Famous Lines

               The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Some say it may have been more dangerous, some say better. I’ll take the latter, at least after what happened. How could someone so young do something so hateful?

                The event happened as I was walking towards the convenience store where I have say and read the newspaper with my normal cup of coffee every day for the past twenty five years, and that is when I see him, a young, red headed boy with emerald green eyes, and freckles that are almost exactly identical to the auburn color of his hair covering him head to toe, an average looking young man, with a certain look of curious distain within his eyes.

                We reach the door at the same time, and to my surprise he holds it open awaiting my entrance, and I accept with a polite “Thank you.” He says nothing.

                I step through the passage expecting nothing but a hello from the store clerk Jerry and a welcoming seat at my normal spot as sort of routine when I reach my daily place of peace, when a hard thump rings through my ear, followed by a sharp pain in the back of my head, and then nothing.

                I awaken to a muffled, unfamiliar voice that escalates into a yell as I slowly come to. I must have fallen and passed out, how silly of me. Then I open my eyes, and there is red, blood? My blood and I’m lying in it. I don’t feel the pain until the light hits my blurry eyes.

I manage to look up to a shocking sight of the same boy that held the door, but this time holding a knife, and Jerry with his hands inside of the register in a panic. The boy is shouting, and demanding all of the money, and as soon as it is received, he turns to make his escape, but what is Jerry reaching for? As soon as I see it I gasp, loud enough for even the boy to hear. Jerry is holding a gun, and aims it at the boys head, but the boy is too fast, and swats the gun out of his hands with a hard smack. The boy takes out a large knife and lunges at Jerry. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and then he took off.

Newspaper Inspired Piece

                For the newspaper inspired piece I chose five different sections, two being comic strips, another two being movie times from my local theatres, and the last a picture of two elderly men playing music together. All of these sections of newspaper have a meaning to me for one reason or another and some maybe even more than others.

                I chose the two comic strips from the well known comic series “Zits” because of two reasons, one being that this series almost always expresses my personality in one way or another- although sometimes hard to admit. Another reason is because my parents have accumulated various collections of this relatable comic over the years, and for my graduation present, plan to make them into a scrapbook for me, along with other personal things.

                The movie times were actually quite difficult to find, but I needed to have them for one real reason. That reason being because I love movies, more than any normal human being really should. Over the years, starting from about sixth grade until present day I have accumulated an abundance of at least 150 movies ranging from VHS to blue-ray disc. I love movies because they allow me to escape reality for at least a moment, just like a book, except I can snack much easier while watching movies.

                Last of all, the old men from the Fox TV show DADS playing the guitar are in some ways how I would like to picture myself at an older age. I don’t want to grow up to be some cranky old man, but one that can still enjoy playing music with friends, and enjoying life, while maybe being a little bit more responsible than I am now. Although you never do know how you will turn out in the future, but I’m shooting for awesome just like the man in the picture.

Memorable Passage

                The quote that I am using is from the last book of the Everlost series, Everfound. The books follow two main characters that in the beginning of book one have a head on collision and die together to awaken in a kind of purgatory that is named, “Everlost.” This book is no divine comedy, for it is not as dark as it may seem. The only people in this “Everlost” are other children, and the book is highly imaginative. The quote I chose is from the end of the final book when the narrator is speaking after the final chapter. He says:

                “In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you- for we all know this within or hearts- the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis.”

                This quote really spoke to me, because it opened my mind to the bigger picture, you might say. If you take a step back for a second and really think about it, the impossible does seem to happen quite often. One example would be technology, and how vastly it has changed our society today. I would say that Neal Shusterman has it pretty much all figured out, because he related to a lot of readers with his books. I’m hoping for a follow-up on the series, but I honestly doubt it, and I would not be too upset either, because the ending was amazing in the last book, and drawing it out could be destructive to it.

Writers as Readers

1.       When you read, what do you need to be comfortable? When I am reading, my prime environment would be silence with natural lighting (preferably outside), and I like to be left to my own devices as to not be interrupted.

2.       What genre (types of writing) interests you? What specifically about this genre interests you? Why are you drawn to science fiction, for example? My favorite type of book is fantasy/ science fiction. Lately I have been really into post-apocalyptic type of reading such as “Divergent” or “World War Z”. I believe I am drawn towards these books because of a certain feeling of “what if?” that I get from them, and they usually have great cliff hangers.

3.       Which author do you think your writing style is most like? Do you purposely imitate certain writers and/or try to avoid writing like certain writers? I can’t rightly say that I imitate any certain author, but whenever I wrote the story “The Talk”- published in Think Magazine- I was reading a lot of Heather Brewer novels and I feel that it had a lot of influence on how I wrote the story.

4.       What is one of your best memories connected with reading? One of my favorite memories with reading was when I stayed up until four o’ clock in the morning reading the fourth Vlad Tod book, to only then be left hanging at the end for the fifth one. I was depressed for days just thinking about how the next book was going to be the final series, but it was almost a funny kind of depressed, if that makes any sense.

5.       Have you ever picked up a book and been excited to turn the next page, then the next, then the next? What book? Why couldn’t you stop reading? Is there a book that you had to trudge through to finish? A favorite page-turner of mine would have to be the book Twisted, by Laurie Halse Anderson (writer of Speak). This book was an incredible and depressing book about a boy who had been framed of raping a girl at a party by the girl and the actual culprits, and the whole school turned on him. I had to keep reading because the book was so incredibly sad that I had to find a happy ending. Did I find it? Maybe.

6.       Who was your first reading teacher? Why do you remember her/him? Was it a “teacher” or someone else (family?) who taught you? My first reading teacher ever was Mrs.Norman from my kindergarten class at Wanda Gray elementary. She taught me how every letter in the ABC’s sounded and when to use them.

7.       What was the first book you remember reading? Why does this book stand out in your memory? My first book that I ever read by myself that was worth noting was in fourth grade when I read “Framed in Fire.” This novel stands out in my memory because first off it was given to me by my sister and second it was the only book I could say I had read for years to come.

8.       What is your favorite book series? Why is it your favorite? My favorite book series of all time would have to be the “Divergent” series that I am currently reading. This is honestly even taboo to me now that I think of it, because I can only really read books that have a male as the main character, not because I am sexist, but because I usually (or used to) have to completely connect to the main character to get my full kick out of reading, but reading this book with a girl as the main character gave me a little bit of a different perspective in my reading experience.

The Great Maya Angelou

                When Ms.Angelou quoted Nathaniel West by saying “Easy reading is damned hard writing” it really struck me. I couldn’t agree more, because I have a lot of trouble explaining everything that’s coming out of my head onto paper- or in this case, a computer. I believe that’s what makes writing so much fun, because when you get to read that final copy of what you’ve written you almost have a connection to the writing itself because you worked so hard to make it yours.

                I believe that when one conjures on a certain negative thing for too long, the negativity could very well possibly consume you. Not just bad dreams or nightmares, but real world drama and stress as well. All it does is keeps your mind in the dumps, which is not a healthy way to live. I’ve known this to happen in past relationships and chemical romances that staying around the people that hurt you may appease them, but you are never truly happy. What I found is that letting go of the unhealthy people in your life is liberating, although nostalgic.

                I believe that when Ms.Angelou says that “There is a world’s difference between truth and fact” she is saying that truth is what we believe and what we make it, but fact is a constant that must be followed. I half agree with this statement, because if you tell the truth to later find that it was not quite factual, then it wasn’t really the truth, but just what you have been told, although if you don’t believe anything you’re told for fear that it isn’t factual, then you will live in the fear of being lied to constantly.

                I commend the way that Ms.Angelou “occupies her small mind”, because I have the hardest time doing that exact thing. Noise is my biggest enemy when trying to write or just work in general, especially when the noise is of people talking. Music helps somewhat, but I am at my prime when I am alone, and without any distraction at all. I have two inferences for that, one being that I am a hermit and enjoy my own company more than anyone else’s and two is that I cannot multitask very well. I also have ADHD, so concentrating in general is a challenge in itself.

                Ms.Angelou is certainly a great inspiration, and a wonderful person. I am happy that this lesson introduced me to her because just by watching her video I have answered a lot of questions of my own.

Dream-Thread

Closing my eyes became a fear. It was never fun, but now I feel as though I couldn’t do it to save my life, because of what might happen again. I can’t look at her again, it hurts too much and scares the hell out of me, I just can’t do it. And what happens if she keeps me there like she told me she would last time? I would be stuck within my own dream for the rest of time, frightened by every single second. Now there is a noise inside of my head, a loud thumping. What could that possibly be? I awoke from this nightmare and heard someone knocking at my window.

The Music of Dreaming

From my past experiences, I’ve found that music is key in having dreams that you will actually remember.  I used to always plug in my iPhone before bed every night and listen to the most relaxing playlist that I owned and drift off into hysteria of pleasant dreams. It was amazing how much more vivid the dreams became with the music playing, because although you are asleep, you can still hear everything around you. The dreams would have a tendency to shift with each song change, which to some is unpleasant, but to me was refreshing.

            Another thing I noticed about falling asleep to music was that I would subconsciously memorize the lyrics while I was asleep. Sadly, after about a year of doing this nightly, my dreams began to subside and then diminish completely again. I don’t know why this happened, but my best guess is that dreams have a tolerance and I had a high tolerance. Once I stopped my dreams began to slowly resolve back to normal every other day or so. Although, I can honestly say that musical dreams were indeed the most vivid and tantalizing of any of my dreams I’ve ever had and it was seemingly impossible to have a nightmare because I was too at peace with my surroundings. I’m no scientist, nor have I done any legitimate research on the effects of music and dreaming, but I believe what I witnessed, although I never can fall asleep with music playing anymore, I’ve taken too much of a liking to the peace within the quiet.

 

 

Three Color Inspired Pieces

Haiku

·         On my mermaids tail

I found a piece of skin, and

My life was complete

 

·         I love hearts of gold

Silver is just not enough

Gold is my treasure

Boo Sky

                I wake up to a bright light in my eyes, the sun. Its rays are almost painful to stare at, so I stir from my bed forcefully. Although groggy, and annoyed at my rude awakening, I manage to crawl into the shower for thirty minutes, and snag a snack as I walk out the door, ready to start my day.

                I’m sixteen, but I don’t have a car, or even a license. My parents told me that its too dangerous to drive at my  age and handed me a skateboard with a dorky helmet. Although its not as bad as it seems because I still get where I need to go. This town is small, so my school is only half a mile away.

                As the sun shines bright into my eyes I push on, leaving a trail from my wheels on the dusty sidewalk. There is hardly a cloud in the bright blue sky and the birds are singing loud as I pass them on my way to school. I stop to walk across a large ditch that seperates the town from my suburban neighborhood, when all of the sudden I feel a drop, and then another. The drops start to come in groups and all of the sudden its pouring rain, while the sun still shines on.