate. The character's arrival had come very unannounced and had overtaken Della, so she hadn't had the chance to really tell Alyss this yet. After all, the girl was so private, and after Lewis Carroll or Charles Dodgson or whatever the hell you wanted to call him had screwed her over like that, Della knew she was walking on thin ice.

"I'm not sure where it's gonna go though...don't even have a name for her yet."

[blondie]

“I don’t think I’ve read anything like this, so maybe I can be a fresh mind for you,” Rapunzel said, shrugging. “I like the idea a lot. It’s very clever.”

“The name of a character can be pretty important, but in order to find that, I think you’ll have to develop a personality for the girl first.” Thoughtfully, Rapunzel lay back and rested on her elbows, her lips pursed, eyes phased out as if she were reading the ideas from a page in her own mind.

“After that, just take a good, solid look at her physical and mental characteristics. Is the tall, is she brunette, is she poor, what country is she from…? You know, that kind of stuff. A suitable name should pop up from that.” Rapunzel picked at the grass, her eyes flitting back to Della’s face as they lit up, suddenly remembering something.

“I found these amazing books in the library earlier that might be really useful to you!” she sat bolt upright again, practically squealing with excitement, like a boiling teapot. “They’re called ‘Baby Name Books,’ and they have nationalities and meanings of names and… wow.”

Onto her back, she flopped again.

“They were awesome! I’d check them out, if you can.”

From Rapunzel’s writing experience, which she hadn’t terribly much of, she found that it was hard to work a story with a nameless lead. For some reason, she just couldn’t get past the first couple of sentences, before that awful space where the name should be just popped up and broke her concentration. No wonder Della was at a loss.

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Now see, Della might have gotten used to general socializing, but if there was one thing she would probably never get used to, it was being complimented. She blinked at Rapunzel calling her idea clever…apparently she had never read the Chronicles of Narnia or Baum’s Oz books or…hell, even Alice in Wonderland, although Della had never been a huge fan of Carroll, even before she met Alyss. Or maybe…maybe she had and Della’s description had made it all sound different enough to work? Did she dare think that? She wasn’t sure, but she supposed she wasn’t going to accomplish anything by giving the blonde the fish eyes. “Thanks,” she stated, and would you believe it? She even managed to not sound too surprised! Call the Vatican, she thought.

Then Rapunzel started going over bits of advice, and in spite of herself, Della had to smile. So now she knew that there was more than being a famous fairytale character that would ensure that her father would have loved this girl. Of course Della did know most of the tricks, really, it was more of a matter of…she supposed that sometimes it was best to be reminded? After all, she hadn’t had a face to face encounter with her father in ages…she was going to have to fix that. Go through the portal, perhaps, just see how her dear old dad was doing, if the money she was sending over was doing the trick at all, if their landlord was going to leave them the hell alone any time soon. And hey, if she and Rapunzel ever became good enough friends for it, maybe she’d take the girl along, just so she could watch the two very enthusiastic people talk about books. That would be fun.

Of course Della knew all about baby name books. Not only did her father have a supply of your average ones, but also plenty of internet searches had been done in figuring out the perfect name for a period piece that he was working on (not that those tended to work. It seemed that her father worked best when he could create his own world and not be confined by historical fact…not that it ever stopped many writers before, really. She was pretty sure her father just wasn’t in the mood for dealing with the backlash that came with historical inaccuracy). It used to be something of a game with her father, coming up with the perfect name. So maybe…just maybe…making it a game again was the key.

“I probably should,” she agreed, and it was kind of weird, wasn’t it, having old tips thrown at her and not being the least bit annoyed? “Gotta say Rapunzel, you seem to know your stuff…” Then she glanced down at the page that she was working on. She wasn’t going to go very far without a name, it was true, so soon enough, she flipped to the middle of the notebook. She figured that this would be the best place to had little bits of story and character development when she was stuck, writing “Leading Lady” in the heading, then she tapped her chin with her pen, thinking…and apparently thinking out loud. Well, it seemed like Rapunzel was being a springboard for her ideas, so why not?

“She’s very innocent…she can create whole worlds for her to experience, and I mean literally, and she never really felt the need to socialize much outside of those worlds…it worries the hell out of people who know her, though, and I know that’s going to be a major source of the conflict.” Della had always had the notion that there was going to be a lot of Alyss in this girl, but somehow it just seemed tasteless to use her name. The last time that happened was awful, really, something Della didn’t want to repeat. What she didn’t quite realize was that there was definitely someone else in her lead…but then again, she, like most, could never see herself clearly, so how could she have realized that? She began taking notes as she spoke, hoping that perhaps something would jump out at her.