September 12, 2014

   Depths

Everyone always says not to make homes

out of people

especially not boys with crooked smiles

who's calloused hands can so easily repair your splintered bones

but how could they blame me

when they do not know that your eyes

held an ocean so blue that sirens swam in their depths

and lured me into you so easily

that I forgot that there was a world

outside of the waves we floated in.

the water against our skin like blankets keeping me warm

made it that much easier to take your hand 

and swim further into you

the days and the nights fell into one as the depths of your ocean 

made the sun only a shimmer above our heads

like magic

and I swear I could've stayed down there forever,

but your water grew rough

and the tides became harsh 

and I know you never meant to take me down with you

but the currents fueled by your sadness clawed into our skin

and clung to me,

as they pulled us further into the black

and you clung to me too

with your lips to mine as we used our last breaths to whisper

I love you

and 

mine

and

stay with me

and the moment my eyes could no longer see

the  sapphire of yours,

clouded by

the darkness surrounding us,

was the moment I knew I had waded too deep,

and I suppose

I drowned in you.

~~~~

     The past two weeks I've been writing a lot. I have about ten poems written for my twenty percent project. My biggest issue as of lately is trying to find a way to tie everything all together. While all of the poems have the same central theme, I really want to find a way to either break the book into sections, or add short stories in between a few poems, to make it all more harmonious.
     What I think I really want to do it add short stories in between every five poems, resulting in probably four stories. I want them to kind of develop the readers understanding of why I am writing certain things. I don't really want it to be autobiographical though, and while I will base it around my experiences, I don't think it will be my life story being told.
     I'm also not sure if that makes sense, but I don't know how else to describe what I'm thinking. I'm also not sure if this is what I really want to do, or if I will come up with another way to break up the poems sometime soon.
     Other than this issue, writing has been going fairly smooth. I got a lot of really good feedback during the roundtable, and I've been taking a lot of it into consideration, by really working on my rhythm and structure of some of my writing.
     I've also been brainstorming ideas for a book title. That's always been an issue of mine, naming things. I've got a list so far of possible candidates, but at this point I think it will have to wait until I've gotten more written.
---Abbey Nichole

August 29, 2014

 My Body is the House I Can't Stop Setting on Fire

My mother used to tell me that my body 

is a temple

with stained glass and high ceilings and the songs of angels inside,

but it took me sixteen years to realize

that she mistook the flames in my eyes for sunlit windows

and my broken screaming for song.

My bones creak like wooden floors

beneath the weight of my heavy skin

with every step I take,

I have poured so much kerosene into my blood

that it pumps through my veins

and swallowing kindling before the matches

is just an extra precaution

that I am willing to take,
because this house I grew up in

has never felt like home

and I have always been a stranger in my own halls.

I've been growing up alongside my ghosts in this body

doing my best to fend off the darkness that surrounds them

and consumes me

but the nightlight in my room does not keep them away.

 I've found it easier to breathe smoke through my lungs

and let my rotting walls go up in flames 

because the fire shooting through this house 

burns bright enough to be reflected in 

the tinted windows of my eyes

and setting my ghosts on fire is so much easier

than living among them.

 ~~~~

     So as of Wednesday of last week, I have completely scrapped the two and a half chapters of the book I was writing. I got completely stuck and had the worst writers block I've ever gotten, so even though I because extremely attached to the characters and the setting, I decided to change my project because I couldn't find a way around the various plot holes.
      Now, I've decided to do a poetry collection, like I had expected I would do at the beginning of this course. Three weeks into the nine weeks, I've already written many poems surrounding this topic, so I'm already a good chunk into the twenty or so poems I'd like to have in my completed work.
      The collection will be centered around the theme of home. Due to moving around a lot, facing depression and body image issues, and letting various people call themselves my home, this topic has always been one I tend to avoid. Lately however, I've been more and more willing to write about it. One of my good friends once told me that the things that hurt were the things I wrote best about, and I'm trying to take her advice.
      I know that this project will be much easier for me to complete, due to the fact that I'm constantly writing poems.
---Abbey Nichole

August 22, 2014

When I was seven my brother threw me in the pool down the road from our house; I couldn't swim. I don't remember much from that day, don't remember why he threw me in or who got me out, but I remember the sinking feeling. The thickness surrounding me, pulling me further under, weighing me under. I had felt more helpless under the water than I ever had, and for a seven year old who already felt helpless a majority of the time that terrified me. I remember being so afraid that I didn't thrash or kick or try to save myself, I just let the overbearing pressure take me under. I never liked swimming after that, even after I learned, because I never wanted to feel that weight on me again.

      Standing here though, in my backyard with my arms around this shaking girl I swear love, I feel the heaviness creeping back. 

*

     I've gotten a good chunk of my first chapter written at this point. The excerpt above is actually the opening of my novel. The first chapter is from Greyson's point of view, who I'm slowly becoming attached to as a character. I've never really written much from the perspective of a boy, and I think that while I struggle at some points, I'm doing okay with it at this point. I'm really trying my hardest to tie in my writing style I have developed in my poetry to my writing as a novelist. It's going well so far I think.
     At this point in the book I'm really just introducing the characters, who have finally been named. Campbell Tate is one half of my main characters, and she hasn't been developed greatly yet. I think that will come when I get into the second chapter and can write from her point of view. Greyson (Grey) Miller is the quirky teenage boy that Campbell intrigues. So far, you really get a look into his thoughts on school, and his friends, and Campbell, but being as it's the first chapter I haven't developed him much either.
     I've been very disorganized lately as to where I write this book, flipping back and forth between writing14f and word and even in my journal, that while I have a lot of the first chapter completed, I really need to put it all in one single space. That's what I'll be working on this weekend, and also trying to finish up the first chapter so I can get past the second chapter.
     In my experience writing things more than just a few stanzas long, it always takes me longer to crank out the first few chapters, but when I really get going I can write quickly. I'm hoping that by the third or fourth chapter I hit my stride and can really get invested in this plot.
     That's really all I can say about my novel so far, and I hope to get more done faster than I have this last week.
--Abbey Nichole

20% Project

     To start this blog off, I'm going to explain what I have chosen as my twenty percent project. For this assignment I really wanted to venture out of what I normally write (read: poetry), and try something a little out of my comfort zone. I'm going to be writing a novel, or at least attempting to. I haven't really decided on a title, but most of the time those come to me during the writing process. The plot is going to center around a long distance relationship over the course of a year. The chapters will be alternating perspectives of the main characters, and I will hopefully get at least one chapter written a week. If I write a chapter a week I will hopefully have about half of the novel written by the end of this nine weeks.
     This past week I have really organized my thoughts and how I want this book to play out. As I said, the book will go through a year of their relationship, and will look into the hardships that normal relationships face, as well as new ones that come up due to their distance. In this post I don't really want to go into specifics of the plot outline because I really want to explain it as a write it, so there will be more in depth explanations in later post, so bear with me for the time being.
      In other news, Maggie, my older sister currently in school for psychology, will be reading and commenting on my posts. She is about to be twenty one and she lives in Boston at this point in time. Both my sisters and I are very close, and she is one of the few people in my house who has read anything I've written, so it was an easy decision to ask her if she'd mind doing this for me.
Honestly I'm not sure what else I should put in this first blog.
--Abbey Nichole