My Top 5 Articles: Tinka on Tinka

1/7/2022

This might be a little self indulgent, sure. I've been on Vocal since May 2021. I've written more in these last several months than I have in years. I've been writing consistently and for myself. I have had a few people reach out to me and talk to me about my writing. Emphasis on few. Seriously, less than six by my count.

If you are new to my Vocal page or aren't sure where to start, here are MY five favorite pieces I have written since I started writing on Vocal, in chronological order in which they were posted.

#1 Bette On It: Weird Adolescence 1999-2000 8th Grade

I wrote "Bette On It: Weird Adolescence" as a complete novel. This section, 8th grade, was one of my favorite to work on, write, and read. Everything that happens to Bette Wheelan happens so vividly in my mind, especially in this section. I laughed out loud at my own jokes. I cried hard through certain scenes. Bette has a middle school experience I didn't have. While I was writing the novel, this might be the second section of the book, but it wasn't the second one I wrote. This one was somewhere around two-and-a-half to three.

It was while writing this section I head-cannoned certain things about certain characters: Bette's parents and Jenna specifically. They are characteristics that are never explicitly stated, but are points that I don't let lapse for the rest of the story. This is the section of the book where certain characters come into their own. This is where Bette begins to come of age. While I admit other sections of this novel are weak, this one is, by far, my favorite.

#2 How To Get Through The Day At The Minnesota Renaissance Festival

"How To Get Through..." is one of my most successful articles posted to date. This isn't a new article for me. This is actually a list that was curated several years ago and gets minor changes/tweaks/revisions each year. This was the article where I learned that promoting my articles equals success in terms of clicks. The more you promote yourself, the more success you get. Shocker! The information in the article is valid, helpful, and works across a lot of festival environments. A couple people have come up to me, recognizing me from the list over the years and thanked me for sharing a helpful list. Hopefully, it can help others in years to come.

#3 So Close, And Yet, So What?

I had written articles and stories and submitted them to Vocal contests in the time I had become a member, but this one was an absolute pleasure to write. This contest had to incorporate a scarlet macaw in the story, besides the word count and the other basic restrictions, that was it. At the time of the contest, I was several weeks into performing at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival 2021 season. By this time, I had a new best friend, a new brother: Nestor the Cruel. We are brothers in riddling.

I've always enjoyed the concept of writing prompts: give me the tiniest restriction, and I can run with it. I wrote this short story in less than three days if memory serves.

By the time I was writing this short story, our characters were developed. We knew each other's cues. We can read each other. Not just Nestor and myself, but all the Riddle Masters. Sure I wrote this story for a contest, but we were spending 20+ hours together every weekend in close proximity doing one of our favorite things in the world. That's some high-level friendship questing. This story was written out of love for my team of fellow Riddlers. It's easy to write something you love and are proud of when the source material is just as wonderful.

#4 Burlesque to Boudoir: Reclaiming My Body. Part 7

Seven parts. Seven. Tinka Boudit has been through a journey and it didn't start with writing. It started with giving up shame. Writing it down was truly the most recent chapter. When writing out the seven sections of my burlesque to boudoir story, I laughed and cried. I dug up memories I had tried to forget. I found pictures I forgot I had. These weren't even that old of pictures.

What this reminded me of most of all, was what an amazing partner I had in Noah. He might not have been able to be at every performance, but he supported my desire to perform. If I wanted to take a class, money was no object, go. If I needed the living room floor for the weekend to make and alter costumes, no objections. If I needed a spotter to do practice a stunt, he was there. Noah was always there for me, and he was the inspiration for the photo shoot in part seven. He is my darling love. I will never be done kissing him.

#5 My Desires Are Unique

This parody song was my brain's Christmas gift to myself. I was going to sleep on Christmas Eve and the idea to do Renaissance/Bard lyrics to "I Want It That Way" started bouncing around in my head. The musical arrangement already existed, I had listened to it several times, but that was the night it struck me: the beginnings of the words.

Changing pop songs to parody songs isn't a new thing. I remember rewriting "Hotel California" during a study hall in high school, I still sing the lyrics that way to this day. But to do 'bardcore' lyrics came from an exercise that was done in the Renaissance Festival cast training class: take a pop song and make it olde. During that exercise, the point isn't to make the lyrics rhyme or fit the meter of the original song, but just to translate it. This time, I wanted to make it a full, karaoke-able version. As far ask I can tell, it works. I await the opportunity when I can sing it to someone and have them join in with me, "...Tell me true!"

BONUS #6. Tales of Bette: Who Was Greyson's Brother?

I didn't want to include another "Bette" entry in this top five list, but of all the non-erotic, in-universe, cannon Bette lore, this one is my favorite. It took a one-off line from the whole novel and I wrote a short story inspired by a real-life friend. A friend I knew in my teenage years and have now, "Ricardo." We had a friendship, a kinship, a flirtation that never went anywhere. I had a boyfriend when we met. He got a serious girlfriend. When I was in the later part of high school, he was in college. Nothing romantic ever happened for us. There are peppered bits of truth in this story about Ricardo/Andrew. He's one of the few people I will admit to being real-life inspired by in the Bette Wheelan cannon. That is why I selected this to be bonus story #6.