Title Piece

Titles: 1.) Better Than You, 2.) The Bitter Coffee Story, and 3.) A Vintage Photograph

The coffee pot was making its slow dripping noise the day she died. It was hard, obviously. I’m not very good at telling a story, but I’ll try my damndest. The room was full of light, the early morning dew resting quietly on the soft petals of the garden she planted two weeks ago. It didn’t take long for them to come out of their plastic containers and lay their roots in the soft earth. It took her a lot longer to put her roots down in this good for nothing town, if she really did. I was sitting on the front porch, waiting on the inevitable, shelling peas to give my hands something to do. She didn’t really want anything and she sure didn’t want me taking over her last days on earth. All she wanted was a cup of coffee, not the good kind, you know, with extra cream and more than enough sugar; she wanted it black, just like her husband drank it before he was killed in the war. I don’t know if she felt more connected with him that way, or if the coffee was black to represent something different to her. She looked more at peace than normal when I took her the coffee. Her brow wasn’t furrowed in an annoyed and pissed off way. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see, instead of the way things really were. I think she was finally letting go of some of the anger and resentment that she felt for me. I was the only cousin left, and her closest living relative. She had no choice but to come live with me. Some people would say that they got landed with her, but in all actuality, it was she who was landed with me. Don’t get me wrong though, it wasn’t really me she hated all that much. It was this town, and it wasn’t for reasons one might expect. She hated this town because the nurses here are the ones who let her husband die, and in her eyes the whole town was to blame. She swears up and down that he would have lived had they done what they were supposed to, but who knows. Sometimes we have to blame someone, make them the source of our grief so that we can make it through. It’s really sad that way our relationship suffered so badly for something I couldn’t control, but love will do that to you. The day wore on, and the weather wore on me, so I went inside and tip-toed to her bedroom door. With a gentle creak the door opened, and for the first time upon her being in my house in this town, she looked up and smiled at me. I knew then that it would happen soon, and something even more shocking came from the mouth of my heartbroken cousin. She said, “I love you, and I’m so sorry.” I sat down next to the bed; tears came to my eyes as I fiddled with the yellow sheets on the bed. I had a hard time replying, and just silently watched as a single tear drifted down her cheek, then she was gone. Even will all the pain, she found a way to love again, but I guess love has a way of doing things like that to you.

Pat Carr’s Steps for Writing

1. Start with an incident, something that clangs in your head.
   
   1. Conflict
      
   2. An action, an experience that you have been to.
      
2. Develop a setting.
   
   1. Emphasis- Fight with brother is reflective in a raging storm outside.
      
   2. Contrast- Titanic is beautiful and is opposite of the death that it caused.
      
3. Choose your characters
   
   1. Limit yourself to five for a short story
      
   2. Limit yourself to fifteen for novels
      
   3. When you name your characters, choose a different letter of the alphabet.
      
4. Choose your protagonist.
   
   1. He must be a sympathetic character.
      
      1. The character thinks of other people
         
      2. He can love (his dog, his wife, anything reciprocal)
         
      3. He is vulnerable
         
      4. He is in jeopardy
         
      5. He's doomed and still noble
         
5. Give your characters Motive
   
   1. Why did someone do what he did?
      
   2. Remember: you don't have to motivate kindness, but you have to motivate cruelty.
      
6. Choose the person, either first or third.
   
7. Know where your story will end. Decide whether you will just quit, or tie up your loose endings. Always end with either: Action, Dialogue, or Image.

“Favorite Mistake”

Distract me please

Please ring

I’m left alone all over again

Glance again

Maybe it’s silenced

Not another chance

Rejection never tasted so sweet

You’re my favorite mistake

Skinny jeans and

Harry Potter glasses

Am I just a different

Kind of rejection statement

Turn the volume up

Music I don’t really like

Scream a little louder

Still no call

You’re always going to be

My favorite

Mistake.

I just realized that it would be very easy to mistake this poem for something that was semi-autobiographical, but it isn't. I got the idea for this poem when I was people watching when class had let out early. This is purely something that I imagined that this person may be going through.

Beauty

Everyday is the same, wandering these halls with no real direction in mind. But what does it matter, it's only high school. It smells like the cafeteria no matter which hallway your on. Putting the cafeteria in the direct center of the building was a brilliant idea. Lockers line these suffocating hallways, where the occasional stench of gym shoes gives your nose a small break. There she comes.
Long brown hair almost like it's billowing in the wind, but remember we're in a hallway, not outside. That's just the effect she has on people. You can always hear her before she gets close, her high heeled, suede boots rhythmically announcing her arrival. Stopping at her locker, she slowly puts in her combination. A quick make-up check and a reapplication of shiny lip gloss and she is ready to go again.
Everyone looks. The teachers because not only is she beautiful, she's also smart; the girls look, too. As much as they all want to hate her, they can't. The boy with the glasses walks by, his very controlled comb over hair style, and his almost too short pants. Even the most intelligent book worm can't help but stare, and occasionally trip. It wasn't just her beauty though, she was the epitome of what everyone wanted. If you needed a friend she was there, if you needed a tutor, she was there. She had the rarely found ability to truly care, not just pretend. She fought for the under dogs. The problems you had became her problems too. That's really what made her special.

Continued...Part 2

But seriously, my inability to ring my own Aunt's doorbell, the ridiculous nervousness that I felt- inconsequential. It really started three days after my arrival, when the staircase and I had a stare down. The staircase was one flight of stairs, skinny with a very rickety railing. You see, the thing about this staircase is that it was the second one in the house, and it was the one I couldn't go up. It doesn't make sense does it? In a house with two staircases, they should both lead to relatively the same place. So my Aunt Jane had a secret room, or maybe even a secret world up there, and all I had to do was go up that staircase. It was killing me, not knowing, so I asked. Hesitantly, I said, "Aunt Jane?"
"Yes, hun?" She replied.
"How come your house has two staircases, and how come I can only go up one?"
"Kid, you don't worry about that staircase, there isn't anything up there."
I hate it when adults call me kid.
"But, Aunt Jane, you can tell me any secret you got, I won't speak a word, look," I said holding up my hands, "no crosses count."
"Run along and play now, tonight, we're going to cook a huge meal and I'm going to need your help."
Just like an adult, even if they are really awesome, to send me off to play when they don't want to answer my questions.

Part 1--Titled at a later date. =)

It all started with a staircase. Okay, maybe I'm lying a little, but it did kind of start with a staircase a couple of days after I arrived at my Aunt Jane's house. You see, she was the brilliantly crazy person in our family. I hear every family has one, you know, the one that you sometimes wish you could hide under the couch, when you have new people come over, but also the one you want to be able to pull out when your having the extremely important argument with you colleague about the diminishing amount of adventurous people in your family. But it really doesn't matter what everyone else thought, it doesn't even matter what my family thought of Aunt Jane, all that matters to you is this simple fact: she was my hero and I wanted to be just like her. That is precisely why, on May 31, I was standing on the door step, suitcase beside me, nervously reaching up, slightly hesitant to ring the doorbell. That didn't much matter either, however, because before I had even come close to ringing the doorbell, the door swung suddenly open.

Letter to Myself

Dear 14 year old self,
You lived through high school, surprisingly enough. It isn't so bad either. Your Junior and Senior year, you only have to go half a day. That may be what saved us, or you, or the future you, I suppose. We always want information about our future, so this is what you're getting. After high school, you make it to college. You're tempted to make a fool of yourself on a regular basis, but most of the time your reason and good judgment win. In college, we have done some crazy things. You'll get hurt by a friend, only to find that that hurt will lead you to something amazing. All in a single semester, you will become a different, more mature person. Why am I telling you all of this, knowing that you will eventually find out? Because I want you to realize what I couldn't. Everything that happens is just a building block to make you into the person that you can be happy with. Don't grow up to fast. Don't hate the world, because the rest of the world is standing in similar shoes to the ones you are wearing now, trying hard to become who they need to be. Spend more time doing what you love, and being who you are. Welcome to your life.
--Your older, wiser self.
=)