| Smile Annotation 9-18 |
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I go deliberately out of my way not to describe my characters, but the picture of WCW's Ms. Hancock (Stacy Kiebler) that I used at the top of this chapter is exactly what I think of when I think of Ms. Cantrell. Though I don't recommend anybody try watching WCW. WWF's way better. (Yeah, I never thought I'd be a wrestling fan either, but if you watch it with the right friends it's fucking awesome.)
 The mention of the Zombie dream was a nod to the fact that Jeff, Lenny and Carl first showed up in my zombie Smile side-story, which I started when my website hit 666 hits. All three of them got gored by zombies in the first chapter. The picture of Angelina Jolie was suggested to me by Laural, the author of The Sea Became Salt. Something about this chapter seems too fast too me. I'm not sure if it's because Ms. Cantrell wasn't mentioned earlier in the story or if this part itself is just paced wrong. I'll fix it once I figure out what the problem is, and once Smile is finished I may add some Ms. Cantrell scenes retroactively to earlier chapters. The same thing happened with this chapter name as with part 4; the temporary name made me laugh, so I kept it. As long as I don't do it a third time, it's funny.
The pose down in front of the mirror was my friend Mark's idea, as a flip side to Elizabeth's mirror gazing in part 11. He suggested it for Liam, but I decided to give it to Jeff instead.
When Jennifer and Elizabeth discuss stripping and Jennifer asks "Did Liam tell you about that?" she's referring to the conversation Liam and Jennifer had in part 9.
The joke about Steven being a baby-sitter is just like the one in That 70's Show where it's revealed that Kelso baby-sits, but I swear I didn't steal it (for once). "You're living in denial and suppressing rage, motherfucker." I put this in solely 'cause it's a cool Clerks quote and it made my friend Mark laugh. Elizabeth falling asleep in the field and then waking back up in the very next paragraph seems a little awkward, but that was where I made the weekly split when I was originally writing this chapter. I'll smooth it out later. The picture of Quistis Trepe from the Playstation game Final Fantasy VIII is another good example of how I picture Ms. Cantrell. Also, it's no coincidence that I use pictures of Natalie Portman more than anyone else for Elizabeth-centered chapters.
Octavia Butler has a very clean writing style that I really admire. I've only read four of her books so far, but of those Wild Seed is my favorite.
I hinted that Elizabeth won the race at the end of part 13 by having her call Liam "slowpoke" in part 14, but it's only here that I got around to confirming it directly. The shoe leather speech came from an old scene I wrote before I started serializing Smile on the net, which in some ways I like better than the new one. I can barely even remember Life is Sweet anymore, and I've learned that it's counter-productive to mention things you don't like in your writing. For instance, this chapter inspired my friend Brad to go rent the piece of shit, when to this day the bastard still hasn't seen The Shawshank Redemption. So let this be a lesson to you; always disregard references to anything you don't like from your fiction. You'll be glad you did.
I learned the term "shoe leather" by reading Frank Darabont's annotation for his Shawshank Redemption script, which you can read here.
For the record, Laural came up with the main action while working out on the Stairmaster at her gym.
"Don't you remember what I told you to do about this?"
The Simpsons/Futurama/shoe analogy fell from the mouth of my friend Chris while we were watching WWF, and I was so impressed by its accuracy that I had to steal it right away. This is where I started readjusting my perception of Ms. Cantrell. I originally came up with her the same night that I wrote her first appearance, and mentally she was never more than a weak echo of Elizabeth. After talking to my friend Jessica about it I realized that she's not much of a character, but a lot of fun could still be had by jerking her around.
The Guns N' Roses song Elizabeth starts to sing is called Dust n' Bones, from the album Use Your Illusion I. A little more Cantrell bashing in this chapter, as a kind of foreshadowing; at this point I'd stolen enough ideas from talking to Jess, Laural and Rob that for the first time in Smile history I had an actual long-term plan of what was going to happen, instead of the week-to-week hobo writing technique I'd been employing before. The "If you'd prefer that he go home and finish all that piled up homework" selection is a reworking of the Futurama "If you'd like Calculon to recheck his paperwork" joke. Liam falling off the roof still totally cracks me up. For the record, though, the Liam-and-Elizabeth-almost-get-it-on ending is the "real" one.
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