My nightly haiku.

Creativity,
Peeks through the velvet curtain,
Of the ink black night.

My Twenty-First Birthday.

Yesterday was my Twenty-First Birthday and I spent it with my family and pal Stephanie. Well, mostly with Stephanie. She came over after classes and gave me two awesome books and two squishy swords which led to many epic duels; and will certainly lead to more. She also gave me a witty card which, for my ego’s sake, will not be written about here.

Later we went to Kelly O’Bryan’s for dinner with my family and I feel as if I ate my weight in pachos (they are like French fries covered in cheese and light spice with a honey mustard style dip on the side; they are amazing).  My uncle stopped by while we were eating and had a beer and gave me a warm woollen vest then he left.  Then we went home and they all sang me “Happy Birthday” and I was happy and blew out my candles.  Then we ate the yummy cake.  Then Stephanie and I did more of what we do. It was a great birthday.

Plasticine puppets.

I have just come home from my Intermediate Creative Writing class and would like to share what I wrote in it. Our assignment was create a little plasticine puppet, then to write a short narration, dialogue, or monologue for them. We had fifteen minutes to write and, using an old idea of mine for a short story, I came up with this:

Calico Gray used to stand at the centre of the room. His whole childhood he was told how talented he was; how great he will one day be. This made him believe in himself, but also made him lazy. He found his passion in piano and took lessons for a few years then quit because he lost respect for his teacher. With “genius” being the word he most attributed to himself, he set out upon the world… for a few days. Actually, he only got one audition for a fine musical college, but decided he probably wouldn’t learn anything there anyway so he did not show. For the next ten years, Calico would sometimes play piano at the local cafe. His main occupation was talk. He would talk about how amazing the piece he is composing will be, how he will be the worlds best pianist. However, he let dust decorate his keys and left his notebook blank. One night Calico passed out, drunken, in a snow storm. Someone found him and took him inside, but it was too late for his fingers. Now Calico sits in the corner sipping his soup through a straw, wishing he could play piano.

We then had to perform our writings for the class of fourteen people. Jake, our professor, had turned out all the lights and we took turns sitting beneath a single lamp that illuminated only a few feet of the room. It was wonderful!

Reviews and analysis leech my energy.

Yesterday I wrote an entry about a book which I had recently finished reading. I wrote it in a rush, not really thinking about what I was writing. The entry turned into part synopsis, part opinion, but accomplished neither well. This has reminded me of how much I despise writing reviews.

Reviews and analysis leech my energy. In fact, there is rarely a more striking time when I see how much of a creative writer I am. I will tell you that I do love analysing and critiquing, it is just the manner in which I do it that matters. I prefer conversation, where ideas flow organically so I am not bound to a word on a page. Conversation often has me thinking in ways I may not have otherwise, and has sometimes led me to totally change my opinion; which is something incredible if you know how stubborn I can be. So, I rarely bother writing in such ways.

I will have to think of some format in which I can share my opinions on books, films, music(s), because sometimes I feel as if I must communicate how much I love or hate something.

New Year’s Eve in New Orleans

Last night was my favourite New Year’s Eve since 1999. I was going to write up a short summary of the night until I noticed that my guest, Stephanie (not to be confused with my sister Stephanie whom was also there), has already written an entry on it. So I shall link to her entry here and post a picture instead.

From left to right: Stephanie, Me, Stephanie (my sister), and Emily.

Happy New Year!

I cannot promise anything, as I have found life too distracting to blog sometimes, but I will say that over the next year I do intend to write more.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful night; I sure did!

Merry Christmas!

Dear readers,

I hope that you are all having, or have had, a wonderful Christmas! This year’s has been one of my favourites, particularly because I have been home all day; the first Christmas I have ever done so. My family and I slept in, then we took our time opening presents and having mom’s delicious wifesaver for breakfast — our Christmas morning tradition. For the rest of the day we enjoyed our presents and played games. I gave dad Wii Sports Resort and it has been a big hit so far; I am the champion archer of our family, apparently! Then came a large turkey dinner, which mom also made and was equally as wonderful as breakfast. Now we are watching It’s a Wonderful Life in the living room with a fire in the fireplace and the christmas tree sparkling. Anyway, enough writing — a new entry soon, I promise!

Life update; December 15 2009.

Who knew I could get so busy? I have been itching to post here, but have either found no time to do so, or have been too tired to post anything worth reading. I guess this is nothing worth reading, but It does serve the purpose of letting you all know that an entry or two is on its way.

Also, my story is progressing yet I have not begun truly writing it! I keep coming up with ideas and if I do not begin this story soon, I may have a whole novel plotted out! Is this a good or bad thing? I don’t know.

Finally, I have changed my banner to celebrate the season. The photograph is of my dog Scout (above ‘Merry’) and me. It was taken whilst Christmas tree hunting last weekend. I will upload the whole roll of photographs and write an entry on it soon!

Story Update; December 4 2009.

My story planning is coming along nicely. I have a good grasp on the theme, plot, setting, and characters. I even have a title, but that will not be revealed until the story is finished in case a superior title comes to me during the writing. Now to begin the first draft!

Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Dad!

Today was my dad’s fiftieth birthday.  The day turned out to be remarkably busy, so I will only mention my favourite moment: present opening.

For as long as I can remember, Dad has told me stories.  Often they were stories of his own past or stories of someone he knows.  However, the stories he told the most were those he had read or made up himself.  My favourite one to hear was that of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures with the dwarves and the wizard, Gandalf; this was Dad’s re-telling of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (and sometimes The Lord of the Rings).  From the time I was two and a half years old until the ago of ten, Dad and I used to take walks around our mountain to a place we named The Valley of the Rabbits because the adorable little creatures were everywhere we looked.  I was so enamoured by the stories of Middle-Earth that I named a large rabbit ‘Bilbo Baggins’ on one of our first walks, and I still can visit his hole until this day; though I have obviously not seen him in a very long time.  When I knew that Dad’s fiftieth birthday was approaching, I tried to think of something that would mean a lot to him.  I already own The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so there would be no point in buying him those, yet I remembered that decades ago he read Tolkien’s collection of tales that further the mythology of Middle-Earth, The Silmarillion.  So, I spent a while hunting the book down and found a beautiful hardcover edition with even more content than the original book and fifty (I found the number fitting) glorious illustrations.  He was very touched when he opened the wrapping and saw the book.  Then his emotion turned to excitement to read it.  I love my dad.