When I first started this prompt, this is not what I expected would come out of it. This snippet follows an idea for a sci-fi story I had back in high school, and trying to work with it now, I can see why I never actually wrote anything for it. It goes back to Tim's "exploit what you invent" mantra: I had a great idea, but very little concept of who these characters are, what motivates them, and how the events of the plot would affect them. It also doesn't help that this piece takes place in the middle of my preconceived storyline.
There are lines that I like in this, and at least I got to play with an old idea a little bit. Who knows? Maybe I'll go back to it and fix it up someday. The prompt I used was, "She said, 'Let's change our luck,'" from We the Kings.
---
I stood by the window, looking out over the quiet shore than had become our home. No, not my home: Anitra’s home. Anitra’s parents’ home. The Lambazzias had lied to me for years, calling me their son when they knew I was anything but. Anitra was on the bed, twisting her hands together, head down, so I could see the dark roots in her neon red hair.
“How long have you known?” I asked, the wind carrying my whispered words to her.
“Years.” She lifted her head to look at me, and I watched her reflection in the window pane. “I don’t – I don’t remember when they found you. But I always knew you weren’t my brother. That you were something more, closer than that.”
“You could have told me.”
Anitra took off her gloves, revealing the tattoo on her right hand, between her thumb and index finger. It was the mark of a Healer, a vow I’d seen Anitra break in the last few days. “How? I didn’t have any proof, and Dad always treated you as his favorite – his heir. He trained you to lead us if something happened to him.”
She was right. There were some things Wakka Lambazzia had ingrained in me – hatred of the Cansolee Empire, a desire to see justice enacted. We had been raised as children of the rebellion, and I would fight with every last breath in me. It was the same reason why Anitra now carried a gun on her hip; none of us could afford not to. “My father,” I said, voice soft now, “my real father – he was a soldier for those bastards. A murderer. And he was proud of it.”
“Andros.” Getting off the bed, Anitra came up behind me, her forehead resting on my back. “That’s not who you are. You are a warrior, a fighter of the Light. No matter who your birth parents are, they can never take that away from you. No one can.”
Her touch was feather-light, reminding me of Anitra’s support, her loyalty. On every one of our family’s raids against the Empire, we were always paired together, healer and warrior. She always had my back – even in that moment when I learned my entire life had been a lie, she never flinched. Anitra had always been the closest of my “siblings,” and I knew she could never abandon me while my birth family had. She’d become more than a sister, than a best friend, but I couldn’t quite put a name to what our relationship was now.
Finally, when I found my voice, there was a hard edge to it that I hadn’t expected to be there. “Andros Lambazzia is dead.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth. He died in the fire pits, like you thought for so long.” I turned to face her, tucking her hair behind her ears. It was short enough that the strands wouldn’t stay in place after I’d touched them. “I’m not the same kid who left you. I was naïve then – I know better now.”
Anitra shook her head, the moonlight shimmering off the tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I can’t stay here. With them.” I jerked my head towards the closed door separating us from the rest of the house. On the other side, down the hall, Wakka and Rosaria Lambazzia were discussing the family’s next move. If I listened hard enough, I could just make out what they were saying. “I can’t pretend anymore. They’re no more my parents than you are my sister. I’m not going to fight just because they tell me I should. Not alongside him.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Panic flashed through Anitra’s eyes, just for a second, and I wondered if she realized I could never leave her side again. “This war waits for no one. There is no hiding, there is no peace – not unless we fight for it. And I know you, you’ll never run. You took the mark of a warrior, Andros, and you know that vow is one you can never walk away from.”
Even hearing her say my name felt wrong, like it wasn’t mine to use anymore. “I won’t be his foot soldier.”
“Then don’t. We’ll find another way to fight. We’ll start over. Change our luck, as it were.”
I half-expected to hear desperation in Anitra’s voice; the girl I grew up with would be scared out of her mind. But now she was only calm, accepting, as if none of the evening’s events surprised her. “What are you suggesting?”
Squaring her shoulders, Anitra sat up a little straighter. “For years, Dad has talked about collaborating a massive strike against the Empire – something to end them once and for all. He’s in no position to do that now. We’ve spent the last year in exile, without resources, without support. But I believe we can still win this war.” Her brown eyes met mine. “And there’s nothing that says we have to be at Wakka Lambazzia’s side when we do it.”
I let out a puff of air. “You think we should leave?”
“Didn’t you just suggest the same thing?” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to contradict her, and I couldn’t. At the very least, I knew I couldn’t stay under the Lambazzias’ roof, not when I knew how they’d lied to me, how they never planned to tell me the truth. “Andros, we’re not going to win while we’re sitting here, away from the battles. And if that means leaving…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her hands, brushing her fingers over her Healer’s mark. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
I took her hands in both of mine. “We’re two people against an Empire,” I reminded her. “The road will be difficult.”
“We were trained to deal with worse.” She squeezed my hands; I was unused to feeling a warrior’s roughness in her deft fingers. “The longer we stay, the harder it will be to get away.”
“How soon can you be ready?”
We didn’t waste much time. Growing up as part of the rebellion, both of us knew how to pack light, essentials only. There was no such thing as luxury items, just clothes and whatever weapons we could carry; we’d pick up rations along the way. I decided against leaving a note – based on my last conversation with Wakka, he knew how furious I was. He knew I would leave, and he knew Anitra would follow.
The front door wasn’t an option; Wakka slept light, we all did, and the door creaked whenever it was touched. I was tossing our bags out the window when Anitra paused, kissed her palm and pressed it against the closed door between us and what had been my family. “Anitra,” I whispered.
She followed me out the window, landing lightly in the grass outside it. It was, I realized, the only goodbye she could make. “I know.”
Taking her hand, each with a bag slung over our shoulders, we darted into the night.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday Blog Post: How I knew I wanted to write
I was nine years old when I figured out how much I loved writing. I was in Mrs. Day's class - Mrs. Day herself was another story, of our love-hate relationship and our respect for each other, though I was too young to realize it at the time. It was the first time in school that we had a time period set aside just for us to write. It wasn't a lot of time - maybe 20 minutes or half an hour, but it was right before recess, when most of my classmates were eager to get outside.
We were given little blue books, the kind of college students dread when exam time comes around. When I saw these books, over a decade later, I still saw myself hunched over a desk in Sterling Memorial School, writing away. The only thing we had to do in that time period was write. I no longer remember if we were given prompts to write about, but I remember loving the way it felt when you write on the first page of a brand-new book, crisp and clean and waiting for your words.
The first book I wrote in was kept nice and neat. My name was written on the front in strict, practiced cursive; I always had neat handwriting. The only doodle was a tiny pumpkin that I drew there in honor of Halloween. Inside, you could watch my handwriting change, going form that uptight script to loose and flowing print as the words came to me faster and faster, the more I practiced. By the end of that school year, I would fill four or five of those little blue books - a lot of writing for a 9-year-old.
It's not like any of these stories were actually any good. I remember one about my birthday part and the awesome things that happened - none of which were actually true I wrote about how hard it was to be a pencil and how awful it was to be chewed on and sharpened constantly. I borrowed characters' names from the Baby-Sitters' Club series, which I was collecting at the time. But my first big triumph, when I realized something big about my writing, was my first "chapter story."
I was writing about a girl hanging out at recess (named, of course, Kristy, though I never really liked her in BSC. Claudia was way cooler) and one of her enemies made it look like she was flipping someone off. At the time, it was the worst offense I could imagine getting caught doing. I ended the scene with the teacher stalking over to Kristy, demanding to know what was going on.
A light bulb went off in my head: This was the place to end the chapter. Even at that age, I could feel the suspense, wondering what was going to happen to Kristy - would the teacher believe her, if she said she didn't do it? What was the punishment for flipping someone off? I remember being so excited as I turned back a couple pages in my book and, between the title and the beginning of the story, I squeezed in the words "Chapter 1." I'd never written a multi-part story before.
All of my classmates regarded this writing practice as a chore, something so boring that they wanted nothing to do with it. But this opened so many doors to me, gave me the encouragement and the time to let my Muse come out and play. At 23, I'm trying to recapture that feeling of excitement I first felt when I was 9 years old. Some kids wanted to be police officers or astronauts or lawyers when they grew up,
Me? I always wanted to be a writer.
We were given little blue books, the kind of college students dread when exam time comes around. When I saw these books, over a decade later, I still saw myself hunched over a desk in Sterling Memorial School, writing away. The only thing we had to do in that time period was write. I no longer remember if we were given prompts to write about, but I remember loving the way it felt when you write on the first page of a brand-new book, crisp and clean and waiting for your words.
The first book I wrote in was kept nice and neat. My name was written on the front in strict, practiced cursive; I always had neat handwriting. The only doodle was a tiny pumpkin that I drew there in honor of Halloween. Inside, you could watch my handwriting change, going form that uptight script to loose and flowing print as the words came to me faster and faster, the more I practiced. By the end of that school year, I would fill four or five of those little blue books - a lot of writing for a 9-year-old.
It's not like any of these stories were actually any good. I remember one about my birthday part and the awesome things that happened - none of which were actually true I wrote about how hard it was to be a pencil and how awful it was to be chewed on and sharpened constantly. I borrowed characters' names from the Baby-Sitters' Club series, which I was collecting at the time. But my first big triumph, when I realized something big about my writing, was my first "chapter story."
I was writing about a girl hanging out at recess (named, of course, Kristy, though I never really liked her in BSC. Claudia was way cooler) and one of her enemies made it look like she was flipping someone off. At the time, it was the worst offense I could imagine getting caught doing. I ended the scene with the teacher stalking over to Kristy, demanding to know what was going on.
A light bulb went off in my head: This was the place to end the chapter. Even at that age, I could feel the suspense, wondering what was going to happen to Kristy - would the teacher believe her, if she said she didn't do it? What was the punishment for flipping someone off? I remember being so excited as I turned back a couple pages in my book and, between the title and the beginning of the story, I squeezed in the words "Chapter 1." I'd never written a multi-part story before.
All of my classmates regarded this writing practice as a chore, something so boring that they wanted nothing to do with it. But this opened so many doors to me, gave me the encouragement and the time to let my Muse come out and play. At 23, I'm trying to recapture that feeling of excitement I first felt when I was 9 years old. Some kids wanted to be police officers or astronauts or lawyers when they grew up,
Me? I always wanted to be a writer.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday Writing Prompt: Song Lyrics 1
In some way, shape or form, most writers are inspired by music. I could write weeks' worth of posts about how music works for me, but I would rather see how this inspiration plays out in the actual writing. This week's challenge is take one of these five song lyrics and see what comes out of them:
- The darker the secret, the harder you'll keep it. (Jack's Mannequin, "At Full Speed")
- I'm in love with my own sins. (Fall Out Boy, "America's Suitehearts")
- I've always been the easy kill. (Jimmy Eat World, "Kill")
- I'll take my chances on truck stops and state lines. (The Academy Is..., "Almost Here")
- She said, 'Let's change our luck.' (We the Kings, "Skyway Avenue")
Don't worry about knowing the song the lyric comes from; in fact, it's probably better if you don't. (I'm already struggling, wanting to connect my piece with the music, even though I haven't started writing yet.)
The final piece should be between 750 and 1000 words - enough to start to tell a story. With any luck, I'll have my attempt ready to post on Friday!
---
Don't like this week's prompt? Check out previous ones through the Monday Writing Prompt tag.
- The darker the secret, the harder you'll keep it. (Jack's Mannequin, "At Full Speed")
- I'm in love with my own sins. (Fall Out Boy, "America's Suitehearts")
- I've always been the easy kill. (Jimmy Eat World, "Kill")
- I'll take my chances on truck stops and state lines. (The Academy Is..., "Almost Here")
- She said, 'Let's change our luck.' (We the Kings, "Skyway Avenue")
Don't worry about knowing the song the lyric comes from; in fact, it's probably better if you don't. (I'm already struggling, wanting to connect my piece with the music, even though I haven't started writing yet.)
The final piece should be between 750 and 1000 words - enough to start to tell a story. With any luck, I'll have my attempt ready to post on Friday!
---
Don't like this week's prompt? Check out previous ones through the Monday Writing Prompt tag.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Friday Writing Response for May 22, 2009
My attempt at following the "No E" excerise, as posted over here. I really need to get a decent thesaurus and start carrying it around with me, lol. Still, this isn't terrible for writing most of it while on break from work.
Follows loosely in with my novel, And You Tell Me I Am Home, though you don't have to have read it to follow the piece.
Jay works past midnight. It's not that his writing is so important it can't wait until morning, but his inspiration hits at two a.m. Typing away, Jay can't think of his old girl, or of his pain from that loss. Both said such a union couldn't work, it was mutual. It wouldn't suit him to wallow if distractions could sway his mind.
So now, Jay counts stars out his window, pricks of light in a pitch black sky. Words will flow from his hands, from his mind. It's not brilliant, but this job pays his bills, and so Jay can't complain. His only wish is to talk about such things with his girl again, about passions, about art.
Jay lays down around four, knowing morning is coming soon. Tomorrow will pass, just as all days prior. In a month, two months, his mind won't think about it constantly; his girl will drift away.
(Word count: 154)
Follows loosely in with my novel, And You Tell Me I Am Home, though you don't have to have read it to follow the piece.
Jay works past midnight. It's not that his writing is so important it can't wait until morning, but his inspiration hits at two a.m. Typing away, Jay can't think of his old girl, or of his pain from that loss. Both said such a union couldn't work, it was mutual. It wouldn't suit him to wallow if distractions could sway his mind.
So now, Jay counts stars out his window, pricks of light in a pitch black sky. Words will flow from his hands, from his mind. It's not brilliant, but this job pays his bills, and so Jay can't complain. His only wish is to talk about such things with his girl again, about passions, about art.
Jay lays down around four, knowing morning is coming soon. Tomorrow will pass, just as all days prior. In a month, two months, his mind won't think about it constantly; his girl will drift away.
(Word count: 154)
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Wednesday Blog Post: Exploit what you invent
The best and yet the hardest piece of writing advice I've ever been given came from Tim Parrish, in my Advanced Fiction Writing class my senior year of college. I was working on my thesis at the time and, with my brain already frazzled from working with real events and memories, I decided to "take a break" and submit just fiction stories for this class.
My workshop story focused on a set of twins, Nathan and Angie. Nathan left home to pursue a music career and Angie, who hardly speaks, stayed home with their music teacher father. When Dad has a heart attack, Nathan comes back to town to help Angie, only to find how much worse her situation had become. I loved the dynamic of the artistic twins, how Nathan would speak for Angie, and the situation I was creating. It was an incomplete draft when I submitted it, but I liked where it was going.
The workshop was, in a word, brutal. Tim said my characters were too weak, timid, not reacting in ways that they should. That they were, essentially, caricatures without actually responding to the situation. Another girl complained about the face that his name was Nathan and she'd just broken up with a musician named Nathan. I went back to my dorm room with a handful of reviews, including a page-long one from Tim (the longest I had received to that point) and cried.
"Exploit what you invent," Tim said over and over in the workshop. His review repeats it: "You've got to let go of playing it so safe and to see the story from the outside," he wrote. "...You're a writer with a natural sense of how to tell a story, but you're not a writer who yet takes many emotional risks."
It took me a while to realize it, but Tim was right. I hadn't plotted out the story nearly as much as I needed to, even if I didn't know how I wanted it to end yet. I didn't know who Nathan was, his personality, what his quirks were - and if I didn't know Nathan, I didn't even start to scratch the surface with Angie. For my next workshop, I plotted. I thought about where I wanted the story to go and how these characters would interact with each other. The draft for my next workshop wasn't great, but it was better - and Tim noticed that I'd taken his advice to heart.
That is the best piece of advice I can offer to other writers: Exploit what you invent. Create the situation and then run with it, let your imagination go wild. The first draft may show you what the plot may be, but it's further exploration that gives you the characters you're working with, what the story actually means.
My workshop story focused on a set of twins, Nathan and Angie. Nathan left home to pursue a music career and Angie, who hardly speaks, stayed home with their music teacher father. When Dad has a heart attack, Nathan comes back to town to help Angie, only to find how much worse her situation had become. I loved the dynamic of the artistic twins, how Nathan would speak for Angie, and the situation I was creating. It was an incomplete draft when I submitted it, but I liked where it was going.
The workshop was, in a word, brutal. Tim said my characters were too weak, timid, not reacting in ways that they should. That they were, essentially, caricatures without actually responding to the situation. Another girl complained about the face that his name was Nathan and she'd just broken up with a musician named Nathan. I went back to my dorm room with a handful of reviews, including a page-long one from Tim (the longest I had received to that point) and cried.
"Exploit what you invent," Tim said over and over in the workshop. His review repeats it: "You've got to let go of playing it so safe and to see the story from the outside," he wrote. "...You're a writer with a natural sense of how to tell a story, but you're not a writer who yet takes many emotional risks."
It took me a while to realize it, but Tim was right. I hadn't plotted out the story nearly as much as I needed to, even if I didn't know how I wanted it to end yet. I didn't know who Nathan was, his personality, what his quirks were - and if I didn't know Nathan, I didn't even start to scratch the surface with Angie. For my next workshop, I plotted. I thought about where I wanted the story to go and how these characters would interact with each other. The draft for my next workshop wasn't great, but it was better - and Tim noticed that I'd taken his advice to heart.
That is the best piece of advice I can offer to other writers: Exploit what you invent. Create the situation and then run with it, let your imagination go wild. The first draft may show you what the plot may be, but it's further exploration that gives you the characters you're working with, what the story actually means.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Monday Writing Prompt: No "E"
I remember this writing prompt from American Studies. Our assignment was to write a 100 word essay without using the letter E anywhere in the piece. It was also the only assignment where we didn't have to prove a point or support an opinion. Accomplishing this is much harder than one might think it to be - how many common words use the letter E? "The" is now completely off limits. So are past tense verbs that end in "-ed," using words like "he" and "she."
Here is my original piece, from American Studies. Keep in mind that I was 16 when I wrote this, when I was in my big Highlander phase (and I'm still a huge fan of the show):
Duncan walks a road in Paris, with only his katana in his hand and a familiar thought on his mind. It is his duty to fight this man, at this hour. His body calls for blood, though his soul is loath to submit. A factory, long vacant, is a location for such a fight. Dark shadows call to him from all walls, surrounding him, and for an instant, Duncan is afraid. From such shadows, a buzz assails him, informing him of approaching Immortal company. With his katana in an apt fighting position, Duncan shouts his cry to arms: "Now, only a man can stand, not two!"
My challenge with this prompt is to write a coherent piece between 150 and 200 words without using E once. I haven't tried this in a long while, so it's something for me to work on as well.
Good luck - I hope to post my version on Friday!
Here is my original piece, from American Studies. Keep in mind that I was 16 when I wrote this, when I was in my big Highlander phase (and I'm still a huge fan of the show):
Duncan walks a road in Paris, with only his katana in his hand and a familiar thought on his mind. It is his duty to fight this man, at this hour. His body calls for blood, though his soul is loath to submit. A factory, long vacant, is a location for such a fight. Dark shadows call to him from all walls, surrounding him, and for an instant, Duncan is afraid. From such shadows, a buzz assails him, informing him of approaching Immortal company. With his katana in an apt fighting position, Duncan shouts his cry to arms: "Now, only a man can stand, not two!"
My challenge with this prompt is to write a coherent piece between 150 and 200 words without using E once. I haven't tried this in a long while, so it's something for me to work on as well.
Good luck - I hope to post my version on Friday!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Who's writing this thing?
About the Author
My name is Amie Lynne Martin, and I’m 23 years old. Currently living outside of Portland, Maine, I’m originally from Voluntown, Conn. I have a BA in journalism with a Spanish minor from Southern Connecticut State University, where I graduated in 2007.
Aside from writing, I play a few video games, mostly RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, and dabble in graphic design. I waste a lot of my life on the Internet. I love to read science fiction and fantasy – current favorites include Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I highly recommend reading for the sheer absurdity of it). Musically, I am a huge fan of Andrew McMahon and his two bands, Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate. Other current favorites include Fall Out Boy, Treaty of Paris, Queen, Vanessa Carlton, and Howie Day.
I am the proud owner of a one-year-old kitten named Lily, who loves to cuddle and chase bugs and play with her sparkly green mousey. She’s adorable and I’ll be the first to admit, I spoil her rotten.
I’ve had a few articles published here and there, most recently in the Conn. magazine Metroline. I successfully completed an internship with the New Haven Register in their features department, where I interviewed Cyrus Bolooki of New Found Glory, among other artists. I am currently working on revising my first novel, currently titled And You Tell Me I Am Home.
Thoughts, questions, concerns? Feel free to ask me here or send me an email at amielynnemartin [at] gmail [dot] com.
My name is Amie Lynne Martin, and I’m 23 years old. Currently living outside of Portland, Maine, I’m originally from Voluntown, Conn. I have a BA in journalism with a Spanish minor from Southern Connecticut State University, where I graduated in 2007.
Aside from writing, I play a few video games, mostly RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, and dabble in graphic design. I waste a lot of my life on the Internet. I love to read science fiction and fantasy – current favorites include Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I highly recommend reading for the sheer absurdity of it). Musically, I am a huge fan of Andrew McMahon and his two bands, Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate. Other current favorites include Fall Out Boy, Treaty of Paris, Queen, Vanessa Carlton, and Howie Day.
I am the proud owner of a one-year-old kitten named Lily, who loves to cuddle and chase bugs and play with her sparkly green mousey. She’s adorable and I’ll be the first to admit, I spoil her rotten.
I’ve had a few articles published here and there, most recently in the Conn. magazine Metroline. I successfully completed an internship with the New Haven Register in their features department, where I interviewed Cyrus Bolooki of New Found Glory, among other artists. I am currently working on revising my first novel, currently titled And You Tell Me I Am Home.
Thoughts, questions, concerns? Feel free to ask me here or send me an email at amielynnemartin [at] gmail [dot] com.
Welcome!
Welcome to The Writer Chick, a blog dedicated to the craft of writing as I see it – the view of a writer just starting out in the publishing world.
I created this as a way to keep myself writing, through the days when I fight to edit a page of my novel, when inspiration goes on strike, when I feel everything I write is garbage. I miss the way writing felt when I was in college, taking classes in creative writing. There was a sense of community; everyone had read everyone else’s stories, and the resulting discussions were always lively and entertaining. I want to recapture that magic in blog form.
Once a week, I will make a post discussing some aspect of my writing world. Perhaps it will be about whatever project I’m working on that week; check out the list of current works for a summary of these stories. I also want to discuss what my experiences are, what new topics I struggle with. As always, these posts are my opinion – everyone approaches writing differently, which is why talking about it is intriguing to me.
Also once a week, I plan to post at least one excerpt from something I’ve written. I can’t talk the talk if I don’t walk the walk, as the phrase goes, and one of the goals of this blog is to encourage myself to write. If someone else would like to write along with me, that’s even better.
Writing is a gift, but it’s also a skill, one that becomes lost if it’s not in practice. I don’t want that to happen to me. My hope is that this blog will help me sharpen my words, clean up my phrases, and reclaim the passion I had for writing.
Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Posting Schedule:
MONDAY: Writing prompts
A picture, a sentence, something to spark some creativity.
WEDNESDAY: Blog
My thoughts and views on the week’s writing topic.
FRIDAY: Writing responses
A completed exercise or other excerpt from my current works.
I created this as a way to keep myself writing, through the days when I fight to edit a page of my novel, when inspiration goes on strike, when I feel everything I write is garbage. I miss the way writing felt when I was in college, taking classes in creative writing. There was a sense of community; everyone had read everyone else’s stories, and the resulting discussions were always lively and entertaining. I want to recapture that magic in blog form.
Once a week, I will make a post discussing some aspect of my writing world. Perhaps it will be about whatever project I’m working on that week; check out the list of current works for a summary of these stories. I also want to discuss what my experiences are, what new topics I struggle with. As always, these posts are my opinion – everyone approaches writing differently, which is why talking about it is intriguing to me.
Also once a week, I plan to post at least one excerpt from something I’ve written. I can’t talk the talk if I don’t walk the walk, as the phrase goes, and one of the goals of this blog is to encourage myself to write. If someone else would like to write along with me, that’s even better.
Writing is a gift, but it’s also a skill, one that becomes lost if it’s not in practice. I don’t want that to happen to me. My hope is that this blog will help me sharpen my words, clean up my phrases, and reclaim the passion I had for writing.
Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Posting Schedule:
MONDAY: Writing prompts
A picture, a sentence, something to spark some creativity.
WEDNESDAY: Blog
My thoughts and views on the week’s writing topic.
FRIDAY: Writing responses
A completed exercise or other excerpt from my current works.
Current Works
Current Works in Progress; An Overview
For all the projects I talk about, in various stages of completion.
Title: And You Tell Me I Am Home
Genre: Original Fiction
Form: Novel
Status: Initial draft complete; first edit in progress
My first novel-length story. Five years ago, Zeke McMahon left his hometown of Plainfield for New York, leaving his two best friends behind. When he finally moves back home, he finds the situation to be much more complicated than he remembered. One friend, Leigh, is in the midst of planning her wedding to her high school sweetheart, and the other, Emma, is recovering from a recent breakup. To top it off, Emma’s ex, Jay, is still friends with both Emma and Leigh. A coming of age story, Zeke learns who his old friends have become, how much time has changed everyone – and where his new place will be in Plainfield.
This story was originally based on a short story I wrote in college, titled Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying. It was always a story I wanted to fix and expand, because the characters I created were based on people I knew, and the ten page story I originally wrote was nowhere near enough to house the relationships between these characters. I’m not sure the current 200 page draft is enough. That’s what revisions are for, and I’m learning that it’s harder to revise than it was to write in the first place.
Title: American Studies
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Form: Novella; possibly a full-length novel
Status: Initial draft complete; restructuring and second draft planned
Dinty Moore, in his book The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction, defines the term “creative nonfiction” as a combination of real people and places and authentic thoughts with literary techniques used to tell the story. This project is an example of such a work, retelling the author’s junior year of high school, when she was part of a rigorous program called American Studies. The class combined Honors-level English and history classes in a discussion-based learning environment, allowing students to interact with the class material directly. From writing 100-word essays and current event articles every week to going through the events of September 11, 2001 and dealing with the death of a classmate, the ten students in American Studies formed a unique social group whose impact on the narrator lasted past the last day of classes. Told in a series of small sections, the project covers the narrator’s journey – the author’s journey – as she interacts with each of her classmates and friends, develops friendships and relationships, and as such becomes more than just an observer of her high school life.
(Why yes, that was my thesis abstract.)
American Studies serves as my way of honoring and remembering the kids I went to high school with, now that we’ve all drifted apart. Some of them I have on Facebook, some of them I talk to through LiveJournal, but we’ll never be as close as we were during that one year in American Studies. The story here is much larger than it first seemed when I started writing it; confining it to one year won’t do it justice. Right now, I need to work on redefining the story arc and facing the hard stories that need to be told here – the ones I don’t like, the ones that leave myself vulnerable on the page. These are the stories that need to be told most of all.
For all the projects I talk about, in various stages of completion.
Title: And You Tell Me I Am Home
Genre: Original Fiction
Form: Novel
Status: Initial draft complete; first edit in progress
My first novel-length story. Five years ago, Zeke McMahon left his hometown of Plainfield for New York, leaving his two best friends behind. When he finally moves back home, he finds the situation to be much more complicated than he remembered. One friend, Leigh, is in the midst of planning her wedding to her high school sweetheart, and the other, Emma, is recovering from a recent breakup. To top it off, Emma’s ex, Jay, is still friends with both Emma and Leigh. A coming of age story, Zeke learns who his old friends have become, how much time has changed everyone – and where his new place will be in Plainfield.
This story was originally based on a short story I wrote in college, titled Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying. It was always a story I wanted to fix and expand, because the characters I created were based on people I knew, and the ten page story I originally wrote was nowhere near enough to house the relationships between these characters. I’m not sure the current 200 page draft is enough. That’s what revisions are for, and I’m learning that it’s harder to revise than it was to write in the first place.
Title: American Studies
Genre: Creative Nonfiction
Form: Novella; possibly a full-length novel
Status: Initial draft complete; restructuring and second draft planned
Dinty Moore, in his book The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction, defines the term “creative nonfiction” as a combination of real people and places and authentic thoughts with literary techniques used to tell the story. This project is an example of such a work, retelling the author’s junior year of high school, when she was part of a rigorous program called American Studies. The class combined Honors-level English and history classes in a discussion-based learning environment, allowing students to interact with the class material directly. From writing 100-word essays and current event articles every week to going through the events of September 11, 2001 and dealing with the death of a classmate, the ten students in American Studies formed a unique social group whose impact on the narrator lasted past the last day of classes. Told in a series of small sections, the project covers the narrator’s journey – the author’s journey – as she interacts with each of her classmates and friends, develops friendships and relationships, and as such becomes more than just an observer of her high school life.
(Why yes, that was my thesis abstract.)
American Studies serves as my way of honoring and remembering the kids I went to high school with, now that we’ve all drifted apart. Some of them I have on Facebook, some of them I talk to through LiveJournal, but we’ll never be as close as we were during that one year in American Studies. The story here is much larger than it first seemed when I started writing it; confining it to one year won’t do it justice. Right now, I need to work on redefining the story arc and facing the hard stories that need to be told here – the ones I don’t like, the ones that leave myself vulnerable on the page. These are the stories that need to be told most of all.
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