Hey guys!
Good work today! We're excited to have you around, and you all have been working so diligently! Let's keep up the positive energy all week. I can't wait to read all of your writing.
Before tomorrow, think about the things that you want. Today we talked about giving a character a hidden motivation. Our desires are no doubt complicated. We often times want things that are at odds with our personal situation or even with the other things that we want.
Write about a character that wants two things that conflict with each other. Think of Colleen from Megan's story. She wants safety for her daughter but she also wanted to have a child, and children, as we know, are by nature not so big on the whole staying safe thing.
Post your responses as comments to this prompt.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is Alexis Margel.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? Where am I? Thoughts, panicked thoughts, ran through my head. I remember I was at the school when all of a sudden everyone started running the opposite way in a panic. Someone pushed me, then I was down. I open my hazel eyes to see a fire in front of me, a campfire. “Hey, she’s finally awake.” I heard someone say. I look over to see about five other people, all from my high school. “Hey are you alright?” The male closest to me asked. With the fire being the only light it was hard to see their features but from what I could see, the male that spoke had short, kind of spiky, black hair and green eyes. I slowly sat up, feeling the itchy grass beneath me.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I replied in a quiet voice. “What happened?” The male frowned before looking at the others in the group. There was two other girls and three boys in the group, each had a worried or scared look on their face. The one girl who had bleach blonde hair and light blue eyes hands me a hunting knife. I take the weapon, still confused on what was going on.
“The zombie apocalypse happened. There’s zombies everywhere. By the way, I’m David. The girl that handed you the knife is Lilith. The other girl is Zoe, and these two boys are Zac and Theron.” David said, pointing to each one as he said their names. Zoe had brown hair and eyes, Zac had dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes, and Theron had brown hair and hazel-blue eyes. David also hands me a Ruger LC9 which I took, checking the ammo and such while making sure the safety was on before hiding it in my hoodie. “You know how to shoot?”
“Of course, my father owns a gun store. He taught me how to shoot.” I said, placing the hunting knife in my hoodie as well. David looks at the others before looking back at me.
“You should stick with us, it’s not safe out there.” Zac said, his voice was deeper than David’s and he sounded concerned. This is where I was going to have trouble. I had trust issues, ever since I was a little girl, I never could trust anyone. I tended to stick by myself a lot when I was in school, even at home. I wasn’t a loner, I had friends but none got close enough for me to actually fully trust them. “Is there a problem?” I shook my head instantly, lying of course. I knew the situation, I played enough zombie games and watched enough zombie movies and shows to know that the best way to survive a zombie apocalypse is to be in a group however my trust issues were getting in the way, telling me not to trust any of these five teenagers from my school and leave the group and go alone but I’d be zombie bait for sure if I went that route. I combed my hand through my jet black hair, which went to my mid-back, in a nervous manner.
Streetlights flickered dimly in the street. They buzzed as they weakly radiated, casting their luminance down in pale circles beneath them. They lined the road as that swerved under a canopy of thickly clustered trees, all casting the same pale circles that eerily decorated the road.
ReplyDeleteA car ran along the poorly lit street, which was slick with the rainwater that had been falling in what seemed to have been torrents. Within the car, a driver looked through the line of sight provided by her windshield wipers, squinting at the water droplets clinging to the glass.
She hadn't expected any of this. None of this was something she had really considered. None of that she was about to do was something she had wanted to engage in. As far as her life was concerned, she had never truly wanted to leave her home. She had never in her life considered leaving the town she'd grown up in, the town she had fond and poor memories regarding, the town that had been her world for twenty-six consecutive years. Change was not something she readily accepted; not something she enjoyed having to endure. Eve had never even taken kindly to the annual vacations her family took out to New Mexico, and had always been anxious to return home, to New York, where she wouldn't have to be in an area she was unfamiliar with.
Despite this, she had always thought of being an accountant. However, the chance of finding clients in her remotely located hometown were slim to none. Once she'd received a job offer in Albany, she had jumped at it, her ambition getting in the way of her personal zone of comfort. For once in her life, Eve had noticed, everything would change to fit a goal she'd set in mind. Everything would be new and different, and nothing like she had ever known before.
Perhaps, Eve thought as she continued down the dark, damp roadway, because ambition does funny things to people. It forces them to take on opportunities they may never take on in other circumstances. It may cause people to make choices they never would make in their right mind. Often times, they are regrettable choices.
Perhaps ones, Eve thought as her car moved through the sloshing rain, that they may reconsider. She couldn't spend her entire life away from her home, in a strange city, with strange people.
Even if she was fulfilling her dream job.
She stared at that slice of pie, and so did her brother.
ReplyDeleteA thick crust, the kind that crumbles at the touch and melts in the mouth. Buttery and flaky and embracing roasted peach that oozes golden honey. A scent that could revitalize, deep and complex with cinnamon, a touch of chocolate, molasses and butter. Heavy with heaven and just warm enough to lightly melt whipped cream it was the epitome of dessert.
Alice really wanted that pie. She reached over the lesser, more earthly desserts quickly to beat her brother to the punch. Her mouth began to water when she noticed that her brother was reaching for something else. Alice swatted Jon's hand out of the way and stared at what he was going to take.
A beautiful slice of cake.
Voluminous,with pastel colored icing only slightly crunchy from a tastefully thin glaze of sugar. Generous scoops of of cream lightly swirled tenderly atop the moist and tender chocolate vanilla body. Sprinkled with shavings of chocolate and the back jeweled with a soft granola, the cake was a masterpiece.
There were only one slice left of both desserts, Alice and Jon knew to avoid the glutton status they could only have one.
But which was the better? Cake and pie were so impossibly different but both so wonderfully delicious. Pie was sophisticated and adult-like, and cake was so gleefully filled with childish delight and innocence. More importantly, which was the best crafted, for Alice knew she had to have a better dessert than her brother. Jon eyed Alice, ready to push past her for whatever was open. Alice leaned forward and furrowed her brows, ready to pounce in order to defend her desserts but when Jon lurched forward, she was not prepared.
Plates clattered and the siblings were elbow deep in ambrosia.
The filled-out college applications sat in an unbelievably still-intimidating pile of envelopes on the corner of the granite countertop. Megan sat silently in the opposite corner of the kitchen at the half-darkened table. One of the bulbs in the fly-filled light on the ceiling was dead. A newly condemned fly buzzed frantically inside the vague confines of the circular fixture. Eventually the buzzes slowed to the point of silence.
ReplyDeleteMegan debated going up to bed. It was already 3:49 AM. School started in a little more than three hours. She decided it wasn’t worth it and took creaking steps towards the fridge to get milk and strawberry ice cream. In the small hours of the morning, Megan was going to make a milkshake. Her AP Calculus test would have to take a back seat for once.
She scooped the artificially pink ice cream into a dusty blender from the back of the appliance cabinet with a flimsy metal spoon and the tips of her bitten-down fingers before covering it in a thin film of fat free milk. With the red top securely on, the blender buzzed satisfyingly. Megan leaned the seat of her jeans comfortably against the counter as the appliance worked and tried hard to tear her eyes from the dull whir of primary colors that were her AP textbooks. They called her name much louder than any text on her phone ever did.
As the sound of the blender quieted, Megan spun nervously and pressed hard into the power button before removing the top. She poured the mix out with a heavy hand. Its thick magenta folds easily filled Megan’s favorite Princeton University mug. She took a sip and sighed in temporary contentment. Until her phone buzzed in panic and Megan had no choice but to pick up the thin piece of machinery and acknowledge what was being requested of her. Her heart swelled into her throat when she read the name. Joey Stevens.
Megan swiped quickly, her fragile pale fingers dancing across the keyboard. The phone took a second too long to load and Megan jumped antsily from foot to foot before collapsing into the corner of the counter. Her tiny elbow caught in the edge of her overflowing mug and it crashed to the ground, splitting into millions of irreparable fragments.
The text message read, “Do my AP Lit essay?” Not even a ‘hey’ or ‘what’s up?’ Not any acknowledgement that somewhere, there was a person inside of Megan. Inside, underneath the Varsity Math Team Award, excessive hours of community service, or inevitable Valedictorian status. To Joey, Megan was a machine. Useful only like the blender that had just spit up the chunks of Megan’s strawberry milkshake.
The silence was unbearably loud, so Megan turned the old blender on with the top off. Thick bits of strawberries flew into her hair and into the shining latches of the kitchen cabinets. The fragments of her mug remained awkwardly on the floor. She didn’t plan on picking them up. Not yet.
She faced back towards the cabinets, slamming her head into the painted wooden surface and clenching and unclenching her vein-covered fists as they were coated in a thick layer of pent up tears. Somewhere, something buzzed. Megan couldn’t tell whether it was another stupid fly or her own condemned head.
At 4:00 AM, Megan crouched to pick up the black and orange pieces with her shaking hands and lifted them into the counter. Each piece clinked like a lost tooth. With a detached sigh, Megan made her way meekly across the kitchen and up the stairs to her room, resisting the urge to throw out the overflowing stack of applications along with the puzzle of the mug.
Kylie Frederick: this is a first-person fictional journal entry. Enjoy, while withholding judgment ;)
ReplyDeleteIf there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I'm honest. Don't get me wrong, being honest is great and all. I'm the go-to for a straight-forward opinion and I certainly am trustworthy to those with thick skin, but the number of hurt puppy-dog eyes I see in one day with my attitude is alarming to say the least.
Each morning I wake up like any other American teenage girl. With food on my mind, preferably from McDonald's, breakfast being my personal favorite meal of the day. But for some reason, sensitive, insecure girls at my school think I wake up with the ultimate goal of deteriorating them to shreds of distress.
I, contrary to the belief of the majority, do not get gratification from destroying a girls confidence in the stupid-ass shoes she wore or whatever. If they want to ask how I feel, they will receive a truthful answer.
So, God probably smiles down upon me as I flawlessly obey one of those famous commandments, Thou Shall Not Lie, but I will be the first to honestly admit that perhaps there's a difference between honesty and crudeness. Finding the balance in order to be blatantly honest and nice is the god-awful challenge I have to face and certainly a day-to-day struggle to avoid wounding the thin-skinned.
the faded blue t-shirt
ReplyDeleteFour times she claimed that she would commit, and four times she left. The paper cuts stretched into tiger-stripe lacerations: a wild animal cannot be tamed. Regina could say that she loved all of them, and yet the puzzle pieces were not to her liking. The picture never seemed to be complete.
She held the cottony material up to her nose, inhaling the fading musky scent. They say that smells trigger the most memories, and Regina held that to be absolutely true. This belonged to the first one—she was surprised that it had remained unnoticed for so long. Kevin loved the Yankees. He loved Starbucks coffee and fancy pens and the little constellation of birth marks splattered across her back. Regina wasn’t convinced that he loved her.
The eight months and t-shirt went in the plastic bag.
the oblong towel
It wrapped around her two times: that’s how bulky Jonathan was. Not fat, just…big. Its scratchy fabric grazed her bare calves and arms like teeth. Regina laughed at the irony. She wondered if he’d gotten his degree to be a dentist yet. It had been two years since they’d last spoken, though it hadn’t necessarily been a bad breakup. They just could not work. Jonathan was the only one to understand that above all, Regina was a free spirit. She knew that he knew as well. So he bought her dinner one night after four months and the only taste on her tongue that night was of chocolate lava cake, not his lips. She was thirsty.
Being alone at night with no one but almosts to think about was the hardest for Regina. Sometimes she’d sit there on the couch with a bowl of buttered popcorn, the television screen playing some mindless rom-com filled with bland jokes and elaborate make-out scenes. She always left the window open, even at the height of winter. Snowflakes would flutter across the room, but she didn’t mind. Those were the best nights. She didn’t feel so restricted. A wild animal cannot be contained.
the broken ray bans
It was spring, and spring is for new beginnings. For there to be new beginnings, there must be endings. At least that was what Regina told herself. Black garbage bags lay like a Jackson Pollack painting across her floor, some of them teeming with shit, some flat as if they’d been run over by trucks. Despite all of the trash, her apartment still smelled like budding flowers. There was a cherry blossom tree outside of her building; she was thankful that her room was on the second floor.
Messes can be appeasing if you have a taste for intricate clutter.
Sara was a bit of a curveball. The break-up with Kevin had not been easy, so she found herself tip-toeing across the invisible line of somewhere she hadn’t explored before. One night a tepid wind called her name, and she followed. It carried her to McDonald’s at three-o-eight AM after a night of stumbling through blocks and blocks of cracked pavements and gum sticking to the soles of her Converse. She bought a cup of coffee and a stale apple pie and sat herself at a table. A girl with a shock of indigo hair with Ray Bans atop her head was looking at her from a few seats away. Regina looked back.
After four months, she would never look back again.
She had already gotten rid of every trace of the last one. He was different. Francisco didn’t look where he stepped like the others had. He was okay with stepping on cracks and days-old gum and even dog shit. A notebook filled with random notes screaming on the pages was his constant companion. Their first date was at the zoo, watching the zoo animals enjoying the simplicity of zoo captivity. Then they ran around Central Park, basking in their freedom.
After one week, the wound still hadn’t healed. She was sure there would be an ugly scar, but the most heroic soldiers are the ones that take the hits. Freedom is hard to maintain, especially when shackles are so alluring.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete“If you don’t want to stay with us anymore,” Mr. Paxton said, “you don’t have to. It’s nobody’s choice but yours.”
ReplyDeleteAshlyn sat on the couch of Mr. Paxton’s living room, the one she always at on the edge of because she was scared of messing up the meticulously folded blankets or creasing the smooth cream suede. He stood across from her with his hands behind his back and carelessly wrinkling this steamed suit. Her friends sat and laughed as they ate a simple dinner, trying to ignore the gaping hole of her empty seat. Richard shot a wary glance her way. She didn’t meet his gaze.
“I--” she said, then found that there was nothing on the tip of her tongue. Mr. Paxton’s milky eyes were trained on her, she couldn’t figure out why she knew, but they were surrounded by fishnet wrinkles carved into his dark skin. If he expected her to reply, she wasn’t sure.
Leaving Mr. Paxton meant leaving her friends. Richard and Mira and Crowley, who would drop by her room and drag her off across the woods to see a strange bug, whom she would do the same to, the ones bearing scars on their skin they wore with pride and swaddled themselves in dark robes in the dark of night and snickered and joked around a fire burning white and blue. Staying meant being with them and living quietly in the woods. Leaving meant…
She didn’t know what leaving meant. Perhaps it meant packing her bags and walking out the front door with a solemn smile and a quiet goodbye as Mira sniffled quietly and Richard told her not to trip on the way home (Crowley wouldn’t be there because he was terrible with goodbyes and hated crying in front of people). Perhaps it meant being whisked away to the other side of the forest with one of Mr. Paxton’s simple words and finding herself standing on the side of the road. Perhaps it meant her guts on the forest floor.
But leaving meant not being stuck in this cabin in the woods.
But leaving meant losing her friends and the family she had come to call her own.
She sat on the couch and Mr. Paxton stood there and waited.
She was sitting in the sink. She didn’t know why she was sitting in the sink… perhaps she was looking for a sudden burst of creativity. Sky Anderson was sitting in her green college dorm looking around the room for anything that would give her something to write about. She tried hard to focus on finding a topic, but Megan was video chatting her friends and Ellie was blasting some song called “Totally Fucked”.
ReplyDeleteSky racked her brain over picking topics ranging from dramatic suicide attempts to a story about the life of ducks. She felt better knowing that no one else had any ideas either. She narrowed it down to two topics: a young girl who was debating robbing a bank, and a boy who wanted to ask out a boy he’d fallen in love with.The girls talked about what snacks they wanted and Sky tried listening to music, but Bring Me The Horizon only distracted her more. She couldn’t decide what to write. It was impossible.
She exhaled in pure exasperation as she grabbed her pajamas and trudged over to the shower. She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the warm water hoping that the falling droplets would bring some sort of inspiration. Of course, none came. She returned to her spot in the sink. Ellie was proof reading Natalie’s paper and Sky hadn’t started yet. She’d emptied almost an entire container of Pringles whilst staring at a blank screen. By the time the clock struck eleven Sky had given up. She closed her document and started working on a prompt she had begun earlier, not knowing whether she would ever start the other.
We protected Kirsten at all costs. Certainly not her slim wrists, or petite build, or clear snowy skin, or blue eyes, always shining with excitement and the fantasy she lived in; but maybe her demeanor, calm and completely eccentric, involved in ideas I fathomable to people like them - there were people here who warranted something about her hatable. Strangeness is never beauty to the normal. Taunting and shoving, glares and sneers, every insult a pretty white girl from a suburban town was hurled her way. And because of it, our way.
ReplyDeleteLara was the fighter. Strong, compact, and a head of wild flames to match her temper, she's always was quick to combat the insolence. Unfortunately, a slur for a slur and a shove for a shove makes the whole world serve detention.
I'm a human punching bag. I take the blows. My very being is a magnet for them, a protective cushion to soften the attacks. I wish I could say I was the protector. I can only say I tried.
We worked in a balance, yin and yang ever flowing, a cycle created by a beautiful spirit, with unworldly knowledge. Knowledge that none of this matters. Knowledge that objectively, I accept. But when there's barely a moment to heal between attacks, letting it sink takes either incredible strength or incredible ignorance - neither of which I have.
-----STUFF HAPPENS probably-----
Three bodies spoon on the floor, the sallow light of a muted t.v. flickering insistently over six pale legs, four short and curled, two long and stretched across from behind. I encompass the two loves of my life, the biggest spoon in the cabinet of our Friday nights. While I'm alive, I will always be their space cushion. Lana guards from the front, as though ready to retaliate, ready to fight. Kirsten, our goddess, breathes softly between us, eyes glowing behind sleepy lids. Perpetually our giver, perpetually our glue.
To allow others the knowledge of our relationship behind what they can see would be suicide. To hold my heart away from the world would be torture. These Friday nights are our safe haven, a recharge. The others are stronger than I am. They made their decision. They let me decide when I'm ready. How long can I force us in this crevice of a space when there is a world to explore together? Why am I so scared?
What do I do?
ReplyDeleteThe jeep bounced and jolted us from side to side as we drove through the dusty terrain of Iraq. The car was an older model given to us on missions where damage was expected; the government back home was on a tight budget. The bullets lodged in the right-hand side of the vehicle and the shattered windows reminded me of the dangers I was expected to endure for the next couple hours. I gripped my gun closer to my chest until the tips of my fingers turned white; my lips clamped together so tightly even they too were turning white. I held my gaze on the piles of dirt we passed as thoughts of anyone who made an impression of me ran through my mind. Their faces, attitudes, voices, laughter, and any fond memory I had of them got me to wondering if they knew I was expected to kill someone in less than an hour's time. Or that it is condoned, as long as it is "for the country." Would they look at me like a monster or a hero? Would I be feared or pitied? Maybe both. Will they tip toe around me if I come back home? What if they, too, saw the faces of the innocent people killed, or heard the deafening screams of their loved ones? My mind raced through how lives would change for the women once the main income died, how many hours would their kids be working at excruciating, laborious jobs?
The men around me had grim looks, also. I knew their minds were racing with the possibilities of death and never seeing their families again. Personally, that was selfish. What about the families of the casualties? What if when I die, I come to meet whomever is the person in charge and they ask why I didn't just walk away from the opportunity? Why didn't I take that desk job with insurance and a sense of security? Why did I feel so drawn to something I knew I would not walk away from as a better human, only bitter. Bitter and physically stronger. I would only walk away with nightmares and injuries. I would constantly rely on another person to watch over me and care for me, I was not going to be okay. The family of the people about to die were not going to be okay either. No one was going to walk out of this mission with a satisfactory walk. Why was I here?
An abrupt stop jerked the men foreword. We had two miles to walk, set up our protection, and figure out strategies. My hands shook so violently I feared I would not be able to grip the gun. As directions were spit out and soldiers were spreading, my mind went blank. I put one foot in front the other and repeated my specific kill over and over. As I got into position behind a broken-down wall, the person I saw when I looked in the mirror was replaced with a killer.
Are you up?
ReplyDeleteThe rectangular screen lights up like a beacon, casting an eerie white glow around my dark bedroom. I send a quick reply with a couple taps on the keyboard. If I wasn’t up a few moments ago, the sting of my phone’s brightness on my eyeballs is enough to keep myself from drifting off now.
I wait for Kaylee’s response, even though I can almost predict word for word what her text will say. A disease plagues my high school population, a deadly and destructive one. The symptoms only reveal themselves in the terribly late hours of the night and it leaves the sick spilling their guts out to the closest ear that will listen.
It’s about Drew.
I wait, knowing there must be more to come.
I’m afraid.
Isn’t everyone? A label is a billboard. A great big neon sign. It’s a job contract with strict guidelines and expectations. The contract dictates your actions. Are you talking to another member of the male species? That’s actually in violation of your contract. Where’s the change in your relationship status? Why is there no picture posted to announce the momentous occasion in which you branded a great big X on your forehead? That’s in the contract. Failure to comply with these rules will lead to the inevitable conclusion that you actually aren’t that committed. Soon enough, you’re out of a job.
But I like him a lot.
That often complicates things.
Sandra, what do I do?
A casual relationship, perhaps? Oh, but the guilt. It’s not often that the roles are switched. Since when were men the serious ones? Was this a rarity, or was this secretly how everyone felt on the inside?
Shit.
You can say that again.
Creelyn wants to be her own person yet people wants her to change the way she thinks, acts, and dresses. She tries to find confidence with her character but when she tries to be her own character, people would always criticize her.
ReplyDelete