It's been a long time since I've posted on here. A lot of life has happened. I don't really care if anyone even reads this, but as I find myself back in a place of limbo, a place where my heart is in someone else's hands to break further or glue back together, I wrote a poem for the first time in a very long time...

My heart sits heavy in my chest
Against all odds
And nothing left.
Within me weakness seems to grow
Without you truth is lost to show.
All or nothing.
Now or never.
Forever difference.
Twice endeavor.
Until my love comes back to me
I scream
I wake
I cannot see.

A Hollow Heart

Red welts rise to my cheeks,
Wind and rain and fire lashing,
Burning and stinging from the inside out.
Raw tears fall
And I can't feel anything but the drowning.
Solitary.
Dark.
Empty.
Of all but this wound,
All but this love that yearns only to breathe,
Only to be matched,
And trusted,
And held.
Only to be with you.

Major blogging FAIL.

Time to start fresh...

Children's Book Writing Class #1: Complete!

Believe it or not, my friends, I have actually done some writing in the past month. Not nearly as much as I should have, but I wrote 11 all-new pages (shhhh, it's a lot for me!) and have been doing some good brainstorming. I'm also preparing to do a character tree/bio for Anna, the protagonist of my work in progress. My momentum may not be as quick as I'd like but it's getting there slowly.

I also began my writing class this week. It was all too terrifying and anxiety-ridden but the first session went pretty well nonetheless. (I also seem to have acquired some sort of ability to act the class clown, breaking the ice with silly jokes and comments. Who knew?)

My instructor is a children's book writer and freelance editor--very nice, very smart, and clearly very creative. I'm looking forward to getting to know her a bit, hear about her process and get some advice. As I kind of expected I didn't necessarily learn much that I didn't already know as an editor, but it's always good to recap and remember the basics. Plus, in a lot of ways, children's books are horses of a different color than the adult fiction I'm most familiar with, so I'm more than willing to listen and learn the specifics of that particular publishing branch.

Teach (as I will refer to her from now on) gave us several writing exercises, spattered throughout the class. I'd never really had that in a creative writing class before but I guess that's the whole "writing workshop" bit--you actually have to write off the cuff on occasion. It was scary for me, putting words down like that without having sufficient time to think them through and edit them again and again, but it's good practice. I'm just grateful she didn't force us all to read them aloud. I'm definitely of the mind that "writers write so readers can read." :-p

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the exercises with you all, start getting back up on this strangely colored horse and what not. You're welcome to do them along with me if you'd like!

Writing Exercise #1: Write down two statements--one true and one false, in no particular order, regarding something extraordinary that happened to you or you did as a child. The class (or I guess, bloggers :-p) then must guess which of the two statements is the true one. This short practice gets you focused on writing believably.

1. I spoke my first full sentence when I was nine months old.

2. By the age of seven, I could do a back handspring in a balance beam.

Writing Exercise #2: Teach asked up to write about something frightening that happened to us in first elementary school, and then middle school/junior high. We had about five minutes per "story." She told us afterwards that this exercise is to practice writing for different age groups--mine kind of sound the same LOL

The wind slapped my skin as we sat underneath the enormous pine tree in Abigail's front yard. Sneaking out of the house at night was always a little exhilarating but with a storm coming and only a single flashlight and a book of ghost stories between us, it was beyond "exhilarating." As Abigail took her turn, reading aloud about the girl who heard noises in her attic, I felt for a moment like I was that girl, but I was lost in a forest of my own making. Footsteps lightly padded outside our evergreen hideout. Surely Abigail's dad would make more noise with his 200-pound frame barreling toward us. I expected him to push through the branches any second, my heart racing faster the longer he didn't appear. And then, a groan. And silence. Before my brother screamed and shook the tree, scaring me out of my wind-slapped skin.

As I swung back and forth on my makeshift parallel bar, I felt like I was flying. I was something I did often, practicing for my next meet or just driving my mother crazy. A tension rod chin-up bar was not the safest substitute for gymnastics equipment. Nor was a cement floor appropriate in place of a padded mat. But I swung anyway, enjoying the rhythm and imagining myself soaring from bar to bar. At least until the bar began to slip, that is. In that brief moment, I remembered my mother's warning: "You'll break your neck!" and I instantly pictured myself twisted on the hard floor, unable to move, neck disfigured, paralyzed forever. As my back hit the cement, my head following it in a quick staccato, I exhaled. Phew. My neck was in tact. My head, however? Not so much.

Writing Exercise #3: This one was our first real children's fiction writing exercise to practice laying out the plot skeleton. Teach asked us for plot components in quick succession and we had to write down the first thing that came to our minds.

Name of protagonist: Sally

Name of antagonist:Paul

Relationship between protag and antag: classmates

What does the protag want?: for Paul to stop teasing her

What are two things the protag tries to do (and fails at) to get what he/she wants?: Sally bakes Paul cookies. Sally hides from Paul.

How does the antag respond to protag efforts?: Paul takes a bite and spits out the cookie. Paul looks for her and waits till she comes out so he can tease her.

What does the protag do to finally achieve his/her goal?: Sally kisses Paul on the cheek.

How does the antag respond?: Paul blushes and is left speechless.

What happens at the end of the story to indicate a change?: Paul waves to her the next day from across the playground.

It's silly, I know. It just sort of popped out. And then more had to pop out because Teach asked us to write one of the scenes we just described. Eek.

With a play of cookies balanced in her hands, Sally walked over to Paul.

"What's that smell?" Paul asked his friends. "It's like a skunk!"

The boys snickered, pointing at Sally as she approached.

"I thought you might want a cookie," Sally said to Paul. She held out the plate.

Paul paused, rolling his eyes, but then reached out to pluck one away.

Sally smiled, sure she'd made a successful peace offering. But Paul caught a glimpse of her joy and the yummy sound he was ready to make turned into a sputter.

"Yuck!" he spat out along with the half-chewed cookie. "That's the grossest thing ever!"

Sally's face fell, he eyes cast down toward her toes as the boys laughed and ran away. Sally couldn't see though that Paul had popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth, a little grin spreading across his lips.

BLECH. So bad. But I did it. I wrote something. Homework for the week includes coming up with three story ideas (protag, goal/desire, and three sources of conflict that will get in the way of the goal), picking one of our ideas, and writing the beginning to the story (about 500 words) up to and including the inciting incident. Story ideas are not my forte, but I'll give it a whirl.

We also have to read a practice piece to workshop next week, a middle-grade short story written by a friend of Teach's. That part should be easy. I'm good at giving feedback...I did it for a meager living for three years, after all. ;)

And the final assignment? I have to bring in pages to be workshopped in class #3. Lucky me, I get to be one of the first three writers on the chopping block. Double eek.

Ready for Round Two

It's been a while my friends, but I am back. For months there I was inundated with work, life and everything that goes with it went by the wayside. But now I have a new job and a new work-life balance that is much healthier. Yay!

One thing this means? That I get to write again--well, I get to force myself to write again LOL In fact, I've been thinking about writing so much that with the help of some friends' encouragement I signed up for a writing class at Gotham Writer's Workshop here in NYC *gasp!*

So, starting the week of January 17th, I'll be taking a 10-week long, once weekly 3-hour workshop on children's book writing, getting a jumpstart on the YA novel I began when I was 16 years old. With 88 typed pages written it feels like a waste not to finish it, even if it bites. My super-strong "writer's block," however, has been a bit of a deterrent for me and my silly book for years--why should now be any different?

This is a question I've asked myself for a long time, trying to figure out what would get me motivated, attempting to understand what's so massively missing from the old draft that I can't overcome it. I was clueless for the past, umm, decade *blush* but it finally hit me.

I'd started with an idea at 16 that I ran with for a couple months. Then, some time later,I came up with a new twist to the idea and went back and added in a parallel storyline for a couple months. Then, I put it down again, only looking at it every once and a while, ready to type but unable to get over the immaturity of my work, unable to determine where the story was even going. (The end goal is, of course, still up for grabs--I haven't a clue what's going to happen at the close of the story.) But that initial change in the story--the birth of a new storyline to be interwoven--is what got me stuck.

At the time, I was obsessed with writing in the third person, so that's what I did. Storyline 1 is in first person, storyline 2 is in third. But a third person POV isn't the easiest thing to use in a YA novel where you need to get inside your character's head. It seems so simple, so miniscule, but when I realized that this was holding me back, it was like a firecracker went off in my head. I have to rewrite the entire storyline in first person. Then I'll be able to move forward.

So, with that realization in mind, I'm not going on a bit of a journey to get back in touch with my story and its characters, to reinvent the book from page one. My friend Allison has given me until my class starts to rework what I want to rework, and then I'm supposed to go full-steam-ahead.

It's off to a good start though, or a start of some kind at least! Last night, I wrote 650 words. Not a lot to many of you, I'm sure, but to someone who hasn't written a word of anything in months, it's pretty damn good. The work itself isn't great, but hey, I'm doin' it!

Now here's hoping the POV is actually the issue LOL

First three chapters, revised (well, kind of)

Once more I have been slacking in the writing department. I figured, as a means of inspiration, I'd post the (almost) most recent version of Cara's work-in-progress. I went back the other day and fleshed a little bit of chapter 1 out and still have to work through chaps 2-4. This version doesn't have the flesh-out, but it's different than the previous postings.

So, if this is your first time joining us and you're interested in meeting Cara and crew, take a look at this version, rather than the previous two ;)

HERE IT IS!

A new poem

180

The pounding of my heart

Echoing in my mind

The thrill of moments

Full of starlight

Hopeful hours and beams of promise

The warmth of what's to come

Sweeping through my soul.

A tiny crack slinking through my resolve

Climbing the crumbling walls of fear

Primed with empty sunrises

Oceans of tumult and vanishing shadows

The melting sinews of what could have been

Freezing in my memory.