A Chapter a Day Keeps the Crazy Away

How they seem to be when you reread what you just wrote:

1) You kill everyone’s favorite characters. Even your own, and rationalize that it had to be done to keep the story going.

2) You’re just a little insane. Even if it’s just a little. Because being normal is boring.

3)You go People Watching. You think I’m joking. I’m not.

4) You have conversations with your characters out loud, and people think you’re insane. But you already know that you are(refer to #2), so it doesn’t concern you.

5) You’re up at unholy hours, writing while everyone else is asleep. It might end up sounding like nonsense when you look at it again later on.

6) You get a little defensive when someone criticizes your work

Me, sobbing:

My brain IMMEDIATELY began scripting a screwball comedy in which a broke millennial who desperately want to finish his long-abandoned degree but is drowning in student debt pretends to be a senior citizen in order to attend college for free.

I’m picturing someone Channing Tatumesque, applying age makeup every morning before he heads off to class. It’s sort of a cross between 21 Jump Street and Mrs. Doubtfire. He keeps forgetting which hip is supposed to be his bad one. His classmates laugh every time he uses slang. There’s definitely a scene where he attends a college party and busts it up on the dance floor.

Our Hero is stuck in a job where he keep seeing people get promoted past him because they have a 4-year degree and he doesn’t. He can’t afford to go back to school until he finishes paying off his student loans for the degree he’s one semester from completing. If he got the promotion he wants he could pay them off a lot quicker. But he can’t get the promotion without the degree.

Along comes a clerical error in his almost-alma mater’s records which lists his birth year as 1948 instead of 1984. He gets a call from them about their “free tuition for seniors” program. “Wow, that sounds amazing!” he says. “I’ll be sure to tell my, uh, grandpa, as soon as he gets home.”

It’s one semester. If he can keep up the charade, he’ll have the degree, get the promotion, pay off the student loans. Hell, if they figure it out after the fact and come after him for the tuition, he’ll be able to afford it by then. He just needs to pass as a 70-year-old until graduation. How hard could it be?

everyone in college is eccentric. everyone

you wanna wear full on Victorian suit? the girl in pajamas who clearly hasn’t slept in three days supports you

everyone is too preoccupied to care as long as you’re polite and follow class etiquette

multiple high school diplomas? eh. same stuff. multiple BAs? Enjoy learning chemistry AND art history! All in detail!

wandering around campus at 3am? that’s just the lifestyle tm

no matter how old or young you look it’s not really that weird, there’s sixteen year olds and sixty year olds doing BAs somewhere

If u put ur blood in a water bottle ppl will assume it’s juice and be Jealous

“Oh god I’m a monster” 20 students who r all procrastinating big projects say “same” simultaniousely and with the exact same tone

Everything is a joke so if u say “I subsist on the lifeblood of mankind” someone will go “lol what a mood”

It would take u like 100 years to major in everything

Seen sucking the blood of a fellow classmate and u r instantly the campus Cryptid and Mascot

Listen. If u have an ethical dilemma go find a philosophy major that believes in ethical subjectivism and they’ll make u so angry u forget abt whatever the fuck was bothering u

College is the only acceptable place to get into fistfights over classical literature

Literally all u need to do to avoid suspicion is be the guy that always has gum and a stapler

If u have a majestic mustache ppl will just assume ur an English major