Sorry I haven't written in quite a while. I was having trouble coming up with a topic for the past few days - actually I've been spending a lot of time seriously considering starting a novel, which is pretty funny because I've been saying that for years. Case in point, I was looking for an old journal to start jotting some notes down in today and I found one that only had writing on the first few pages. I started reading what was there and was shocked to see that not everything was crap. There is a laughably bad poem, which is honestly against my better judgement to put here, but in the interest of full disclosure I will. Actually, it's hilariously awful so it does possess some value, if only comedic. The second piece is pretty good, I think, and it's a true account of a day I vividly remember. The third piece is a journal entry that made me smile because it is fraught with the exact thoughts I've been having for the past week or so. So here goes, I'm not changing anything, just typing them as they appear in the journal. I should also add that no one has ever seen these, very few people have ever seen my personal writing - the few times that people have opened my various journals throughout the years, (almost always by accident - they are usually just looking for paper) I have irrationally freaked out. I realize that I have to get over that if I ever really want to write, which it seem that I do. I will probably greatly regret this in a few hours.
May 23, 2009
"Suspended Disbelief"
Watching a drop of water swell.
A drop on the outside of a glass.
A drip coming off the faucet.
It gets bigger and bigger.
It looks pregnant, I wait for it to give birth.
In its shining, mirrored surface, I see things.
Parched peasants in third world countries.
Oil slick blemishes on the beautiful face of the sea.
Dead fish flowing in the current of a river.
Acid rain ravaging majestic maples.
Tsunamis swallowing pristine beaches.
Waves crushing levees, demolishing cities.
The world's most abundant resource, $2 a bottle.
A planet more than halfway covered with water.
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
In its round, waxing surface, I see things.
I see myself.
I am thirsty.
** I would like to note here that this was my last attempt at poetry, and will probably remain so, for obvious reasons. **
May 23, 2009
"The Forest in Full Renaissance"
It was a day in mid-April, and it was ninety-five degrees. I decided to take a hike. I was excited to be able to be in the woods when it was this warm and not have to share it with the mosquitoes; but I was disappointed because my favorite part of Spring is its smells, and I thought with the heat the aroma of the forest would skip right over Spring and leapfrog into Summer. To my delight, I realized when I got there that I had been wrong.
As I entered the trail I could smell all my Spring favorites - flowering trees and bushes, new grass and wet, warm earth. The sunlight was coming through the canopy in shafts like spotlights. It was about noon and, with the sun at its zenith, the new ferns and wildflowers on the forest floor were basking in the limelight. It had recently rained, and the peculiar quality of the light rendered the light-green baby leaves of the trees in stark contrast to the almost black-colored bark of the still-wet trunks. All of this mixed with the palpable stillness of the unusually intense heat to create an environment reminiscent only of magical places like the Hundred-acre Wood or that enchanted forest on the other side of the wardrobe door.
The air around me as I trekked up and downhill, maneuvering around small boulders and stepping over rotted logs, was close and warm, but not overly humid. The sharp rhythm of a woodpecker sounded startlingly close, but I could not spy the musician, although I searched the treetops all around. Other birds sang on the branches above me as I walked, and as I came upon no one during my hike, I felt that this special magic of magnified Springtime had been created just for me.
I rounded a curve in the trail, and the glittering, rippling surface of a pond unfolded to my right. I stopped for a moment when I reached it, watching the gliding reflections of the clouds in the mirror of the pond. I could hear the waterfall I knew was on the other side; and although that was normally my favorite part of these trails, it was getting hotter by the minute it seemed, and I was getting tired and thirsty. I took one last look that encompassed the blue sky with its billowy clouds, the pond, slightly chopped by the breeze, and the magical new growth and vibe that was the renaissance of the forest, and turned onto the shortcut that led to the parking lot. It had been a experience that had assailed all the senses with unexpected surprises.
June 10, 2009
"Short Story"
For some reason I fear this form of writing. I don't know why. Short stories are some of my favorite pieces to read, and I want desperately to be able to write a good one. I've been working on my writing for a few weeks now, thinking about writing for much longer than that. It was very difficult for me to get started, I almost had to force myself. Once I began, I fell into it pretty easily, and I'm actually proud of my first two pieces - one a poem and the other a short piece of nature writing. These were the first two ideas I had and I actually got them out on paper - the first time I've done that and it felt great. I feel a little self-conscious about the writing while I'm doing it, and I don't know why - re-reading them now I like a lot of the images I thought were silly and I think I conveyed the concepts I wanted to. This summer and this book are going to be writing workshops for me. My goal is to create as many forms of writing as I can and practice, practice, practice. These first two attempts weren't terrible, actually I think they weren't even bad, but I need to get to fiction. That's what I want to write and what seems so difficult for me to write. The short story is tricky because you have to focus everything into a small window, but I think I shouldn't have trouble pulling that off. I'm having trouble thinking of a plot that's worth writing and reading about. I have the shadowy outlines of a character in my mind - female, about my age, unsatisfied with life - but that's as far as I'm getting. I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing, and he says that ideas for stories come from the collision of two previously unrelated concepts, but that's not happening and I don't have time to wait. So I think I'm going to attempt a loosely autobiographical piece for practice, and I hope that doesn't make me a sell-out. Maybe a more original idea will come to me while I'm using my shitty little life for some inspiration.
Okay. That didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, but it did hurt a little, I must admit. So this journal entry is a snapshot of my mindset about three years ago, and its startling to me because it is simultaneously so similar to and so different from my thoughts these days. I was a bit more pessimistic back then - not much but a little - I don't think my life is shitty and little anymore. Also, when I wrote this I obviously thought a lot more highly of that awful poem, which makes me laugh. The parts about writing fiction are all still true, however. I still can't think of a plot worth writing and reading about, and right now I have the shadowy outlines of a character remarkably similar to the one I described then. Interestingly, though, the next few pages of the journal contain notes for a short story about a female character that isn't anything like me, and it takes place in the 1960s. It was really cool to find that journal and to read those words, on today of all days. Feels providential or something. I learned two important lessons from finding these pieces and reproducing them here: 1.) that I did, and still do, use the word "actually" entirely too much and 2.) that the girl who wrote that, and the girl who writes this, has a desperate need to write fiction. It's a gnawing feeling that won't go away. I can't really explain it. The closest that I can come is to quote the magnificent Maya Angelou: "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
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