Creative Writing

Branches

Author's Note: As I was looking outside today, I realized that summer was approaching.  The trees were full of leaves and that was my inspiration for this piece.  In this piece I used personification,  repetitive patterns, and tried to enhance my vocabulary.

I wonder and wonder thousands of times why I am me and you are you.  My arms branch from my body and it takes me longer to grow, although you are always very tall and full of life; no harsh freeze of winter can stop you.  After staying strong for so long, I break and plummet into my darkest hours.  Sometimes I wish.  I wish for the sun to shine a little brighter to lift my spirits; I wish for my leaves to hang on a little longer to make me look full of life; I wish to for my branches to be a little stronger to hold up the tree house in someone's backyard.  Then I realize I am me and you are you.  Maybe it's better that my leaves fall.  The evergreen needles look better on you anyway.  You are always tall, but I'll catch up to you someday.  Being different from you may just be a beneficial thing.

There's More to It

Author's Note: Our school election is today and now I have some time to reflect.  I want people to keep this in mind when they vote today.  I know this isn't an essay or a perfectly well-done report and that's okay.  All I wanted to do was get my thoughts out.  No matter who you vote for, I hope you think of this.

Today is the day, the biggest day that will determine my path for the next year.  Election day.  I know that those who aren't running for a position, but just voting, are probably thinking that we are just making a big deal out of everything.  The truth is that they are the ones starting up all the drama.  This election is sadly a popularity contest, but to those who vote honestly for the people who deserve it, I thank you.  I thank you for being the bigger person and not giving in to rest of the students' choice of how this election should go.  Some of us have given every ounce of effort.  Some of us believe that there is more to it than the number of people that vote for you.  I have given every ounce of effort.  I believe that there is more to it than the number of people that vote you.  I'm not saying that you shouldn't vote for me.  I'm just saying that you shouldn't vote for me if I'm not worthy of the position, although I believe that I am.  Do you?

Midnight Flight

 Author's Note: I haven't written anything in awhile, so I thought I would write a little bit about my spring break.  In this piece I tried to use alliteration and similes.  I chose specific words to help create a picture.

Sitting in the row of connected chairs with my ear buds blocking the noise, I stare out side a window.  The sun sets at a noticeable pace.  The spring sky is a chameleon and brightens to a fiery amber that blends into the sun, and from there it is ruby that extinguishes -- the embers turn deep indigo.  The moon and the sun trade places like an English line dance. 

We board the sky plane, that shoots off into the distance.  As we leave the ground and enter the atmosphere, I leave the city behind and all I can see is little specks of light. When we're in the sky, I see the stars bigger and brighter.  I'm on the cusp of reality.  It's like flying through a fantasy.  I wonder what stars are: a ball of fire, a deceased person represented, a dream that every child is dreaming as the night continues. 

I guess when you are miles of the ground soaring above the houses where everyone is in a peaceful rest, anything can happen.

Unusual Beings

Author's Note: This piece was a short story about a winter scene.  In this piece I tried to focus mainly on using alliteration, personification, and repeating words and using "and" to add effect.

All was still, all was quiet.  Wind rustled the trees and swept snowflakes off the branches.  The ice flowers trickled to the cold frozen floor.  A breeze blew them into a nice pile -- where the began to stack up and up and up.  Again the frost started to move and brush through the streets .  As it rolled across the pavement, it picked up loose objects: bottle caps, straws, plastic bags.  Once again, the wind picked up and it fashioned the pile of garbage into a recycled snowman.  With it's bottle cap buttons, a plastic hat, and straw arms, it bounded down the street.   Every time he saw a pedestrian, he stopped and waited, but the noon star was rising and beads of sweat dripped down his forehead.  He leaped and vaulted and jump and fell.  Sprawled across the grass, he tried to put himself together; before he could, his legs were gone.  Horror dawned on him and reflected in his darkened eyes.  His shrieks were unheard.  Silence.  The sky brightened and tears flowed from him like waterfalls and the slowly stopped and the ground swallowed them up like rain in a desert.  Snowman wondered and wondered if he would ever be back one day.

Discoveries in Waiting

Author's Note: I went to the prairie a week ago, but this time a tree grew up and out of the bench we were sitting on.  That gave me the idea for this piece.  In this little, I tried to use imagery to help picture the setting and alliteration.  Along with that, I tried to vary the lengths of my sentences.

We both sat in the gazebo like structure; it had no roof, but with the autumn time so beautiful, why would we want to conceal ourselves?    I never dreamed of leaving. At the wonderful foliage that sprinkled on top of us like glitter making the world dazzle giving off stardust to the galaxy, we both smiled. This sanctuary that we created was just too special, magical even.  In that moment, the ground shifted beneath our feet, revealing a hole in the gazebo where a truck shot up from the center; the branches were fingers clawing at the clouds.  We stared in awe -- jaws dropped and eyes wide open.  Twisting, expanding, stretching, it stopped. A door with leafy vines that intertwined securing it to a small shelter sat in the top of the oak tree.  What's life without a little adventure?

The Fearless Life

Author's Note: The other day I went to my friend's dance class with her.  I was kind of nervous in the beginning, because I'm not the person to breakout and start dancing.  I just wanted to try something new, and I'm glad I did.  In this piece I will try to use syntactic devices, such as repetitive ending and initial patterns, and parallel patterns, to make the piece flow, like a dance.

One, two, three, up, up, down, left foot over, turn, up, up, down.  Questions?  No?  Okay, let's go.  I watched the two groups in front of me glide across the floor, focusing on every step.   Now you.  The dance teacher pointed to my friend who has been dancing all her life.  That was our cue.  Raising my left arm, the pattern played itself repeatedly through the my mind, like the contemporary music in the boom box behind me.  Barely in time, I made it through.  It was the start of memory that I will keep forever.

Nothing that we did at the dance studio was in my comfort zone.  That didn't stop me.   I have no problem with trying new things, that is if I have time to.  When my friend asked me if I wanted to go to dance class with her, I took that chance; I didn't know when or if I would ever have this opportunity again.  Life is full of decisions, full of terror, and full of opportunities.  You can't let the terror effect the decision to grasp the opportunity.  Like your first time on a rollercoaster, you can't back down because of the things you've heard, or the size, just think about what you might get out of the situation.

Optimistic as always, graceful as ever, ready as usual -- I went for it.  No traffic light, no tornado, no terrible disaster was to stop me;  I was the only one to stop me.  When I am so close to a chance that its within reach, I cannot cease.  I was uncontainable.  A flame in a desert I was.  Like that burst of fire, I grew and grew and became brighter and brighter.  Brilliance.  You never know how great something can be unless you try.

Thank you friends and dancers for coming tonight!  We all bowed towards the dance instructor and casually fled the room.  I realized something that very second.  You can do anything you put your mind to, because you are the author to your own life's story.  That day, I acknowledged that if could dance in front of a class of experienced dancers without any regrets, I could do anything, anywhere, anytime.  When you have nothing to fear and nothing to doubt you can soar.  You can soar higher than any of the stars in the sky.  All you need is a little confidence, and when you try something new you gain a bit a more.

Who knew that you could learn more than just dancing at a dance class?  I didn't until that day.  In that one hour of grace, I stepped out side of the shadow I was hiding in, gained the confidence I didn't have, and discovered that there are no limits in life.  Dancing into the person that I could be is what I did.  Life is a highway -- limitless, free, and momentary.  You can't waste it. 

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." - Maria Robinson

The Forest

Author's Note: Yesterday I went out into the prairie to write, again.  This time I sat in the grass to really take in the scene.  In this piece, I worked on my hyperboles, personification, and metaphors.

Emerald to dandelion to amber to scarlet.  The leaves trap me in their circular motion.  I stand with my arms outstretched as if I am about to give a hug.  Families of evergreens and maples surround me, an army of faithful soldiers.  They protect me from any harm that threatens my home, the forest.  Wind passes by like a thousand bullets that nearly missed as the earth slides beneath my bare feet.  Foliage crinkles at every touch. My knees sink to the ground giving me a few extra scratches but I don't mind.  I long for moments like these.  I dream life as peaceful as this.  I know this land where I lay, I sleep.  It's mine.

In the Prairie

Author's Note:  Yesterday I went out into the prairie to write.  This piece is basically explaining what it felt like to be out there with a little bit of fiction.  In this little writing piece, I tried to use metaphors, repetitive initial patterns, and personification.

Lying in a prairie, tufts of straw and leaf tickle my hands as I stroke the delicate plant with my fingertips.  I can hear the insects joyfully sing in the flower buds.  Irises I think.  The breeze swirls around me, trying to figure out what direction to go in.  Tall grasses make a path almost inviting me to join them.  That can't be true.  I don't belong anywhere -- anywhere but here.  My destiny and future leads me here.  Where the sun shines with happiness, where the wind makes the meadows ripple like waves on the ocean's shore, where the trees shuffle their roots in the soil like nervous kindergartners on their first day of school.  Then, I realize, where I am is where I belong.  So I will stay.  Here.  Forever.

Airplanes

Author's Note:  I wrote this while I was in an airplane soaring through the clouds.  All this piece is about is basically a shorter version of my four hour experience.  I couldn't decide if I wanted a narrative or a poem, so this is my middle ground.

Five minutes, we're running towards the gangway; my little sister starts to argue and complain.  My mom picks her up and tells her that we're going on a vacation, hoping to cheer her up.  Three minutes, we are all scanning in at the desks and going up the isle.  Two minutes, we're sitting and staring at the runway anxious to go.  One minute, wheels roll across the pavement as we build momentum.  We are off into the sky.  I turn to my right and see a layer of cotton balls that line blotches of green and brown.

s l o w l y  then faster FASTER,

  p             sky

u   into the         Stopped,

we are still but     o    i    g,

                  m   v   n

hours of relaxation.

Five minutes in Wisconsin, hours in the atmosphere, and now in California.