How I write a ski lodge day:

1. I usually write days the day before they happen- so when Day 3 goes up, I'll be writing Day 4. Planning starts a lot earlier. I begin drafting ideas about a month before I even put up the ski lodge invitation on line. These are mostly lists of possible deaths, but I also plot out jokes I'd like to do as well. Whenever I write, I consult my idea lists for this time around and past idea lists that couldn't make their way into the last ski lodge.

2. I begin by drawing a name out of the Sugarbowl. This is the person who is going to die today.

3. I then giggle nefariously. This is a very important part of the writing process and one which any murder mystery author cannot mess up. You cannot chortle nefariously, chuckle nefariously, or even snigger nefariously- it's all in the high-pitched giggle that no one knew you were capable of doing before. 

4. At this point, I begin to plot out the day. I decide what death I'd like for this person and begin to coordinate what other "dailies" I'd like to do today. Once I have a "sketch", a rough draft, if you will, I go to the computer to write the day.

5. Before I begin any actual writing, I have to select the proper mood music. I have rock/metal CDs to choose from, some more metal/swing metal/who-knows-what on my mom's iPod (which I can use if she's not home), or video game music on Youtube.

6. Then I begin the monumental task of writing! I begin to follow my plan, but it occasionally flies out the window. I copy the entire document ever so often in case my computer decides to spontaneously refresh and delete the whole thing. This has happened before.

7. This is the point where Red comes in- Red helps come up with a lot of the jokes. Most of the jokes inside the "murder" portion of the day come from me, but it's fun to collaborate and bounce off idea on each other to come up with the sillyness of the ski lodge.

8. About half-way through writing the day, I lose interest, and get up to play air bass/sing operatically/drum on the table for about five to ten minutes. This is entirely important. Carry on.

9. And then I finish writing. Whoo-hoo! But I'm not done yet.

10. I run through to look for sections I don't like, ones that take too much space and don't have enough importance to the story. I delete these sections and either replace them or leave them out entirely.

11. At this point I run through with the spellcheck. I didn't used to do this, but then I found the option called "Control click on a Mac". And my life was changed for ever. This still doesn't catch every mistake I make (re-reading through a lodge yesterday, I ended up in hysterics in the murderer's confession because of "weeping angles" (which ought to be a thing on their own, they really should)), but hey, I can spell "ski" now!

12. And here I type in the captcha and click "submit". Whew! That looks like I worked a lot harder than I actually do.

And when I get close to the end...

"GASP! Is this a theme I see before me. The handle toward my hand? How did you get here? I wasn't writing you. Someone is sneaking around at night putting themes in my writing. What. What is this madness. *looks around* If nobody notices... it's mine now. EHEHEHEHEHEH! LOOK, EVERBODY! I HAVE A THEME! FEAR ME, PEASANTS! I SHALL NOW BLUDGEON YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THIS THEME! THEME, THEME, THEME, THEME, THEME- *types in a frenzy*"

That's sadly true for almost anything I write. I'm only slightly exaggerating by this reaction. Slightly. 

A History of the Ski Lodge

To quote Douglas Adams, "Anything that is put down wrong here is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong for good".

I first came up with the idea of the ski lodge murder mystery as it is known today sometime in January 2012, when I was in seventh grade. I'm not entirely sure why I thought it was a good idea. I chalk this up to my love of chaos and random weird things. Nevertheless, I told eight friends (rather, seven friends and one rival) that they were going to a ski lodge where they would all die horrible, painful deaths. They all said, "Okay". I chalk this up to the fact that by this point they knew me rather well. So, on January 26, 2012, I wrote the very first ever Day 1 of the ski lodge. The lodge was only 11 days long, but dragged out well into February. This was mostly due to the fact that I wrote the days in first period Biology (the chloroplasts on the back of Day 6 can attest to that) and shared them at lunch. If I didn't finish, then, well, the day would be held tomorrow. Or the next day. And so on and so forth.

The ski lodge was met with a very large amount of success, which surprised me then, and surprises me now, considering how poorly written the thing was. I reused most of the good jokes and deaths in later ski lodges, but you missed "pied de la mastodon" for dinner, "The Special Valentine's Day Special" (one of my earliest writings as a shipper), "Because two knives are better than one! Because a knife in the hand is worth two in the knifeblock!", vampires, and blood sausage. That is to say, not very much interesting at all.

Red drew a comic which I attempted to draw out by hand and magnificently failed. The project was quickly scrapped.

Near the end of seventh grade, I wanted to enact another murder mystery in the wilds of the Amazon ("Brian has died from cholera!") but decided to cheat the system by saying that everyone was still dead, so they would all be represented by Alice characters. Thank my friends for being decidedly less unenthusiastic about Alice than I am, otherwise the ski lodge would never have become what it is today. The project was also scrapped less than three hours after its birth.

In September of 2012, Sam introduced a murder mystery RP. I was delighted. I had recently been thinking about spreading the ski lodge love to the Chatterbox, but was pretty sure the Admins would veto the idea. Seeing Sam's gorgeous idea, I promptly took over (to quote a character from a story that made me practically fall of the bed laughing, "It's not your fault you're an arrogant little jerk." (Nye-heh-heh-heh, he was brought up to believe! Right. Sorry.)) with one of my evil laughs in my repertoire. Picture it as the Great Fairy's laugh from Legend of Zelda. Go on, do. It'll make it a lot more amusing for you.

I am sure participants were a lot less enthusiastic than I was, with my head swelled with praise from friends. Moral of the story: Your friends will always think you're a lot funnier than you actually are. It's called "being polite". Or "let's leave the poor kid delusional for a little longer".

In other news, I have just earned the title "Nefarious Cheese Grater Knocker". I must sign everything with that now.

This also caused the entity known as "The Puppet Master" to be born. This may have been entirely Red's fault. Yes, feel guilty, why don't you?

A few months later (nine?), I felt the need to try again. To prove I could be... a POKEMON MAS- wait, that's something else. To prove I could be... actually semi-decent! Ah, there we go. And thus came the third ski lodge and the fourth ski lodge and that is the end of the history of the ski lodge. Entirely pointless, yes, but now you know more things that you didn't before. Don't you feel illuminated? 

In other news, "Nye-Heh-Heh-Sheh" is a word. Yeah, I don't get it either.

The ski lodge is my favorite thing.  It makes my day every time you post.

x Blonde Heroines Rule

Thank you very much, dear Narrator! This shall surely set my parents at ease.