Rach's Blog, page 4

Stumbling Upon Old Writing

I save all my emails, I mean ALL my emails. I have emails from when I was twelve. They are actually quite fun to read. I get to see how my life has changed since that age.

One thing that has changed the most is my writing. As a whole I am a much better writer. I stumbled upon an old story I had written and saved to my email during class. While it is entertaining it has so any problems. It could never be anything more than a short story -after being doctored up quite a bit.

There is no character development, no scene development, no plot line -no nothing! It is a story written for no rhyme or reason.

The other thing I think it demonstrates as the change in my own narration. At that age I sounded like a teenager -which is fine because the story is about two teens, but I could not have written at a level beyond that at the time.

Maybe its best to just let you read it. Here is the unedited version of it.

“Hey Katie, come here, you have to see this.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
    This is amazing, Leah thought, it’s kind of like I’m famous. So much information about me on the internet; my favorite books; my favorite activities, Basketball, Volleyball and Swimming. It’s fun, to have something that’s all about me.
“This is awesome, how did you create such a good background for your web page?”
“I learned how in design class.”
“You have to teach me?!”
    Katie was always like this, passionate about anything and everything. The short blue eyed, brown haired girl was different… but popular. Maybe that’s why she’s my friend, not that’s she’s popular, but she’s different. She was fearless. Katie and Leah had met back in kindergarten. Leah was busy playing with the dolls, and Katie had come up to her and started to talk to her.
“Hi, what’s your name?”
“Leah, Leah Ann Carissa.”
“Mine’s Katie Smith.”
    And that’s how their friendship started. They had many of the same tastes, clothes, foods, and unfortunately, boys.
Leah could remember a time when they liked the same boy, Nick and they were both dating Nick. But of course, they hadn’t known it. Nick was enchanting, an enchanted lair. He had told them both that he and she were meant to be. And then it all ended when Katie saw Leah hanging out with Nick, with his arm around her waist.
    “Leah. Nick! What are you doing?!”
Leah was confused, “Katie, this is Nick, the boy I told you about.”
“No, this is my Nicky!” Katie yelled back.
“WHAT! That means…! ”
“Nick, you are so dead.”
“We TRUSTED you.”
“And you played us both!”
“You had better explain.”
“Um, uh, I can explain, o.k. I did play you, but so what? You both like me; you can’t blame me for wanting you both.” Nick said as she shrugged his shoulders.
“Leave!” Katie said.
“Now!” Leah said.
“But” Nick looked from Katie to Leah and then turned to leave.
“We were so dumb,” Katie was saying, “for hours we had been explaining the same person to each other and we didn’t even realize it!”
“Yeah, let’s not do this again.”
    It was a kind of unwritten pact between the two of them, ever since then they would not let boys get in the way of their friendship. Friendship over boy-ship.
“So, you’ll teach me?”
“Yeah, but later”
“Why not now?”
“Because its time to go shopping.”
______________________________________________________________________________

    Shopping was one thing that was always fun for the both of them. The mall was huge, full of shops and most importantly a refuge. Whenever either of them had a big event; shopping.
Whenever either of them needed something; shopping. Whenever either of  them was stressed out; shopping.
    “Hey, Leah, try this on it was made for you.”
Katie was holding a long sleeve shirt that had blue heart prints on it. This was how they worked, you could find twice the stuff if you were not only looking for yourself but also a friend, which meant twice the pleasure, twice the fun, twice the laughs. But sometimes the mall wasn’t always fun. Like the time when Katie managed to fall in the fountain located in the center of the mall. Or the time Leah tried on some roller blades and started to skate, but couldn’t stop.
“KATIEEE, HOW DO I STOP THESE THINGS???”

 

When Writing Takes a Hiatus

My writing pace has slowed down... a lot. Mostly because I need to pursue some money-making ventures if I want to eat next college school year... well, it's not that serious, I will be able to eat.

The problem is now that I am not writing at the same pace my mind is working on plots, details, and dialog. My writing is about five chapters behind where my mind is. I really don't know how to cope with this, other than to write down all the bits and pieces I can and hope I don't forget the rest.

I just wish I could tell all my characters to just FREEZE. No, you can't talk, not until I am in front of my laptop. But as I have learned, they do not listen to me, they only take the life I have given them and run with it.

"First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!" - Ray Bradbury

"I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose."
- Stephen King

Writing a Novel (Ideas Are Your Story)

I have always wanted to write a book. The first time I outwardly expressed this sentiment was when I was about eight. Oddly enough, it was to a boy that I grew to have a crush on. One that I held for far to long.

I tried to fulfill this wish when I was in fifth grade, even read bits and pieces of it to other people my age. I caught the attention of the people around me with my words. They wanted to know more. I fell into the role of storyteller, a mouthpiece that I wear tied around my neck -ready to be put back on at a moments notice.

I never finished that story... nor was I ready to. I was blatantly stealing ideas from other people without shaping it into something new. It was like taking a chuck of clay, and without shaping its shape or form firing it in a kiln to be forever held in that position -a chunk of unworked clay. I wasn't working my ideas, only spitting them out in my words and prose.

Telling a story is taking all of your ideas and deciding what to keep and what to leave out. How do I best tell this story? Why does this happen? How do my characters act and interact? Why do they do the things they do? To tell a truly great story, the pieces need to fit in a way that the readers can and want understand. Ideas are the pieces to your story.

Creativity Takes Different Forms

This isn't my first blog. If you go to  my profile you will see I have a blog dedicated to my artwork... with not many posts. The reason for that is I am in college for design and all of my efforts goes towards that. It's time consuming. There I said it. The cat is out of the bag.

The fact is I am dedicated to my classes. I love design, but I have other goals too. I have always wanted to write. Not journalism or anything like that. That's not interesting enough to hold my attention or my imaginative mind. I've always wanted to write a novel and I am proud to say that I am doing it.

About three months ago, I just sat down with the beginnings of an idea and started to write. Within a week I had a couple of chapters done as well as a plot line for a series of novels. I am now up to about 45k words in my manuscript, 64 characters and a lot of work that needs to be re-written.

As I write, I find I keep getting better at writing.  I realize my (writing) voice has improved and so has my understanding of my characters. So this brings me to my reason for this blog. I want to continue to improve my writing and track my experience so that I can look back at all my work that I have put in. Sort of a security blanket against quitting.

Writing is a labor of love. May it stay that way for me.