Write me a Love Song (Belle)

[James Michael Colburn]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #4f7e9c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Ish/Belle muse murh notes -pets Jamie- credits template by irish! Lately, Jamie had found himself in a bit of a rut. With everything that had happened recently, his creative muse had just... vanished. The problem had arisen when his brother moved in with him... just to find out that he was ill with cancer and was refusing treatment. Then he'd somehow let himself fall for a stripper... of all people... and then when he'd inadvertently offended her by saying she was just some whore he'd picked up in a bar... even though, technically, she was, she'd denied his attempts at apologizing, and left him high and dry. His temper hastily became quite short, and his receptionist decided she'd had enough and turned in her resignation. After that, he started finding it harder and harder to write anything halfway decent, and with deadlines closing in, the stress was starting to set in. Deciding that the last thing he wanted was to default on his current projects, he concluded that he needed some inspiration in the form of critique. So he took his manuscript to the university english department and set about seeing if he could somehow work it into an assignment with a professor or two. It had taken some time, but after a short bit, one of the professors decided to take it on. His students would read sections of the manuscript and then they'd discuss the story line and the scenes therin during the next class. Jamie's intention was to sit in on the class and, quite literally, steal the students ideas. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectly legal. It wasn't like he would use their exact words, just their ideas, and you couldn't claim copyright infringement on ideas, because technically, anyone could come up with similar ideas. As usual, he was early. Jamie was never late, ever, and he preferred to be fashionably early. Being the first person there was always ideal, that way he could find the most inconspicuous spot where he could hear everything but not be noticed. When he got there, he was slightly displeased that someone had beat him there. He was a whole half hour early, but somehow she had managed to get there before he had. She must have been far more dedicated to her university studies than he had been. He'd not lasted two months at University before he decided it was stupid and dropped out to get an entry level job in the movie industry. Considering his bank account now, it seemed to be the best decision he could have made. Jamie had hit it rich by being a dropout. Unfortunately, it didn't work like that for everyone. He took a moment to decide whether he should approach or just find a place to hide out in the back. Considering how he had time to kill, he chose socializing... or at least a form of it. He strode down the stairs down to where she sat, buried in the very manuscript which he had turned into the professor. He couldn't help but smirk. If she was so dedicated to her course to be here early, it was likely that whatever she had to say about it would be good... or at least decent. Thankfully, he'd had the good sense to bring his own copy of what he'd written, mostly just to take notes on it, but now that he thought of it, it made him appear even more to simply be a student. He didn't want people to mince their words because they knew the writer was listening. He needed a very honest critique. Rather than asking if the seat next to her was taken, he simply slid into it casually. "You seem to be pretty into this for a Literary Studies assignment." He said with a smirk, motioning to the crudely bound book in her hand. He hoped what she had to say was all good things. He'd worked long and hard on this particular script and considering his muse level currently, he could only hope that she would say it was wonderful and it should be sent to the producer this instant. But considering his luck lately, it was unlikely.

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[Isabella Megan Grimshaw]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #90ACAC solid 10px; width: 399px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] if your sky is falling just take my hand and hold it It was funny how things could go from being so perfect to so shitty in just a few short months. It had mostly started when Bliss had injured himself, and then Eddie had gone back to England… the latter of which had been the worst to get through. After so many years of holding on to him, and then finally getting together with him, they had been living together and he had told her he loved her… and then he’d had to go back to England. Maybe she should have gone with him, but… she had things here now and now that Josh was here she didn’t want to leave her brother on his own. It had been a hard decision to make and for a long while after she had been beating herself up over it, but lately things had started to feel better, and things were starting to go right again. She had horses to ride now, even if it wasn’t exactly the same as having her own, she’d graduated one course she had been doing at the university, and had picked up another course, mostly for something else to do, and then she had gotten a working student position at the barn, which was fantastic really, and she didn’t think that she would have been able to find a better program elsewhere, or at least not anywhere close. And moving on from Eddie had gotten easier, over time. She had gone to class early, because she hadn’t managed to finish reading the manuscript that they had been given, because of work, but she had managed to get through most of it, although she didn’t actually think much of it so far. It wasn’t awful, it just lacked… something. Sighing slightly, she reached over and picked her coffee up from her desk, taking a sip of the mostly lukewarm liquid, although she had pretty much finished it now so it didn’t matter too much whether it was going cold or not. Too busy reading the rest of the manuscript, she didn’t notice the fact that she was no longer alone in the lecture room, not seeing the male enter the room as well with her back turned to him, or any footsteps on the ground until he got closer to where she was actually sitting, and even then she probably wouldn’t have thought too much of it until she heard him speaking, pausing midway through the sentence she was reading to turn her head to see who it was. He wasn’t anyone she recognised from the class, figuring that he was possibly just new or something. She didn’t particularly mind that he had taken the seat next to her, it wasn’t like she had been saving it for anyone specific anyway, nor did she really mind the interruption. “Not exactly, just finishing reading it before class… not that I’m finding it particularly thrilling reading,” she answered, flashing the male a small smile, setting the manuscript down on the desk in front of her temporarily, she still had plenty of time before the class started and she didn’t have much left to read, a page at the most, so taking a break from it wouldn’t hurt. jeff | 537 | six degrees of separation - the script | whee

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[James Michael Colburn]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #4f7e9c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Ish/Belle muse murh notes -pets Jamie- credits template by irish! Charming. It wasn't a word that anyone would use to describe Jamie's personality... at least not anyone who actually knew him. There were people, however, who were under the happy illusion that Jamie was a charming young man with a fabulous personality. Of course, he designed it that way. Everything Jamie did was very much deliberate... or, well, for the most part it was. Calling his stripper girlfriend a whore which lead to the demise of their relationship was certainly not a part of the plan... but he was pretty well over that a long time ago. He didn't get hung up on past relationships. This girl, though, was going to be one of the ones that he was going to use the charming factor on. She seemed the sort to get along better with someone who smiled and flirted than someone who scowled and snarked. "Is that so?" He said with a smile that couldn't be considered anything less than flirtatious, his tone inquisitive, but not excessively so. He was an actor, after all, he knew how to play the part. Perhaps you're just not using enough imagination? It is important to utilize when you're reading scripts, you know." He said, a bit unimpressed that she seemed to think the script was drab. Of course he'd come here expecting people to be critical of it... or of just parts of it... but she seemed totally bored by the whole thing. Not letting on to the fact that it annoyed him, he just shrugged with a smile, hoping that she wouldn't suspect that he'd had anything to do with the writing of it. He couldn't let himself get too defensive of the manuscript or she'd be sure to catch on, and that would completely defeat the purpose of this whole escapade. But what do I know, he added after a moment, I haven't even started reading it yet. Truthfully, if Jamie was actually a student, he literally would not have read it. He half-assed his way through all of his schooling, and usually got away with it because he knew his way around the english language so well that he could pull it off just about every time. That was why he'd hardly lasted half a semester in college before dropping out. He just couldn't take school seriously, not when the professors were boring as hell and showed less interest in the subject they were teaching than half of the students showed. Half the time he was too busy bringing a girl back to his dorm, while his roommate was out at class, to even bother showing up. He couldn't let prime opportunities like that be passed up. As far as he was concerned, college was just about the booze and the sex, and when that got too boring, he just stopped going altogether.

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[Isabella Megan Grimshaw]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #90ACAC solid 10px; width: 399px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] if your sky is falling just take my hand and hold it Belle couldn’t quite figure out the guy sitting next to her, although she had only been talking to him for a few moments but still. He certainly wasn’t lacking in confidence, that much was easy to tell… and it was easy to pick the charming grin he was throwing in her direction for what it was but it didn’t have too much of an effect on her… she was never really one who had blushed and swooned over someone being charming, because she knew full well how much of an asshole they could really be. Like Eddie’s father, for one… he could be charming when he wanted to be but could turn into something that was the complete opposite in the blink of an eye, which she had quickly learned. “I know how a script is meant to be read very well, actually. I’m using all the imagination I can muster,” she answered, glancing over at him. She had been doing drama at school since she had started high school, and when she had graduated it had been one of the things that she had gotten top marks in… not to mention plays she’d been in, there had been a fair few over them over the years, not any recently though. Which was another reason why she had decided to pick this course up… it was something that interested her, at least, and it had been a while. She looked at the script on her desk, flicking one of the pages a bit… maybe she just shouldn’t bother reading the rest of it, she was fairly sure she would find out what happened at the end from someone else in the class when they discussed it, and really right now she didn’t have enough interest in it to want to continue reading it. “Oh? Maybe you should read it then... then you would probably see what I’m talking about,” she said, when he said that he hadn’t even read it yet. “It’s just really… flat, for wont of a better word… it’s completely lacking emotion in all of the places it really needs it, so I don’t see how anyone’s going to end up actually connecting with it,” she continued, completely oblivious, of course, that he was the one who had written it… then again even if she had known that she probably would have still given him her honest opinion on it. If you wanted critique on something, you had to learn to deal with the negative responses, right? And at least she wasn’t being rude about it, she never was. jeff | 432 | i gotta feeling - black eyed peas | she makes me giggle

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[James Michael Colburn]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #4f7e9c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Ish/Belle muse murh notes -pets Jamie- credits template by irish! Jamie had been stuck in this slump for a long time. He was really trying to write like he knew he could. He'd been writing since he was 20 year old, and his work used to be good... but it had just lost something over the years. He studied people endlessly to see how they reacted to things and the way they interacted with each other. He had human tendencies down pat. He might as well have been a psychologist or a human behavior analyst for how much he had come to know about people... but no matter how much he knew about them, he never could connect to the emotional aspect. He had shut out his own emotions for so long that the longer he went without expressing them, the harder it was for him to connect. Lately, he'd felt like he couldn't, at all. He knew that he should, that the key to good writing was making the people feel what the characters felt, but whenever he tried to put in the emotion it felt sappy and forced... but this was the first time anyone had actually told him that. When she suggested that he actually read it, he just grinned, "Why on earth would I want to do that" he said a bit teasingly, "when I can just come early, ask your opinion, then spit it out as if it's my own?" Of course he didn't really mean that. If he was a student and hadn't done the work, he was likely to just make something up completely and throw in some big words and intelligent sounding catch-phrases that sounded smart. He certainly had a way with words. He was practically a walking dictionary, and that had helped him through high school and what little college he actually did. He could often just use series of big words and confuse people, but do so in a way that sounded like it was a very well formed opinion, so no one would disagree or say that they didn't understand for risk of looking like the student was smarter than the teacher. He had essentially bull-shitted his way through all of his schooling that way, and got away with it easily. "I'll just take your word for it then," he said when she explained why she hadn't been impressed with the work, "sounds like it's not worth the time to actually read it." He had really already read through the damn thing at least 10 times trying to figure out what was wrong with it. He'd probably re-written each part at least as many times if not more trying to fix it, but nothing worked. Hearing it so bluntly put sort of pin-pointed the problem. He needed to figure out a way to get the emotion back into his work without it affecting him, and without it sounding like he was a seventeen year old girl writing fan-fiction about some ridiculous boy band with bad hair and even worse lyrics... he just had absolutely no idea how to even begin to go about that. If he weren't so adamantly against spending any time at all in hospitals he might go there and observe people under extreme emotional distress and see if that might kick start it... but he wasn't setting foot in a hospital unless his life depended on it... literally.

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[Isabella Megan Grimshaw]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #90ACAC solid 10px; width: 399px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] if your sky is falling just take my hand and hold it She couldn’t quite figure out why this guy was so interested in what she thought about the manuscript… then again if he was just a new student like she had figured earlier on in the conversation that he was it made a little more sense. She probably shouldn’t have been thinking about that so much anyway, but maybe the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to give her his name, like most normal people would, had left her a little suspicious over his intentions, although again that was probably just a slip of the mind and maybe he hadn’t even realised. But maybe having to deal with the people she’d had to deal with over the last couple of years had left her slightly cynical when it came to people. Belle just laughed when he said that maybe he would just tell the lecturer exactly what she had just told him if he got asked any questions about it. “If you didn’t strike me as the type to have his own opinions on everything, I’d probably believe that,” she replied. No, he definitely didn’t strike her as the type to do something like that, nor did the teasing tone in which he said it make it sound any more believable. “With a bit more work, it could be. Right now though, not so much,” she said, shrugging slightly. As she had said before, she didn’t think it was bad, just… flat. Really, really flat. She wasn’t even sure why their professor had gotten them to read it, actually, it wasn’t like he had done anything similar before… then again usually they were reading scripts that were already fairly well known, it was probably something to do with a script writing exercise. Well, he could have picked something a bit better to read, unless that was the point. Which, she would apparently find out soon anyway, hearing the sounds of more people entering the room behind them, without even having to turn around to look at the door. The time must have passed quicker than she thought it did. jeff | 348 | breakin' - all american rejects | skip to her going to drop things off at his house? xD

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[James Michael Colburn]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #4f7e9c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Ish/Belle muse murh notes -pets Jamie- credits template by irish! Socializing had never been something that Jamie was particularly good at. He could put on an act like he was, but in reality, he was quite bad at it. He had learned to hide behind his ability to use words to manipulate people, but to be completely honest, he was incapable of maintaining a normal conversation with someone. On the rare occasion that he actually spoke to someone without wanting something from them, he found himself feeling awkward and out of place. Most people couldn't really tell that he was putting on an act, but he'd never been able to fool certain people, like his siblings, for one. The more people got to know Jamie, the easier it became to see through the charade that he put on every day. As good as he was at acting, it was still just an act. Luckily for him, in this particular conversation, he had entered into it with the intention of getting something out of it, and now that he had it, he saw no reason to remain where he was. As other students started to file in he stood up, and stepped back into the aisle, "I should probably be retreating to the back row again, then." he said with that cheeky smile, "I'd hate to be called on when I've not done the work." Then without giving her a chance to respond he headed back up the steps to the back row to take in the rest of the responses from the students without being noticed by them or by the professor. Throughout the critiques, most of the students were all just too generic for his liking. They didn't seem to have any real input to give. He figured that a lot of them probably were the exact scenario that he'd told the girl he was in and hadn't really read all of what they were supposed to read and were just making things up based on the first "chapter." If the girl he had spoken to before had really given a n honest opinion, which he figured she had, of the writing, then everything else that everyone was saying was pretty well just made up. The general consensus when asked "what did you think?" was "I liked it." It was a terrible response. He didn't give a shit if they "liked it," he wanted to know why and the professor didn't prod them for any reasoning. Three quarters of the way through the class, Jamie just shook his head and left. He was tired of bland non-descriptive responses. He was sure he was going to get the feedback from the professor later anyway. After leaving the University, he trudged home to his empty house, barricading himself in his barren office to sulk about the turn that his life had taken as of late. Dylan, no doubt, was off somewhere getting himself wasted, and Chuck had taken Maddy to the barn to see the horses for the afternoon, so Jamie was left to his own devices. It was strange, really, how before all of this had gone down, he reveled in his solitary life. He'd liked living alone. He'd loved coming home to a big house that was empty and quiet. Now, being left alone was just... lonely. The trouble was that when it was quiet and lonely, he had too much time to think about everything, and when he did that, he realized how awful and dreary his life really was. He'd gotten himself so used to being alone that he had finally been ok with it, then Lucas had to come along and ruin all of that. Now he was alone again, just like always, and stuck with the worst kind of loneliness. He wasn't sure how long he'd been home, but he had just finished of his second good sized glass of whiskey when he heard the doorbell ring. Growling under his breath about the door-to-door sales people that had been circling around the neighborhood like vultures lately, he set his glass on the desk then made his way to the front door with every intention of telling the sales person to be on their way. Of all days that they could have chosen to show up at his door, today may have been one of the worst. When he reached the door, he jerked it open irritably. "How many times do I have to tell..." he started, clearly frustrated, but then stopped immediately when he saw the face of the girl he'd spoken to at the University staring back at him, "You..." He really didn't even know how to respond to her standing there. Surely she hadn't taken a job as a door-to-door sales person? No, she was much to smart for that, right? So rather than saying anything, he just stood there sort of blankly, completely clueless as to how to deal with her being here... now. Had she known all along who he was? How did she find out? Maybe the instructor had told her? But how did she know where to find him? With his luck, she was probably some sort of stalker. Considering his past few relationships with women and how they'd ended up, it really wouldn't surprise him at all if she was.

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[Isabella Megan Grimshaw]

We were all someone else before [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 0b0b0b; width: 399px; padding: 5 5 5 5px; border-bottom: 12px solid #2E5858; border-top: 12px solid #2E5858;] Leaving shadows on each other's wall “Mhmm, that really would be a shame,” Belle answered, a little surprised by the sarcastic tone to her voice as she answered him, it wasn’t completely normal for her but she guessed that she had just had enough of everything lately that being her usual, nice self didn’t seem like the best way to go for her right now, but he had already walked away anyway by that point so he probably hadn’t even heard it. Then again, his cocky attitude had been rubbing her the wrong way a little since he had sat next to her, and she wasn’t above letting people know when they bothered her anymore, when before she would have just ignored it. Theo had definitely put an end to that, when she had stormed out of the coffee shop on him the time he had offered to pay her to leave Eddie before they had even gotten together, and again when he and Eddie had gotten into it in their apartment kitchen. The rest of the class dragged on really, most of it which she ignored… nobody was saying anything remotely interesting when they were discussing the script that she had been talking with the strange male about, and she began to question the wisdom of even attending class today, because clearly nothing important was happening. She was just glad when it was over, not that she was particularly upset by the idea of class normally, just when it didn’t seem to hold much value at the time being. Before she had even gotten to leave the room, however, her professor stopped her, the giant pile of student reviews in his hand, asking her if she would possibly be able to drop it off at the writer’s house. Which she found herself agreeing to, although she didn’t particularly feel like trudging all the way out to Brentwood, where the address was, to deliver them, she felt bad for the man and she guessed that out of the majority of people in her class, he would probably have the best luck asking for her help with it. So that was how she found herself walking up the front path to a giant house in Brentwood… reminding her of the amount of times she’d gone to Eddie’s home back in England… and ringing the front doorbell, the thick pile of papers in her arms, plus the scripts that they had been given to return to whoever it was. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was to see a familiar face standing on the other side of the door when it was answered. Especially the face of the guy she had been talking to before her class had started. She raised an eyebrow when he started going off, but he quickly stopped, staring at her in an almost dumbfounded manner, which amused her a little, admittedly. “Don’t worry, I’m not stalking you. I was just asked to give these back to you,” she said, holding out the pile of papers in her arms out to him. “Although I think if you want an actual opinion of your writing maybe next time you shouldn’t give it to a class of university students,” she said pointedly. Although, at least, she knew that her point of view on it had been honest, at least. And had actually been constructive other than a vague ‘I enjoyed it’. jess | 564 | outfit | belle, where did that snark come from

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[James Michael Colburn]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #4f7e9c solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] i've been waking all my life tagged Ish/Belle muse murh notes -pets Jamie- credits template by irish! It was not terribly often that Jamie could not come up with a smart remark to shoot back at someone immediately after they had something snarky to say, but he was really just kind of thrown off by her having showed up at his door without his inviting her there. Generally, no one showed up at Jamie's door without being invited for fear of having their head removed from their shoulders. He was not known as a very friendly individual, and in a close-knit town like Addison it wasn't a very far stretch to assume that most people had probably heard, one way or another, about Jamie Colburn. He was your typical "rich guy" with no real friends and let his money define his life. Granted, it was a very common occurrence for women to come in and out of his house regularly, though rarely the same one more than once. That said he was not expecting to see her here, though he could not say that he was entirely displeased. If he'd not had the intention of gleaning her opinion of his work, he probably would have done his best to seduce her at the university, but alas he'd needed her for a much more scholarly task. Right now, though, he would be more than happy to make a pass at her if it weren't for the glaringly obvious lack of preparation to see her again on his part. He highly doubted that anything he attempted right now would work at all. "No, you hardly strike me as the type to be a stalker." He said, taking the papers from her, debating with himself whether he should continue the charm he'd played earlier or not. "Wouldn't be the first time I misjudged that, though." Her next comment gave him a bit of amusement. "Oh? What would you suggest then," He asked, smirking just slightly, "If your criticism of my methods are anywhere near to the same level of your literary brilliance in the critique of my work then I'd be thrilled to hear it." Alright so maybe he was being a tiny bit sarcastic, but what she had said about his writing had been helpful... sort of, at least in pointing out the problem. Even so, he really couldn't let her know that, at least not affirmatively, because to do that would be to admit that he'd been wrong and she was right, and everyone knew that Jamie just simply couldn't ever admit to that.

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[Isabella Megan Grimshaw]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 101010; border: #262626 solid 10px; width: 515px; padding: 5 5 5 5px;] “Mhmm, no, I have better things to do with my time,” she answered, rolling her eyes a little. What exactly was it about her that got her stuck talking to the most arrogant people she could possibly encounter… and to top it off, they were usually rich, arrogant people too. At least she’d had Eddie, and his mother when they had been friends, and dating… she couldn’t say the same about his father and twin sister though. And now, she’d had this guy in class, and now it just so happened that he was the person she was meant to be delivering these papers too… it was like fate was playing some sort of joke on her, almost. Ugh, since when did she start thinking like that so much? Maybe she was just fed up with everything, her luck had been completely crappy lately, it had all gone downhill since Bliss had injured himself, and it had only gotten better a couple of times since. She was probably just stressed out, taking a break from everything was probably what she needed but she couldn’t exactly go and do that right now anyway. Then again, he wasn’t exactly making it easy to keep her frustration levels under wraps right now anyway, which was part of the problem. And the more he talked, the worse it got. “Something tells me you’re not exactly the sort of person who ‘needs’ help, so you could probably come up with a few ideas of your own,” she replied, somehow managing to keep the tone of her voice light, even though she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t just walked back down the pathway and to her car as soon as he had taken the stack of papers from her, instead of continuing to stand here talking to him. “Then again, if today was any indication, maybe you do. But I’m not exactly up for giving people help when they don’t actually ask for it. Especially when they find it necessary to trick people into it, instead of just asking, like a normal person.” - - - - - - - - - - 'cause i won't let you burn out tonight, let's just stay here, don't breathe, ignite, and you be the reason, i'll be the rhyme, we've both got way too much ahead to worry bout what we've left behind, so you keep the beat, we'll stay on time, and fill the pages with just how both our worlds collide, when i'm left in your eyes

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jeff | 347 | outfit | she's in such a snarky mood whyyy

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