LYSSA ANN

Hey there, hi there, ho there!
          
          Last you heard from me I was concussed and depressed. Well, a little over a year later and I'm returning to explain my long absence. 2017 was a furnace of a year. I struggled with my mental health, had my first very serious relationship, followed by multiple flings, kissed lots of boys, moved to Japan, got into my first choice school, and now, in 2018, I will graduate and move on to full-fledged adulthood. (being 18 doesn't classify you as a real adult. No one takes you seriously).
          
          Either way, because of not only the change in myself but also in honor of the new year, one of my friends encouraged me to start posting my writing once more. I completed the first draft of Two of Us in August and started the second draft in September, which will be posted IN WHOLE along with a few side projects on my new account!
          
          Follow my new account as this one will no longer be in use ---> @nationalanathema 
          
          Thank you!
          Yours,
          Lyssa

Hi all! 
          
          To any of my current followers; I have switched profiles! With the new year I have dozens of new ideas just waiting to be penned. This is my new profile, siderealesque will no longer be in use :) thanks! 
          
          -Lyssa 

Hi everyone!
          
          So for clarification, my absence has actually had a decent reason this time. For those who may know I work a job outside of school to help me earn some finances -- perhaps to go towards self-publishing Two of Us, even though I'd only run fifty copies or so, perhaps to go get lunch with my good friend Carlota from Spain, perhaps to spend frivolously and aimlessly on Friday nights at a dingy fast food restaurant downtown when my friends insist on getting onion rings at some ungodly hour in a heat of confusion. Because I'm a money-hungry fool and I only earn minimum wage, I work insane hours until eleven, twelve, one in the morning, causing for me to leave very late and wake up the next day very, very early. 
          
          This exhaustion gave way into pure apathy as I cleaned up the fitting rooms one day and next thing found myself lying in my parents' bed at home. I'd gotten a concussion. My moderate traumatic brain injury has far outstayed its welcome. This morning was the first morning where I didn't wake up completely aware of every neurotic blood vessel and nerve ending within my skull, and still, I find myself with a headache as I type this. 
          
          I couldn't dance at one of my competitions. I couldn't go to school, and am so far behind now that I've decided I might as well just give up. I find myself confused, I can't remember how to spell my own name far less what the date is or whether I can list these five words "lemon penny blanket carpet bicycle" in any order, what are the months backwards? Every day is a new trial. 
          
          I have taken a break from Two of Us as writing with a concussion isn't cathartic, it is perhaps the exact opposite. My hand shakes under the weight of my own penmanship. I am too scared of the consequences of what a mind uncontrolled is capable of, and what I am to do in order to heal.

Hey there! We just started a campaign #ProjectRichKids and one of you books seems to be about rich kids. You can just tag it #richkids or #ProjectRichKids and let's make this trend. If you're interested in a sticker, there's a link in my bio.
          Thanks

And sorry -- one more.
          
          4. What do you plan to do with Two Of Us?
          Finish it. Haha. I have no current plans to try and publish it or anything past share it on here. I know I'm not linguistically mature enough to be able to claw my way up the NY Times Bestsellers' List yet, and besides, I have other things to worry about. I haven't given up on dance. I have a job working retail, and I run my own business. I'm doing foreign exchange. Not even my career choices always reflect what I plan on doing with Two Of Us -- I don't even really want to become an author full-time. I don't know what to do quite yet, but for now, here it will remain.

CONTINUED 
          3 (and perhaps the one people approach me with most often). Why did you start writing again?
          For those who know, I wrote and wrote and wrote until I didn't have any words left. I think that's the best explanation for what happened -- when I was younger, that's all I seemed to do. I don't remember vividly playing outside or stuff like that, I remember formulating plots and reading until my eyes mixed up paragraphs and Googling authors and fantasizing about my life when I became one. I didn't know I was one. I hit about sixth grade and won my second national writing award, and that was about the point that I gave up on writing. A lot of things happened that year that will probably manifest themselves in this plot line and I felt that nothing could alleviate the pain I began to feel. I got diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), a genetic condition relating to a chromosomal defect that runs in my family. I felt scrutinized and scared, so I dropped writing altogether to avoid ignominy. Instead I pursued dance so that I could become popular.
          After a rather frustrating and terrible sophomore year of high school, I came back to my first true love as people always do. I knew that writing was the only thing I could do to help me sort through my confusing teenage emotions healthily. I had new pains. I had new heartbreaks, new sorrows, but also new joys and new excitement. I knew that now was the time to strike. So, excitedly I touched my fingers to that keyboard once more like I had when I was younger and began clack-clack-clacking away. I knew that this was what I meant to do and suddenly, it was like Heaven had opened its mouthpiece to tell me that this was why I got sent to earth. I had to do this, I had to write. Thus, here we stand in the arms of fate -- who knows whether I'll be able to make a career out of this or not? It doesn't really matter. It brings me happiness, and that's where I'll rest my head until stormier days.

Today I thought I would answer some questions that I've received either from my followers or friends/family regarding Two Of Us.
          
          1. What inspired Two Of Us?
          A range of different things inspired it. A lot of it is influenced by my three best friends as I mention in the foreword -- Hannah especially. I frame a lot of experiences that Laramie and Aria go through based off of experiences I've shared with her, though Aria's personality tends to take after Teagan's and Laramie might as well be a fairer-skinned, more daring and boozier Maria. 
          Another large inspiration for the book comes from music. Lana Del Rey's music plays a rather significant part in the novel, as I've listened to her from the time that I was relatively small and always been fascinated with her allusions to American culture as a whole. The book itself is named for a Beatles song Paul McCartney claims to have written about his then-fiance, Linda, however many music historians believe the song was written about McCartney's quickly-dying friendship with John Lennon. "You and I have memories / Longer than the road that stretches out ahead..." 
          
          2. What inspired you to name the characters the way you did?
          Aria's name comes from a musical term basically meaning "solo". The funny thing about this is when I first started writing it, Hannah and I were discussing names and she divulged her love for the name Aria without knowing that that was the protagonist's name -- whether this insignificant story has made her fall more deeply in love with that four-letter arrangement I have no idea. Juliette was named after a street one of my childhood friends grew up on. Laramie was named for the same place my header image was taken, Laramie, Wyoming, which I've driven through many a time and grown to appreciate the Medicine Bow National Forest that surrounds it. It's just as wild as her personality. I wanted Samuel's name to be something Biblical, and that's where that came from. The rest is rust and stardust.

hey there!
          would you like to check out my story called blind alley if you get time?
          i dunno whether you like it or what but i'll appreciate it if so. thanks :) 

AYY WHADDUP DOE WATTPAD?
          It's ya girl back from the dead! After a long hiatus I have decided to come back to writing, but not for the reasons which I used to do it for.
          I am a selfish person. I long for fame. It's one of the first things people realize about me, and the fact that I'll do anything (or anyone) to get to the top scares people away. That's why I used to write -- to get to the top. 
          Now, I've realized that was pure naivety and that I simply need to write for myself. I have to make myself happy, somehow. Which means purging previous ideas and preconceived notions of what writing is and what writing means to me. 
          I hope to be able to come up with lots of hella new content for you guys, which includes: 
          MANHATTAN: in the developing processes. I'm actually really excited about this one. 
          2198: I'm going to finish it. Hell yes. It's gonna happen. I know we are all shocked. 
          UNNAMED BOOK ABOUT LEYAH: the farthest I've gone with this one is thinking about it so yeah. 
          Peace love peace love ✌️

What did I tell you all?
          
          It's so weird how a dream can all of a sudden turn sour in a matter of days. And I guess it's been coming since the sixth grade when I had an odd fascination with retro television logos and the corporate holdings of the companies to which they belonged, but my lifelong goal of becoming an author has quickly been abandoned by my sixteen year old self in pursuit of a new future -- the life of a film/television director seems far more suited to my strengths than being an author. 
          I have long had a vested interest in film and television. I would go to my grave saying that I was born in the wrong era, as I strongly believe that I should have been born in the Golden Age of Hollywood before the days of the Hay's Code and the Parental Advisory sticker on the front of CD covers. All throughout my life, my ideas and plot lines have vividly played back through my head not in a string of words but instead like a screenplay. According to Cartier, I apparently have a very visual aesthetic and am able to come up both with auditory and visually pleasing concepts. 
          So what does this mean for my plots? It means, as usual, they're on the backburner. I want to figure out a way to work 2198 into a weekly segment type thing on YouTube to help start building up my portfolio in order to make it into a film program at a university. I'm a fool for sacrifice and I guess that Rust has become Isaac at the hands of my Abraham, although I don't know if it's God telling me what to do this time. Who knows? It's a life like religion and I'm fully prepared to live as though I was pillaging Jericho just the same.