From The Belly Of The Cat launch: Nov 3, 2013
Who Am I Supposed To Be?
I’ve been staring at a blank screen for half an hour trying to think of the words that I want to say. They’re all in my head, but none of them are reaching my fingertips. So, this is my makeshift introductory paragraph and hopefully the rest of my thoughts come out. If not, it looks like an early bedtime tonight.
I always thought that after I graduated from University, my life would be mapped out ahead of me. I would be really passionate about something and find a job with ease.
I could not be more wrong.
I look around and everyone seems to know what they want to do. Everyone is passionate about something. Everyone knows what job they want and are well on their way to achieving that goal. Some have the next ten years all planned out; even marriage. Me, I don’t even know what I’m doing…
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Once Upon A Time: 30 Day Creative Writing Challenge
Varken eller
För att kunna stänga
måste det först vara på
eller kanske öppet
eller kanske
varken eller?
T.ex. bara vara.
Bäst att stänga in sig
och fundera vidare.
Skrivpuff: Stänga.
Eclipse
During the innocent childhood years, I was suggested not to eat or drink anything as long as the eclipse lasts. Along with my siblings, I would restrain myself as long as I could from breaking this notion. But I was always the one to restrain myself from believing in these superstitions and thus, I would go and eat something.
dark mole on the sun
shy away from food or drink
I sneak an almond
While mother would have gone to school, my sister would put aside some wheat to be given to the underprivileged as alms, who would come after the eclipse, banging steel utensils asking for some or the other charitable thing.
banging heard
the sun has come free
donate wheat
.
* For Carpe Diem # 311. It is the first anniversary of Carpe Diem. Congratulations to Kristjaan and all the contributors.
Time to Bloom
For all of us, not just this tree, there’s a time to lay low (dormant), and a time to bloom. Perhaps that’s why we really appreciate the first colourful, vibrant buds — a glimpse of nature’s rich palette.
Deconstructing The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Week 6: CHAPTERS VS. STORIES: PART 2
I am pursuing an M.A. in Creative Writing at Ball State University (BSU). This is my first semester at BSU and I have the pleasure of being in Cathy Day’s Fiction: Linked Stories class. Each week one student is responsible for covering the class for the class blog. This week I’m up! You can access our class blog at iamlinking.wordpress.com and follow our progress throughout the semester.
WHAT WE READ FOR CLASS:
Fiction: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Narrative Theory: “What Makes a Short Story Short” by Norman Friedman & “The Nightmare of Resonance: Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried” by James Nagel.
LEARNING ACTIVITY:
This week the class was divided into two groups, and we continued our conversation on the difference between chapters and short stories. Group A’s job was to identify diptychs (complete narratives made up of two stories)…
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Picture it and write: Stacking
Hi there! This is my offering for this week’s picture it and write for Ermilia’s blog here. Once again; the picture is not mine, I only use it for inspiration. Anyway; Enjoy!
Stacking
I barely had time to lift my teacup off the saucer when Kirsty grabbed it from my lap and added to the others that she had grabbed from the rest of us. We all looked at the little six year old as she placed them in order of size on the table and then at her parents. Their eyes were a mixture of concern and resignation. This did not seem in anyway unusual to them.
We were all too much in shock to do anything before Kirsty then started taking the teacups off us, pouring the contents on the floor and stacking them on top of the saucers. At this one of the other guests, a…
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Predatory
I have been trying not to think of you as much as I should. I have been thinking of you all day today as though you were a bite by some dangerous animal. It scared me. I think it showed for my colleagues asked me what the matter was but I decided to just go about as if nothing too uninteresting had ever happened to me. And the ruse played off well for a while so I wasn’t too upset. But sipping my coffee and thinking of you; don’t have the energy to completely swallow it. I know that to you life is going fine. And I’m happy for that. But I don’t understand why you decided to be like this. So spoiled and horribly unsophisticated, and so evilly content in living off from scraps and do anything to get them even when full fruits are around. I realised you were a coward. You wanted things to be easy. You wanted to be manipulatively charming and funny but that’s not you. The you attacks people who are truly happy and content because it gives you satisfaction to see them unhappy. And when they are immune to you or show signs of a craziness more decent than your selfishness you leave. Like some half dead shark eaten by an orca your rotten corpse is somewhere near my memory and the tide brings it up, pulls it back, like a slingshot. But that device is started to wear. It hurt more before to know you survived the roof crashing under and that in the last minute you saw the scar bleached with a narrowness so caustic and anthropophagous that it felt it was going wreck me and rip me. But I realized that though a dead shark’s tooth can still scratch someone I will not be the thorn bird who will be decidely commit emotional suicide thinking of you. Of if I was love with you or not? I know parts of me was in love with the pseudo-comforts of you and that is why it was hard to see the damage. You were gonna stab me in the back but I wrestled that knife away from you and what pained you is that even if you got to me you didn’t fully get to me. I didn’t get stockholm syndrome and it sickens you because that means what you always thought of me came true. The envy you had and the sort of talent you felt I possessed and the naturalness of me in both sun and smoke and daggers and blooms is true. I will always be more beautiful than you.
