Story of a Girl

Today I'm jumping back in with another Write on Wednesday prompt, after my newscast-type post. This is the prompt:

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 22 - Select a piece of music that reflects the mood of writing you'd like to aim for. Press play. Start free writing. Write the first words that come into your head. When the music's over, so is the writing. I'd recommend finding out how long the song is before you start the exercise. You may feel cheated in your writing time if you pick a song by The Ramones. Of course, if you feel like writing a short, punky piece by all means, go for it!


Appropriately, I have chosen "Story of a Girl" by Nine Days. Something about this song has always struck me. Somehow, some days, I feel like this girl. In high school, while I was with the colorguard/marching band, I had to do a solo routine, and this was the song I chose. I've always had it on my mP3, and it never leaves my playlist. It's my ringtone on my phone. Something told me, after scrolling through all my songs, to choose this one. Of all the songs, I don't know why this one stands out so much that I do so much with it, but I went ahead and chose it for this piece. Here goes:

There's a girl standing alone. She tries so hard to fit in, but she knows she never will. Waking up every day with hope, she finds herself facing disappointment at the end of the day, knowing she didn't get the expected outcome. She feels like a little bit of an outcast, but she doesn't know how beautiful and wonderful she really is. She cries herself to sleep at night, wondering if things will ever really change, if things will always be the same, but she's loved, and her life has a destiny.

Every day is different, and there is a light that is hard to see from her vantage point. She hides because she doesn't know what's out there. She's been hurt, and she's been disappointed. She's got more going for her than she knows though. Her beauty, talent, and personality far outweigh all the things she sees that are wrong with her life. She's never really seen all the people rooting for her in the background, and though she seems to always have a downtrodden appearance, she has a wonderful smile. Hidden behind that smile is the potential to change the world, the potential to do wonderful things.

She just needs to realize that potential. She can change the world. She can knock people off the feet with her words, or even with just a smile. She's brilliant, and she has passion that she hasn't openly expressed. You can tell she has this potential, this light, all these abilities, by the way she glows, the way she shines when she smiles. She doesn't always exude confidence, but it is there, buried deep. This girl needs to believe in herself.

I thought I saw....

I'm going to jump back in a little early with a Write on Wednesday exercise to warm up to my return in November. I'm a little nervous because I may have a job too- I'm applying to a lot of places, and I have an interview at JCPenney on Thursday. This one should be a bit simple, since it's prompted, so hopefully it'll help me out some to start out here before working my way back in. The time limit is a bugger, but I type fast, so hopefully that will help.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 20 - Write the words " I thought I saw" at the top of your page. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Write the first words that come into your head after the prompt.

I thought I saw a raindrop. The skies are gray and dull, aching for the water to fall their way, with a thirst which can only be quenched by a long period of more precipitation than usual. I can follow the cracks in the cement from the hot, parched summer down the sidewalk, across the street, through dirt and yards. The wind is blowing, and the temperature is finally tolerable as I let my hair down and sit in my usual, contemplative manner.

Thoughts rush through my head at the speed of light, much like the wind through the trees across the street, and I keep picturing raindrops falling from the sky. It would be wonderful, and though it wouldn't cure the drought, it would certainly be helpful, and a nice change. I love the rain, everything about the rain. It has a sort of rhythmic pattern to it, one which I like to sit and listen to as it drowns out the constant stream of rushed and often anxious thoughts running through my mind.

I thought I saw a raindrop, then two, then a few. I felt a raindrop hit my face as I looked up to the sky, gray but finally promising the rain we've been missing for months. Soon I am staring out my window as the streets finally are inundated with countless raindrops that I now know I saw. I watch as they fall from the sky, mesmerized by their pattern and rhythmic beat upon my window....

(and time runs out)

Write on Wednesday- The Pact

When the prompt came up, and had to do with a book, I had a hard time choosing a "favourite book" so I scanned my shelves- then I thought about the cause I've been going for all week- RUOK Day- suicide prevention.

The title of this week's "Write on Wednesday" is "The Mighty Mighty Rewrite" and the premise is to take the first sentence of your favourite (ha, favourite??) book, and take the first paragraph, rewriting into it our own content but keeping the overall style of the paragraph. Um, ok...very challenging Gill. I think they are trying to make it all the more challenging each week!!

Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors, I will admit. She has a way of keeping the plot and characters intertwined in a way that keeps the reader engrossed, trying to guess which direction the plot will take, and the book I chose, "The Pact," has a very unexpected ending. It starts out with what is described as a suicide pact...without further adieu:

"There was nothing left to say. He covered her body with his, and as she put her arms around him she could picture him in all his incarnations: age five, and still blond; age eleven, sprouting; age thirteen, with the hands of a man. The moon rolled, sloe-eyed in the night sky; and she breathed in the sent of his skin. "I love you," she said. He kissed her so gently she wondered if she had imagined it. She pulled back slightly, to look into his eyes. And then there was a shot."

Deep. Dark. Powerful. Seeing as I know the ending as well, as well as all the guts of the book. Now for the more challenging part- capturing this with my own content yet keeping the style and whatnot. Would it be wrong to change the plot a little? I hope not...because that's exactly what I'm going to do!!

"He was speechless as he stared deep into her sea-blue eyes. They were lying together on the carousel, entangled with each other, and could envision each other through every stage in their past- running together through the fields at five, she taller than him at twelve but finally shorter at thirteen, growing into their relationship that they carried now. The full moon rolled in the sky, behind the forest trees, and they could feel each others' breath in the cold night air. They closed their eyes as they kissed, both their hands on the gun, both questioning the decision, feeling the softness of the kiss in contrast to the steel of the gun, when they heard voices coming their direction, and quickly hid the gun. Would they do this another night, or was this just not meant to be? They caught a quick glance from each other, quickly moving to the swings, holding hands the whole way along, whispering "I love you too much" before each taking a seat."

Is it wrong to feel wrong changing Jodi Picoult's awesome writing? It completely ruins the plot of the story- after all, the deed isn't done. But- I don't want them doing it. The exercise is to change the content- I certainly did so!! I wonder what Jodi would do with this beginning!!

It's also a very fitting change, with the upcoming "RUOK Day" in Australia- I'm not Australian, but I'm an advocate, and I think it should be a worldwide thing, not just in Australia. Americans just aren't aware of what's going on around them- Probably 99% aren't even "aware" that last week was "Suicide Awareness Week"....what kind of awareness initiative is that? If you haven't been following, I have tagged all my RUOK posts as such. *Shameless Self-Promotion*

I hope this is *sort of* what the goal was. Or at least close to it.

Write on Wednesday Exercise 14 - The Mighty Mighty Rewrite...

Zanni: I did a workshop with literary author Mj Hyland, who teachers Masters in Creative Writing at Manchester University. She asked us to choose our favourite book, take the first paragraph and then write our own content into the paragraph, keeping the structure, tone, language etc. It's really helpful!

A One Liner for Write on Wednesday

When I saw this exercise, I honestly thought I couldn't do it. Anyone who has read anything of mine knows I'm very verbose and I don't really know how to be any other way. I found it challenging, but I sat down with it, I took some time, and I figured out something that I absolutely love. It was writing this, the trouble writing this, that sparked the sentence itself, and oh, how it resounds the sentiment of coming up with the dreaded sentence!!!

The Sentence:
Whilst we spend all our time looking for inspiration and meaning in the environment for something compelling and unique, we may be surprised to find that these things are often found deep within ourselves, and it is the treasure hunt for these things which makes the journey all the more worthwhile.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 13 - A Great One Liner...This week you need to come up with one good line to describe a part of your day. It can be 'real life' or fiction. But it must tell us 'who did what'.

Darkness: The Fight

This is my fourth "Write on Wednesday" post.

I've found the others less personal, more fictional, but this one is a story from my life- it's all about being honest, telling a 100% truth, but I don't have to tell everything.

One thing I've found about my story--well, many of my stories--is that there are elements of "me" that are always secret. Truth be told, the truth is always told, but there are some secrets- we all have secrets. What's made part of everything such a fight for me, though, lies within my secrets, the demons that haunt me, and the trouble with writing this exercise, the 100% truth, is that I might find myself slipping into the things that I may not want to share, or that may not be easy to share. It's not so much a thing of openness, as a thing of security and worry about how it will affect my future. However, it may be healthy to air it a little and see how it feels. I've opened up on other forums- time to open up slightly here.

The darkness is encapsulating. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. In the years before, I've been able to hide in it well, pretend it's not there, and nobody would notice. Family, "friends," schoolmates, most of my former coworkers, they were all oblivious to the darkness that surrounded me and the fight that I fought, or if not, they asked nothing of it. In my teen years, it was less encapsulating, easier to hide. I could put a curtain around it, a façade of sorts, and nobody would know. In college, I would talk about it, but nobody would believe it- after all, I seemed so well for so long, why would it all of the sudden change?

These days, though, it is not as easy. Life has become more of a challenge in itself. As I push myself harder, fight harder, the darkness is becoming deeper. I want out of this darkness; I can no longer hide it, but I have found that in the time I spent hiding it, it's become so much deeper, it's extended to a depth that I can't escape, I'm holding on but I can't fight and hold on at the same time. I want to do this on my own, I don't want anyone to know, but I can't. There's nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide, nothing to put in front of this darkness to make it go away or make it smaller. It has become bigger than I am, and in itself, taken over my life.

To someone on the outside, it's hard to see or understand the darkness or the reason for it. I should be happy, by all means. I have nothing to be unhappy about. You're right. I have a family. I have a home. I have food, and I have clothing. I went to, and graduated from, a major university. I have all the things a person could want, and then some. Plenty of books, a nice room decorated the way I want it, a personal laptop, a nice smartphone, my sock monkey, a sister whom I love to death, my physical health (not perfect, but close enough), no huge personal losses...what is there to be unhappy about? Where does the darkness come from?

I don't know where the darkness comes from. It's something I can't explain. It'll leave me crying at unexplained times, and it left me fighting my way through college. I fight the darkness every time I have to go somewhere, every time I have to do something when I am feeling the darkness weigh down on me. I wake up to face the day and all I want to do is close my eyes again and forget, stop fighting, let the darkness take over and consume me; it's what I've wanted for so many years, but I continue to fight.

Nevertheless, I carry on with the darkness, no matter how much it's weighing on me, and I try not to let it affect me. I've done well at carrying it through everything, and even getting a degree with the darkness inches from me. In the end of my college days, I even started pulling my grades up, finishing the last 2 years with more As than I saw in my first 4 years. It's a rough fight, an endless fight, and even more so fighting alone. In college, I found a way to get someone to fight with me, but now, I'm on my own. It's an uphill battle.

One thing, one last thing that I must share- the darkness is the reason I fight. If it were not for the darkness, I would not know what I am fighting for, and I may not be where I am today. The darkness gives me a reason to fight, and it helps me to fight. It helps me to know about the people I am fighting for, and it pushes me to fight harder. I know what it's like to fight this fight. I know what it's like to be in the darkness, and I fight it every day. To know that the fight I go through every day could save someone's life? That is something that makes the fight even more worthwhile. I don't enjoy the darkness, not a bit, but I know that the darkness has taught me a lesson that can used to help someone else, and has given me more strength and taught me more than any textbook or professor could. I'm not thankful for the darkness, but I'm thankful for the insights and perspective it's added to my life. It's made me a better person, and it's given me direction. Most of all, even though I have to fight through the darkness to get there, it's given me something to fight for.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 12 - The Fight. You have to be honest, because without honesty, your work won't speak to people. You have to be fearless, because restraint in writing can be perceived. But that doesn't mean that you have to bare your entire soul. Choose what you want to share, choose what is relevant to your story. But make sure that what you choose to share is real, and true. The exercise today is to write a story from your life. And remember: it has to be 100% true, but it doesn't have to be 100% of the truth. There's a difference. The keywords are: The Fight

Write on Wednesday- Forever Running

I didn't even start out slow, despite how nervous I was- I flew from the point I started, then took a steady pace when I realized what I was getting into- there are so many ways to stumble, you have to be careful. I soon became aware of this, my overconfidence brought me to a fate that has made me more nervous than ever.

Now I am shaky and uneasy, with each step I take, as I feel each step, each stride, unsure of where each one will take me. I fear I will waver, I've gone so far, and the path I've taken has not been easy. I've stumbled a few times, because I've tried taking paths that were different, but there were some unexpected twists and turns.

Sometimes the path goes up, sometimes the path goes down, and my legs are getting tired. It's been a long run, and each step feels heavier and heavier. I've run through the rain, I've run through the hail, I've run through all the various types of weather. I've been through so much sweat and tears, and so many times, I've thought I couldn't make it. I thought about quitting, but then I saw a finish line, clear as day, straight ahead, and I knew I had to keep going. I started running faster.

I fell on my face, I got hurt toward the end of that race. I started to cry, and even though a finish line was in sight, I almost quit, again. I had seen the glory and started running too fast. When I picked myself up, I knew that I should finish, because I had already put so much of myself into what I had done. I couldn't let it all go to waste. I started running again, but at a steady rate, like I had before. Feeling my feet hit the pavement at a steady stride, rather than the quick stride I had before, was actually a relief.

In time, I passed the finish line, and I got my grades back from my last semester. Perfect grades, to end a less than perfect university career. Overconfidence won me over for a while, but I overcame that, as well as a few obstacles and hurdles along the way.

I am now a university graduate, I have earned my Bachelor's Degree in Social Work, but I have not stopped running. The finish line was not the end of the race, it was just the start of another. There are many races in life, and this was one of the major ones.

Now, I know what I want in the future, but there is no finish line. University has a sort of finish line- that is, you do graduate, but you do continue learning for a lifetime. Life doesn't have a set finish line, a graduation that you can predict.

You just keep running, at a steady pace, through the sweat and tears, up and down, you just keep living. I'm running with no set end in mind this time. There will be other ends- graduate school, transitioning from one job to another, retirement- but I'll just keep running, forever running.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 11 - Take a Walk: "Come back home and write what you encountered. Try to write so that your sentences feel the way the walking felt." Let's toss the 5 minute sprint aside this week and instead take a lingering stroll through our exercise.

Write on Wednesday: Pique, Pirouette

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 10 - A Gift of Serendipity... Take Felicity's Word of the Week. Write it at the top of your page. Set your timer for 5 minutes. Write the first words that come into your head after the Word of the Week. Stop writing when the buzzer rings.

Felicity's Word of the Week is...

Piqued:
A state of vexation caused by a perceived slight or indignity; a feeling of wounded pride.tr.v. piqued, piqu·ing, piques
1. To cause to feel resentment or indignation.
2. To provoke; arouse: The portrait piqued her curiosity.
3. To pride (oneself): He piqued himself on his stylish attire.

When I see the word pique, it instantly reminds me of the word pirouette, which instantly takes me back to high school, when I was on the colorguard, an integral part of the marching band during football season, and a stand-alone activity during the winter months, which quite piqued my interest ;) lol. For anyone who hasn't ever seen a colorguard performance before, I'll link a youtube video below, of an amazing colorguard which I used to watch quite often. They used to practice in our gym; a few of the members of my guard went on to perform on Ars Nova after graduating from my high school- in fact, the interior designer (you'll hear, toward the end), is one of them; one of the instructors was also one of my instructors; Ars Nova and my guard had a very close relationship. Without further adieu, here is the video (the video is from 2006 competition, winterguard, where the guard performs independently):

My life has taken such a different turn since then. I always knew I wanted to do something that would help people; that was a given. Of course, back then, I didn't know what. I can see myself as a completely different person- I certainly miss that part of my life, and I've gone back, and tried to pick colorguard back up- to no avail. A completely different character. Another chapter in my life.

As I pirouette through each chapter, I never know what is to come in the next, and I find myself looking back, remembering the last chapter, wishing I could go back and change or maybe relive certain parts of each chapter, but also remembering that if I were to change it, maybe I wouldn't be where I am now.

I must move on, continue to grow, follow my interests, allow my interests to pique in new areas, but never forgetting the old, because good memories are fulfilling. The past, the present, the future, they all come together, weaving the person that is me. I know not what is to come, but I can dream and hope, create characters and look into my future, having hopes and desires, because in order to obtain something, I have to perceive and want it first. My interest is piqued at knowing or finding out what the future has in store.

Write on Wednesdays: Character

Prompt:Choose a character from your writing posts. You can still do this exercise if you are new to WoW - select a character from another piece of your writing or simply work through the exercise from scratch. Now, think about the character in regards to their: gender, age, occupation, physical appearance and mood at this moment. Is your character in the city, the country, inside or outside? Do they live in rich or poor surroundings? Alone or with others? Answer all, some or one of these questions. Now, set your timer for 5 minutes and write the first words about your character that come into your head. Stop when the buzzer rings. This may be one week where you feel you need to throw the timer and take your time. Do whatever works for you. You may also like to consider: Complexion, Style of dress, Hair colour/style, Speaking voice and likely vocabulary, Strengths/Weaknesses, Mannerisms

Since this week is all about me finishing my classes, the character I've chosen is one that doesn't exist yet- a hypothetical character, one that I'd like to exist, one I wish for, but I can't count my chickens before they hatch.

Some of you have made speculations about this character, and really believe in her, even more so than I do! It's possible that she may exist someday, but I'm not really sure yet. Let me tell you a little bit more about her.

She's around my height...in fact, she's exactly my height, but she's much slimmer and more fit. She's got a head on her shoulders, and a lot of confidence behind her. She really knows what she's doing, because she's been doing it for a while, so she has no doubts in her mind. She's helped so many people that it's become her second nature, and her certificates hang proudly on the wall, a display of all the work she's put into her career.

She's put a lot of work into her career, in fact, because she had to work with a group to create the type of business she wanted to run. She's invested a lot of time into making it run properly, and making sure everyone received proper and ethical care.

In the process, she hasn't gotten married or even found a boyfriend yet, but she's fine with that. The demons that haunted her past have convinced her that she doesn't need a man in her life to be confident, secure, and live a life that is fulfilling and happy. She's got the job that she dreams of, after attending graduate school for a couple years and getting her license. She works with the group of people she wants to work with and has wanted to for a long time, and every day, she drives home with a sense of fulfillment, knowing that she's made a difference, no matter how slight, in the day of at least one person.

Her apartment is decorated in the cool-like colors-green, blue, and purple, mostly blue. Memories and pictures from her family and friends from the past dot the walls across the apartment, deep in the suburbs, but not far from the city, and as she sits at her desk beneath her loft bed, she starts to read back into her blogs that she wrote while she was attending the university.

One day, she stumbles on this blog. She remembers how she once used to make theories about what her life might be like one day. I do make theories. I think about it all the time. My character in the future, I don't know what she'll be like. I want her to be happy. I know there are some things standing in my way, but I want to overcome them, but I know it'll take my own time and perseverance.

As long as I keep working my way through life like I have been, perhaps one day I'll be like the character in my blog, living a fulfilling life, happy with who I am and where I am, not needing someone to fill a void, with the job I want, with the masters' degree, the loft bed, lost weight, decorated apartment, sitting under the loft bed, looking back at my blogs from when I was a 20-something in college making conjectures about what my future might be like.