Wednesday’s Writing Rambles [17]: Hilarious Story from the Cafe
I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know that I haven’t forgotten about The Red Horseman, and I’ve decided to pick it up and start editing (not because I have a lot to study at uni. Of course not) But, that means I have a funny story for you all today, courtesy of having a two hour break between my chemistry lecture and chemistry practical yesterday.
Because, naturally, I have a book to edit and rewrite, and since it’s been sitting in the very terrible first draft stage for over a year now, I’ve been carrying it around nearly 24/7 just in case I have some spare time.
This particular time included me and a friend sitting in the cafe up at uni, with me editing, and deciding that I don’t actually know the proper ranks for the army. Which then resulted in a discussion between us of whether lieutenant was pronounced ‘lootenant’ or ‘leftenant’.
Took us a while, but we Aussies say leftenant.
So, continuing this very strange tale (that had us in stitches after it actually happened, and we couldn’t explain it to my other friend, who sadly wasn’t there to be entertained) we then proceeded to decide that this character was in fact a General, and so the most highest person in the army, whereas the commander was a made up term (actually only used in the Navy) and that I needed a new title for him.
Hence the lieutenant discussion. He’s now a Captain – he was demoted.
What needs to be said now is that me and my friend are quite good friends – to the point of only needing to say half a sentence before we answer the question, and that was the basis of our conversation (in truth, lots of hand gestures and half words). What made it worse were the two people sitting opposite us, able to hear us.
By that time, we’d found that we needed a mind map for this character, Riley. He’s really confusing, considering he’s a spy for one person, and apparently a spy for another person too. I’m not going into details (that would just take up another post of it’s own). Besides, you should all read it when it’s done.
So, these the guy sitting opposite us broke into the converstation after hearing nearly all of it, and wanted to know if we did creative writing.
The answer?
No. We’re science kids. We’re doing a science course at uni. Incidentally, the same subjects that he did.
Hilarity ensued.
Our answer got him, and his friend, rather confused, and he tried to explain that he thought I was doing a history course, because military, and was trying to work out if I was studying a world war, and which one. (It’s probably a good idea to note at this point that The Red Horseman is a printed of manuscript, and looks really tattered by now, with lots of edits on it. I’m sure it looks like a report draft or something)
So, when I informed him that no, I did a science course, and I wrote in my spare time, he then asked if it was fanfic (No, it’s not. It’s based off the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Fun subject) To which his friend then asked what fanfic was.
As he was explaining, saying that he absolutely hated it, and he didn’t see the point of it, I was trying my hardest to stop from laughing, as my friend beside me had been reading fanfic until I interrupted her with the military problem.
So you can see, it was a highly amusing lunchtime for us, and we could barely explain it to our other friend about four hours later because it still amused us that much.