Daylight Day 1: FAQ

EMO used to stand for ‘emotional’ – the teen subgroup that’s only happy to be sad. Now it’s become a disease eerily similar to vampirism.

My name’s Bell. I considered being EMO once, but then I saw a pretty butterfly and got over myself. Got bored and decided to save the world.

This is the documentary tale of the brave few fighting to find a cure for EMO (or, failing that, a quick and easy way to kill them all).

———————————————————————————————————————

1. What is an EMO?

In this story, EMO stands for Exodermal Melanin Occlusion – fundamentally, EMOs are vampires, but more whiny (thank you, Stephanie Meyer).

In real life, emos are a group within Western culture who are universally hated and mocked for their determination to be depressed – and to share their depression with the world by wearing predominantly dark clothes (often with one brilliantly-coloured item, eg red shoes), by mooching about with misery etched on their faces, and by writing the world’s worst poetry.

The fact of the matter is that the whiny, depressed type of emo is now very rare – today’s emos just wear dark clothes and unusual hairstyles. But this story is about the “historical” emos – and, since the “Twilight” book is so true to the historical emo vibe, I decided to make vampirism and emo the same thing.

Here’s the most emo picture I can find in my photo album (send me YOUR emo pics at fellissimo(at)hotmail(dot)com). Note the “deep” expression, the hair hanging in my eyes, the self-conscious pose, and the otherworldly clothing.

Bella and Edward (from “Twilight”) spend most of their time repeating things like, “I’d rather die than live without you” and “If you stay, I don’t need Heaven.” They (and the books as a whole) are brim-full of emo angst untainted by any trace of rationality or getting a life.

2. What’s a twitter tale?

A twitter tale is a story written especially to be released on twitter. Mine are told in real time (so if the story takes three months for us to get through, it also takes three months for the characters – in this story, they also experience things like Christmas Day at the same time we do). Each tweet is like a tiny chapter. Day 1 is like a prologue.

3. Do you really hate Stephanie Meyer and/or “Twilight”?

No, I actually think she’s a good writer – I just hate her plot and characters.

4. So are you retelling “Twilight”?

No. I tell my own stories. The greatest similarity is between my Ed character and the character of Edward. They’re both whiny, annoying and fundamentally NOT worth going out with. And above all, they’re both EMO.

5. Why are you writing twitter tales?

For fun, and because it’s a way for the general public to get to know me before my books come out (I write adventure fantasy books  for young people – strictly non-emo).

6. Where is this story set?

In Canberra, the capital of Australia (same time zone as Sydney).

7. Why are you victimising emos – shouldn’t you be trying to help?

I’m mocking them mostly because they’re an easy target. But, since I’m mentally ill myself, I have some claim to the idea that the best thing for depression is to laugh at it.

6. More info?

My twitter site is http://twitter.com/Louise_Curtis_ (you need to manually add the final underline – or simply click at the top of the twitter feed on the right hand side of this page). It’s a great place for new twitter users to join and automatically follow me. I only use twitter for stories, not for saying what I’m eating or how I feel.

My alter ego, Felicity Bloomfield (who writes predominantly for adults) has a blog at http://felicitybloomfield.wordpress.com. It’s still PG (like this one) but sometimes has links or stories that aren’t (those are clearly labelled). A lot of it’s about the experience of being mentally ill and/or the life of a writer.