literature

Can you guess what color I am?

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Dusk at Binghamton University’s wildlife reserve.

It’s early morning, and I really should be sleeping, but thought I would post my latest assignment from my writing class. It really is forcing me to stretch back into that creative mold and realize just because I’ve been to a few college classes, doesn’t mean that I am the expert that I think I am – sometimes I forget that we writers can get cocky sometimes. 😉

Anywho…the assignment was to describe a color and do this in the first person. (Pretend we are essentially the color.) The bit I wrote was a broad scope of how one color can be many, but I like the phrases I got here:

I am that periwinkle color of a forgotten sweater. I am royal, I am sweet, call me what you want; pop in your mouth grapes, a plum, hanging loose from the vine. I am everything that you want to go right in your life. Find me on the highway, stripped from its owner; a scarf blowing in the breeze. A dark, bleeding sunset, a midnight sky so inky. I am velvet, I am happy beams of ambrosia, lavender, freesia. The sparkle in a raindrop, no larger than a pin-prick. Find me soaring, the color of wind, grey and regal. Find me goofy. A bulky mauve dinosaur that everyone hates. Flowers in a field of straw, choking out the other plant life. Birthed by two colors, given life from two opposites, warm, cold, light and dark.

What am I?

A bit of flash fiction – At the Ball Park

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I have about 5 minutes before I have to shower, dress and get around for work tonight, but just wanted to share something real quick with you guys.

I signed up for an online class called, “Creativity Training for Writers” and although the class is clearly geared for writers who are more or less getting into the craft of writing, it has really helped me get back on track and is slowly curing my writer’s block – which is what I hoped it would!

The creative mind is still alive and kicking, and what a relief it is to get my writer’s voice back! Our first assignment we were given prompts and a limit of 5 minutes, in which we were to create a story finishing a sentence with a twist at the end. It is the closest I have ever come to writing some decent flash fiction and I was rather proud of it:

At the Ball Park

They called it a near miss, but I called it a coincidence. Sandy called it fate and I kissed her nose whenever she said this and she would smile at me with that wide, red-lipped smile; the kind that she gave me even after I had broken her hip and dislocated her right shoulder.

I’d tried to swerve to the right, but I just couldn’t move fast enough. There were so many people in the way and the lane was crowded. I’d hollered, “Get out of the way!” And before I knew it, my brown, leather glove was in the face of the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen with red-brown hair. How was I to know that I would accidentally push her down the ball park stairs?

I’d visited her at the hospital after I muttered my sorrys to her on the gurney as the EMTs rolled her away, but that still wasn’t quite good enough. I gave her the ball I caught though, which was signed by every memory of the team. And when I was leaning over her hospital bed, the ball out-stretched in my hand, she gave me that red-lipped smile and asked me to marry her. Turns out she was a Yankees fan, too.

***Thoughts below if you got ’em! 🙂

The House On Mango Street

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Every writer has a moment where it all began. That point in their lives, where they were 10, or 14, or 42, where they realized that words can be something more than dots and slashes and letters on a page…that words can take you places.

For me it was a book called, The House on Mango Street, By Sandra Cisneros, which I read in eighth grade. The middle school that I attended had a new eighth grade teacher that year; a man from New York City named Mr. Van Dright. He was a bit unorthodox for an upstate New York school strict on curriculum and following the rules. He had long dark hair and grizzle on his face, who wore a leather jacket and drove a motorcycle when he wasn’t in school, who reminded us often how thankful we were to attend a school that was safe and clean with no metal detectors.

And although this unique teacher from the city was forced to resign before the following year, what I remember most about him was that he was an artist. He had that look in his eye of a person who had stories to tell. He showed me, although he probably doesn’t know it, (a very insecure and shy fourteen year old at the time,) that books and words could be something more, you just had to dream them.

“In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.” (Cisneros,10)

This is from a passage in the book entitled, “My Name.” I remember him reading it to the class that day. What does that mean, he asked us. A name like the number nine?

Perhaps it was because I was obsessed with names. Wondering what it would be like if I had a different name – to separate myself from the ten other girls named Amanda in my school. (I really did graduate with about 5 of them.) Perhaps it’s because later on in the passage, the narrator goes on to describe her name, “as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth.” (Cisneros, 11)

Up until that point in my life, I’d never given much thought into the meaning of words, how with a simple sentence you can describe your name as muddy and we know how you felt about whatever it is you were talking about.

My own writing as of lately, has become its own kind of muddy and I thought I’d take this time to go back and remember where it all began. How words can have inspiration just by how they sound in your mouth mixed around with a word or phrase that can have nuances of meaning. How something simple can change the way you think and view the world. Muddy. Muddy. Muddy.

Nothing was as clear to me as those words on those pages. I wanted to write muddy too.

In Medias Res Part 2 – Chicken and Rice Soup

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Picture taken by my cousin, Mark. Watch out Mr. chicken…that’s a bull!

So, as emphasized in my last post, my creative writing teacher was big on the phrase “In medias res,” which means in the middle of things. She encouraged us with various prompts to start out our stories in the middle of the action and let the exposition flow through in the narrative.

I loved those prompts, so I thought I’d share one of my stories from that 15 minute exercise. I wrote all of it in that 15 minute journal session, and very little is changed from the original with the exception of added commas, and a few extra adjectives here and there. I’ve always meant to add more to the story, but it always seemed so neat leaving it the way it is.

I believe the prompt was something along the lines of “write a prompt of a family situation, made up or real and include a body part or some catastrophe. Start the narrative in the middle of the drama. Go!”

***(FYI, this is completely made up. Although I do have an uncle named Donald.)

Chicken and Rice Soup

So Uncle Donald dropped his teeth in the chicken and rice soup, and there they were grinning stupidly up at us, like they were about to start yammering about how maybe too salty the soup was or start shivering – chattering back and forth – yak, yak, yak, yak, yak.

We all stood around the pot of soup in silence, staring down at it. Me, Aunt Josie, Uncle Donald and Daryl, my brother. Uncle Donald’s toothless mouth wore a grim expression.

I thought that if we broke the silence that would be it, and the teeth would start talking back up at us. I felt a smile tug at the corner of my mouth, felt it want to yank up to one side and let out a large gurgley sort of laugh. Daryl caught my expression and coughed into his rough callused hand. He wore a black t-shirt, his jeans baggy like always. Aunt Josie went and got the tongs.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she fretted and scooped the teeth out and set them down on a paper towel.

Uncle Donald cleared his throat. “Might want to want to wash them off, Josephine,” He said. He only used her full name when he was being real serious.

She had wandered into the kitchen and set the tongs in the sink. “The tongs?” she asked him.

“Not just the tongs,” coughed Daryl into his hand. Aunt Josie returned to the Dining room.

“Now, now,” she chided, although she wasn’t scolding. “These things happen.”

Uncle Donald got up with a grunt and took his teeth into the bathroom.

“Yeah, only in our family,” I said when Uncle Donald’s back had disappeared behind the bathroom door.

Daryl and I started laughing.

(In which it ends, and I’ve tried to add more but just can’t seem to get the same innocent frankness of the narrator. Who is a young girl about twelve or so named Charlie. Leave some thoughts below if you want to!)

Life of Pi – In Medias Res

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I saw a trailer for the new movie “Life of Pi” so I, of course, had to check out the book by Yann Martel. I downloaded it on my nook and am I already on the tenth chapter. Some of my friends on Facebook complained that it was a book they were forced to read their first semester of college; that it was confusing and boring and no one understood what was going on half the time.

As I am hardly a quarter of the way into the story, I cannot say much about the actual story just yet, but what I am impressed with, is the writing and the depth behind the words that are being said. I don’t often read novels that have significant meaning to them lately, (I know shameful of me) but when I do – I make sure they are good ones.

Although I am very impressed with the author’s intelligent writing, I can agree that the narrative is long-winded and the first person narrator takes forever to get his points across, whatever they might be. As a reader, however, I am trusting that there is a point to this story and am going to follow it faithfully on as I am anxious to see what happens. The author himself has promised a story that will make you believe in God, and perhaps that is a hook just like any other. However…

View from overlook at Harris Hill, NY.

My creative writing teacher in college always encouraged us writers with a Latin phrase, “In medias res,” which means in the middle of things. It is a literary technique that some writers use to grab the attention of their readers by starting off their story in the middle of the action, or near the end. The result is very little exposition, but it is an exciting technique, because it allows the reader to experience what is happening to the characters they are reading about; and as a writer, you are forced to show your readers what is happening through action and various sensory details.

Life of Pi does not do this.

Well, at least not yet. There is an opening chapter with a brief glimpse of what the first person narrator thinks about certain things, and some of his experiences after something traumatic has happened to him, but it is mostly telling. It also reminds me of some early nineteenth century literature, where the narrative just goes on and on and on, because of some unforeseen need from the narrator to express something very near and dear to his or her heart and nothing can stop the flow of conscious thought.

Perhaps I’m doing that now…hmm. Anyway…

While I think Martel’s style of narrative can be tedious to some, it is also thought-provoking. He says some amazing things. I’m terribly sure I’ve heard this somewhere before, but the author says in his introduction:

“If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.” (Martel).

How true! But I wonder how amazing would this book be if it were written with the idea of impressing its readers? If the action and scenery behind the narrator’s reflection actually mirrored his thought process? (Perhaps this is where the movie has numbed our mind with visuals.) Some could argue that it is not about the experience but what he or she has learned along that journey…

I, on the other hand, just yearn for a story where I am immediately scooped up and taken for a ride of a lifetime. A quick, sensory detailed read where I am lost in the character’s voice and story and cannot wait to see what happens on the next page. Perhaps this is why I love Young Adult fiction so much, because teens are not impressed with literature that confuses or bores them. They want that quick fix of great writing, of a story that wraps itself around your subconscious and you can’t hear or see anything else for a few days.

Perhaps the lesson here is no matter the style of writing, a great story is a great story, but a narrator should not bore its readers. They want to be entertained, they want to love the story that you are trying to tell. Don’t bury a great story in yards and yards of exposition. Show them!

The Words – Choosing Between One Reality and the Next

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Last night, I saw the movie, The Words. It was a last minute decision, there was honestly nothing better to watch and I thought, hey, I’ve seen a trailer for this, it looks romantic.

Little did I know, that it was going to be completely different than what I expected…what a relief!

***I recommend this for anyone looking for a thought provoking film and if you just happen to be a writer, you’ll love it too!

This movie is intelligent, and just very well written. The Words is the name of a novel, which is narrated by the author throughout the movie; it is about a writer who finds a story, which he takes as his own.

The music is beautiful, the acting is superb and  it easily sucks a viewer in; the scenes are intricately woven and well placed ***this would be one of my examples of how to write a great plot!!

Anyway, the movie brings up questions about a writer’s capability and what it truly means to be a writer and the sacrifices that are made; about choosing between fiction and reality and that all writers eventually make a choice.

“Hitting a little close to home?” asked my friend in my ear during the movie, and well, yeah, it does!

I sometimes wonder if I don’t take too much time with my imaginary worlds. I’ll emerge hours later with a sort of glazed over expression and a dumb look on my face. My mother will be asking me a question but I’m still off in the story, I’ve still got the character’s voice in my head, I still feel their emotions.

Sometimes, it makes me worry, because it is so difficult to come back to the real world…to connect, to pay the bills, to do the laundry, to answer a friend’s text. Especially when things aren’t going well.

Sometimes the fiction world becomes an escape mechanism, a therapy. There is nothing wrong with this to a point, but suddenly I’m afraid. If you get too lost in your fiction, do you miss the real world, too?

Because, well…there is also beauty in reality, too.

The Boy with the Bread

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Been reading The Hunger Games today because I recently watched the movie last night and am struck with a particular scene in the novel: Where Peeta, the bread boy, throws a starving Katniss burned bread from his kitchen.

For those of you who haven’t read the book, I suggest you go read it now. Not only is it great reading, but great writing too! From the first page you are drawn into Katniss’s world, you feel her emotion, and the unrest in the dystopian society that she lives in. (I can’t tell you how much I don’t like that word, for some reason it just irks me.) It is a fast read, but not a read for the faint of heart, certainly.

Anyway, I guess the English Major in me is stuck on the Boy with the Bread Scene and the juicy little bits that scene may or may not represent. Oh, it certainly doesn’t have to represent anything, but I love that it can and that Suzanne Collins isn’t dumb. That deliberately or not, she has created a scene that sums up the heart of the novel, or at the very least a great portion of it and that is:

Sacrifice.

What does Peeta sacrifice when he throws Katniss the bread? Well, he certainly didn’t get hurt for nothing. He was willing to risk injury to himself, in order to be “kind” to help out Katniss, who was someone in need.
His motives? Well, love. He later claims that he’s been in love with Katniss ever since a young age. (Although it certainly takes her awhile to believe it).

And isn’t that at the very heart of the novel? Peeta’s initial sacrifice only goes to emphasize Katniss’s sacrifice; the offer of her own life in exchange for her sister’s at the reaping. It is because of her love for her sister that she sacrifices herself. And other characters experience their own sacrifices as well. It is the love and the sacrifices accompanying them that says a lot about family, about life and death throughout the novel.

Any thoughts? What do you love about the novel? About the characters? About Katniss?

New page check it out!!

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I just added a new page at the left there in my menu settings, “About this Blog.”  So have a go and find out what The Writer’s Hub is all about! 🙂

<====It’s over there. Just to be obnoxious. And yeah, because sometimes people are blind. And dumb. Or their brains got hijacked by space monkeys. Ever seen a space monkey? Hmm. What an interesting thing to write about…

Self Publishing — Great Writing or No?

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I was doing some reading today on Smashwords.com and was taken to this page: http://blog.smashwords.com/

It is Smashword’s blog, where there is an interview with a self published or “Indie” writer, Rachel Higginson. (For those of you wondering what Smashwords is, it is a company that helps you create your own eBook. Out of all the eBook publishers out there, they seem to make it the simplest and the cheapest to publish to Kindle and all the other Electronic stores and I have chosen them to publish my own eBook.)

Rachel expresses in the interview, how she had a dream of being published since college, but all of the queries that she sent out to publishers kept getting rejected.

Now, she is a self-published writer and making a living at it! The article felt inspiring to me, who has the very same aspirations…to see my work in print and to make money from it someday.

Nasty spider who built its web in the corner of my house. Sometimes the art of writing is like a great web–there are so many different strands that make up the greatness of the whole, that sometimes one weakness can corrupt the overall structure.

I have not read Rachel’s work, so I cannot say anything as to the quality of her writing…but if she is a best seller, it must mean that it can’t be too terrible right?

My biggest fear is this: to present something that I might consider a work of art to the general public and have it be trash. There are many best sellers out there that have been critiqued for that very reason (Stephenie Meyer for example). They write a novel that reaches a large audience of people and while their characterization and their plot line isn’t original, or their writing, something in their story drew people in.

While one can argue that the writing is not great, the writer has presented an idea that is catching. While the plot is mediocre, and the writing cliché, I would like to argue that in some cases, there is a way to write good cliché.

And perhaps this is the case in many self-published novels. While editors are waiting for that next, great, purely, original idea, the readers and general public are saying: No, we like simple and we like fun and no amount of originality can make up for a good, simple and relatable read.

While I want to be a great writer and to be appreciated for the art of my writing, I also want to create a book that is relatable and fun for a wide audience. I think to create something that is relatable and fun to read is also difficult, because it comes down to style. Every writing style is different, just like every writer behind the writing is different.

My question is this: Is there a way to write well, but also make it accessible?

You see books out there classified as “great reads” but they are not best sellers. And while great reads are not always easy reads, they are not always the most interesting either.

Is there a way to write intelligently, but also make it accessible?

I think, that when it comes to a great writer, great writing is all about balance. And every self published author, must find their very own balance. Finding that balance, on the other hand, is a whole different matter…

New TV Show: Revolution! Yeah!

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Is anyone as excited as me about this new TV show coming on NBC in the fall??

My Dad’s only comment: “Where do they get the bows and arrows and swords from?” Hehehe. I love him.

Finally, NBC’s taking a show of post apocalyptic proportions and presenting it to us for entertainment! (Eh, with the exception of Terra Nova…and we all know how thaat turned out.) J. J. Abram’s involved, so it can’t be too terrible, right? Very excited about this!

As I am an avid TV watcher and lover (of course I am! I’m nerdy like that!) I will occasionally be reviewing some of my favorite TV shows on here. Revolution will most definitely be making an appearance. Also, keep an eye out for reviews of Vampire Diaries, Bones, and Once Upon a Time later on.

I love the summer, but I am excited about the new season of TV starting soon! FINALLY! Something worth watching! Can’t wait!