March 2, 2012 - Deepest Desiers

Describe one of your deepest desires and why you cannot/will not/don't have it.

Upon this hill I seek to see
Creatures beyond humanity
I hear the calls,
I see the gestures
To be with them along forever.

They call me through the endless night
To run and see all their sights
Their boundless forest and cultures beyond
They laugh and play
And sing a song

A song that I will never know.
They mustn't have me
Not Today.
'Cause it's my little sister's birthday
Horray!

I couldn't just leave my family,
My friends, and my life.
As for I would hurt them to bad
And they wouldn't see me light.


-Emma

Thursday, March 1, 2012 - Unfair Universe

You are going about your day normally. Maybe you are out walking with a friend, going to work, or walking to the store. But something goes wrong. Could be just a minor inconvenience or it could be major, changing your entire day. Write about your day, real or fictional, and the unfair thing the universe did.

Yes! things are coming up Lizzie! Thr first paycheck of the month. No bills yet, but little food... Time to stock up! Hmm... What to get... Bah! Should be easy enough to figure out at the store. Nice day out. Sun is shining, snow is melting, and is that grass? Could this get any better? I probably should walk... So lazy... Wait! If I walk, I can take the bus back!
Awesome sauce! Ice scream may be in order for this! Bit cool for walking... Grr! I won't give up on this mission! Grab a sweater, grab the grocery bags. Going green! Heck, maybe I'll walk back. Oh Lizzie, you are so good! Don't I know it, Myself!
Finally out the door! Very nice... But still so lazy...! Maybe I should go and get my MP3 player... Yeah... But after that, no more delays! Groceries must be purchased! Ok! MP3 player, check; grocery bags, check; sweater, check; pants...reluctant check. Oooo, awesome walking song! This thing on shuffle? Yeah, cool.
One foot in front of the other. Not a bad day for walking. I should do this more often... Wait... Do I have my wallet? Quick self-pat down confirms... Yes! Ok, crisis averted! Scared myself for a second there... Dear lord! Resuming walking! Not a lot of other people out. Maybe they are vampires. Canada in winter seems like as good as any place for them.
Next song... Not a great walking song. Skip! I will have non of you! Ok, finally back to the walking songs... Almost there. Just a couple more songs to go. Man... I'm getting thirsty. Small bottle of water should work. Maybe a quick, salty treat, too.
In the store finally! Ok... Onion, lettuce, pickles... Teehee, let-us pickle! Lizzie, you sure are funny! Uh-oh.. laughing to myself... Try to look less crazy! Look on that old woman's face says it's not working! Ugh, what else do I need... Milk, eggs... BACON! How could I almost forget bacon? Oh bacon, I love you!
Distraction... There is a small bottle of a water-like substance! Grab that... Did I want a snack earlier? Why, I think I did! Bacon making me forget the other things I need. Like cheese... Did I grab cheese? Nope! Grabbing cheese now! That almost sounds dirty!
Back to the task at hand! Salty snacks! I think they are hiding with the Doritos and PC Cola. Slowing making my way to the Tasty Food isle. Ah! Salted nuts... Peanuts... Mixed nuts with 60% peanuts... Roasted peanuts... Where... Are... The cashews...? I don't see any...
Scandal!!
No cashews anywhere! I don't even see them in those little plastic containers that sit around looking lonely and unloved... I think I might cry... Damnit! Just when everything is going well, the universe has to deny me cashews in my life!
Maybe tomorrow... Yeah... I'll try tomorrow and see if they have cashews... Stupid store... Mumblemumblemumble...
By my groceries... Yeah, bus home is looking nice today.


-- Meg

Monday, February 27th - Want Poem

Yes yes, I am late. No excuses shall be made.

Write a poem beginning with the line "I want a boy/girl with ________ like __________." (Fill in the blanks.) 
 

I want a boy with skin like fire
To melt the frost from me
To dry the dew that lingers still
In the corner of my eye
I wish that he'll possess
A heart that beats like thunder
When his lips are close to mine
When our gazes are drawn together.

I would like a boy
Who drives fast along the back roads
Whose heart is familiar with adventure
With undying wonder
With patience
With hope

I want a boy who wants someone like me
But I fear I am asking too much

Thursday, February 23, 2012 - Weather

Keeping it simple this lovely day, write something about the weather. Could be how you feel or things that people always say at a certain time of year.

Softly falling
White powder dusts the ground
Transforming the world

Warm days swimming
Basking in the sun
Are gone

Just for now

Soon
One day
They will be back
Melting the ground
Tanning our skin
And maybe,
Just maybe...
We'll want the snow back.


- Meg

Monday, February 20th - Music Inspired

Write a short story with one of your favourite songs/albums/artists as a main focus.

Was it fate? Probably. Will we ever admit it? Probably not. We have plenty of other people who will admit it for us. And we will just shrug and laugh and say "No way" but secretly, we'll both agree. The two month road trip had been planned out about as thoroughly as one can plan a road trip before the magic starts to slip away. We took precautions against anything drastic, but we were by no means paranoid. And I think that's why we were so surprised when something happened so soon.

We were set to make roughly a dozen stops all across the country - staying for a few days with various friends and family, and we brought a binder full of cds to play along the way. Unfortunately Melissa would have to drive the whole time seeing as how I didn't have my license, but she said she didn't mind. Our schedule wasn't super constricting so it's not like we had to pull any all nighters. The day we set out we put in Sarah McLachlans "Laws of Illusion" album, but we were so busy talking we didn't even notice that it played for five hours straight. We spent the first night in the car because hell, that is what you do on road trips isn't it?

In the morning we were slightly more aware of the presence of the music, neither of us are very conversational during the morning hours. Once it ad played through one and a half times I reached forward and pressed the "eject" button. Nothing happened. I pressed it three more times, still nothing.

"Uhhh... Melissa? Your cd thingy isn't giving the cd back."

"What?" she she answered. She leaned over (somewhat dangerously) and pressed the button a bunch of times. Still nothing. "Huh, that's weird. I've never had any kind of problem with the player before."

At that point we switched to the radio, but after ten minutes all we could get was static so we just left it off. It only took about an hour of sitting in silence though, and Sarah was back. And so from then on, every time we wanted to listen to something in the car it had to be that one album.  We took advantage of our stops as much as we could - hijacking peoples' stereos so we could play our other cds, buying cheap mp3 players to listen to. But after only a few hours in the car the mp3 players were dead, and it was back to Laws of Illusion yet again.

There was one night when we were passing through a town Melissa used to live in on the way to see her cousin, and she drove us out into this big feild. We layed down on the hood of the car for a long time with the windows down, just looking at the stars and listening to the music. We were kind of sick of it by that point so we didn't really pay attention, but this time we did. When the song "Changes" started to play, Melissa jumped off the hood and dragged me with her, and the two of us slow danced in this feild under the stars. If anything in life can be perfect, that moment was.

Was it fate? Probably. Will we ever admit it? Probably not. We have plenty of other people who will admit it for us. And we will just shrug and laugh and say "No way" but secretly, we'll both agree.

Note: I meant to make this a bit longer, but I am out of time as I have to go to work. Oh well. Sorry if it's terrible, I haven't even revised or anything.

~ Indigo

February 17, 2012 - Pet Peeves

Write a poem about one or two of your pet peeves.

Please work my stupid pen
I don't see why you're broken.
I scribble and scrabble
And my hand cramps away,
But this very pen I write with
Goes out with no delay

-Emma

February 16, 2012 - Look At The Sky, What Do You See?

Take a look at the sky at any time of day. Write about the meaning you see in it as it changes in front of you.

The sun
Its set the clouds on fire
They are alight
With reds
Oranges
Yellows
Dark blue sky
Creeping up behind
Large cotton clouds full of snow
Seek to block out the scene
As if to break a promise
The promise of tomorrow
Hiding the moon
Hiding the stars
And we wait
In the cold and dark
Hoping that tomorrow comes
But for now
We enjoy the end of today

-- Meg

Dimensional Dilemma

A dimensional vortex has just opened up in your home. It takes you to an alternate reality, where only one single detail is different. What is that detail? How severe of an impact does it have on your day/your life?

Example:

I woke up this morning, feeling stiffer than usual. There’s slight pain in my back, near the top. I stretch and try to limber up, but to no avail. There’s something wrong with my back. I get ready to go, all the while wondering what I did to deserve such punishment from my back. It doesn’t even hurt that bad, it just won’t go away. It’s frustrating.

I get to work, and everyone’s looking at me like I’m crazy. Coworkers, managers, even customers seem to think there’s something wrong with me – but I have no idea what. Even as I’m assisting elderly ladies, it seems like they’ve got some sort of grudge against me for oddities that they don’t even know I’ve done.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, I go hide out in the men’s room. I splash some water in my face, and look in the mirror. I somehow had a hanger in the back of my shirt all day. Oh. That's all that was different?


-- Aaron

Feb "14th" - Page Twenty- Two

Page Twenty-Two; Turn in a book of your choice to page twenty-two choose a line about half-way down the page and write a poem from the first four words of that line. Ensure that the first four words are the first "line" of you poem.


His eyes grow wide,
As I tell him the news,
His arms hang at his side,
Like they have suddenly been weighted.

A world on his shoulders,
Crushing down his spirit,
Thoughts rolling like boulders,
Ready to crush anything in sight.

My heart sinks,
Tear rolls down my cheek,
My stomach in kinks,
This is the end.

His eyes grow wide,
And I drown,
In the dark water I hide,
There is no way to rewind.

~Alice

Monday, February 13th - Fantasy Self Interview

Write an interview between your real/current self and your ideal/fantasy self.

RS: Hello, Indigo. Thank you for coming in to speak with me today.

FS: Hi. Thanks for having me.

RS: So let's get right to it, shall we? You've been causing quite a ruckus lately haven't you?

FS: Well yes, I have been told that. I've barely noticed with all that's been going on. But of course I'm still very grateful to everyone who's been helping me, and showing me support.

RS: Yes, well let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

FS: Sorry.

RS: That's right, you are. Now it all started with this book your wrote, didn't it? Tell us a bit about that.

FS: Well it was a bit of a surprise for me actually. Writing a book was something I had always wanted to do, and I had all of these ideas but it seemed like I could never make anything work. But this came along and it actually all fell into place quite nicely.

RS: And what is it called?

FS: It's called "One Litre of Life."

RS: And what is that? What does that mean?

FS: Well it's kind of nonsense, clearly, because you can never really objectively measure someone's life. But I wanted to share some personal things in this book, and I knew that no matter how many words or pages or chapters or whatever I wrote, I could never convey the full experience of my life to anyone else. You know? Even my mother or my sister or something, even they have not seen every little thing, they haven't experienced it as I have. So I just came up with some obscure value to represent the amount of my life I would share with others. And that was it.

RS: And you've made some money off this haven't you?

FS: Well more than I thought I would, certainly. But I'm not going to be competing with Harry Potter in this lifetime.

RS: And after that you've done a couple other things, what was next?

FS: I've always loved music, and I've always kind of harboured this secret desire to be a singer. But I was never very good. But once I had the opportunity I was like "Well what the hell, lots of famous people aren't that great" so I got some people together and we made an album.

RS: And you named the band after a song by someone else, didn't you?

FS: Yes, "Gunning Down Romance." It's a Savage Garden song.

RS: It's not a very cheerful song, is it?

FS: No, not really. But neither is the stuff I write, generally.

RS: And the album has actually led to something else, even.

FS: Yes. Well, it's called Me My Misery and I think it kind of stuck out to some people because they were like "Hey... this person wrote a book I read. It has some of the same stuff as the book, that's neat." and then a few people started to kind of look into me as a person a bit more. And that's how it came to light that for a while I had wanted to make video games, and that I had all these unused ideas sitting around. So someone who actually read one of my books contacted me and was like "Hey, let's hear one of these ideas." And we talked for a while and in the end we decided to make it. And they're actually going to make a few more, a whole series. But I'm not supposed to tell you that.

RS: I promise to tell no one but the editor and every single member of the public who reads this. But we're almost out of time so why don't you just give us a short summary of anything else going on?

FS: Well, it's hard finding the time but I'm currently working on a trilogy of fantasy novels, and GDR is working on our second album too. I found my soul mate and we got married and we're about to adopt our third child. We have three dogs, all rescued from shelters, and have adopted a total of 20 other animals to donate to other families. We live in a big mansion with all our best friends and we eat potato wedges every week.

RS: Fantastic. Thank you for all of that.

~ Indigo

Heads Your Blind, Tails You Deaf

The soft of the pillow, the rough of the concert
The damp of the ground, the dry of the wind
The quiet of the birds, the loud of the street

Is all ignored by most.
Only seldom do they stop to the notice
The miniscule beauties in the world.
Those tiny beauties are my everyday securities.

They are all I know
They are not to be covered up
By the brightness of the light
Or the absence of it either.

I do not see my self as incapable
But as having an advantage.
As instead of knowing people by one
I know them by many.

By their voice,
Their steps, their breath,
Their skin, their shape.

Not by hair colour
Or cloths,
Neither by their face,
But by their soul

I am not blinded by the light.

-Emma

February 9th, 2012 - Open World

You are the Main Character in an open world game. It could be real or it could be a game you with were real. Keeping it simple, write something about the day to day activities of this Character you are playing. A name for the Character is optional.



Dirt block make up your home
Wodden furnature and stone floors
Hearing the animals outside
While making a bed to pass the night
Looking for coal to fuel the furnace
Finally making lights to chase the dark
Iron for making tools
Leather for clothes
No gold to make things shine
Always searching for diamonds
Something to make life easier
Now the monsters join the animals
A long night is to come...

But that is the life of a
Minecrafter



-- Meg

Febraury 8th, 2012 - Creation Correlation

Pretend there is another you. An evil you. A parallel you. This person has the opposite political opinions, the opposite religious beliefs, and is the all-encompassing definition of anti-you.

Now write something with that horrible person as the protagonist.

Example:
Rodney set out that day, with a book under his arm. It was a vaguely titled book. What was in it?
Who knows?
Who cares?

He set about his task: Insulting others, blasting their opinions, and jumping over tables to punch them when they disagreed. No one cared what was in the book. I only got a quick glimpse of it. Title had the word "Aliens" in it. Do I need to say more?

A man of few ideas, and much anger, Rodney was. He spent his days fighting and arguing with others who wouldn't share his views. He went home after the most recent expedition into the ridiculousness known as society and cried to his wife. Why wouldn't they listen?

Now the aliens were upon us, and he had managed to train no one to fight them.
This narrow-minded, arrogant shmuck is humanity's last hope.
God speed, you stupid bastard.


-- Aaron

February 7th, 2012 - Simon Says

Simon says- Write a paragraph describing your most prized possession, but don't tell us what it is and use at least three literary devices. ( http://literary-devices.com/frontpage?page=1 ; if you need some inspiration)




Sometimes good things don't come from the store. They come without ribbons. They come without tags. They come without packages, boxes or bags. But as you get older the meaningful gifts seem to get lost, and you're left with a card with a cheesy saying, and some bad tasting chocolate. When I was younger, I received a gift; a token of friendship. To this day it still hangs on my dresser, but when I need the extra luck, I'll slip it in my purse; the little side pocket in the front and bring it with me. It's been to some of my exams and my job interview, it may seem childish but I believe that it brings me luck. It's my lucky rabbits foot, or my Buddha's belly; rub the belly and make a wish, and it shall come true. Sometimes we cherish things of little value, but thank you to my special friend for a gift that I shall always cherish.


~ Alice

[Submission] Monday, February 6, 2012 Heads You're Blind, Tails You're Deaf

I am deaf
The screams are gone
I watch them come
But the sound is no more
My own silent horror
Playing slowly before my eyes

Will the end come?

They don't tell me
But then again...

How would I know...
When I can't hear myself scream?



-- Meg

Monday, February 6th - Heads You're Blind, Tails You're Deaf

Flip a coin. If it is heads, start your piece with the words "I am blind". If tails, begin with the words "I am deaf"


I am blind sometimes, to what's before my eyes
I am selfish, and starved for attention
I am cruel, and I am kind, and I cannot make up my mind
Where to hide from the sights before my eyes

I am oblivious to the sound of the rain
To a love song that I know all of the words to
The sun touches my skin like it's afraid of getting burned
A lesson learned, I am sure, from my friends

I am a hundred different people in a day
But the world around me sees only one
Never the same between two different sets of eyes
Never the same between two moments

The spring and the autumn come and go and they please
But the winter holds its ground throughout the year
The summer always seems like an old lover's dream
A paradise of youth and subtle regret

If I were a tree, then the changing of my leaves
Would be a wonder for the world to behold
My colours shift in secret far away from ashen eyes
As the seasons march along in a broken line

If I were a flower that bloomed in the midnight hour
Underneath a spotted cape of cold and fire
The blind eye hanging high above this foolish lonely sigh
Would be the only one to see my petals wilt
Would be the only one to see my colors fade
Would be the ony one to see me
For what I am

~ Indigo