and so I write

Hanging out at the Surrey International Writers' Conference this past weekend gave me a lot to think about. I was a volunteer most of the time and an attendee for one day so I got to see a lot and meet a ton of different people. I loved it. Spending time with a hotel of writers is something every writer should do if they get the chance.

There's a weird connection there, like a unity where you feel with everyone else. You belong. You all have something in common. It's comforting.

For a second it felt like everyone in the world was a writer. Like everyone looks at the world and how absurd it is and notes the unique things about people. Like everyone feels a desperate need to scrawl themselves down on napkins and notebooks, just to get across that vital message we all need to share.

But when you're at a writers' conference, you have a skewed perspective.

I spent a lot of time on the bus, going back and forth from home to hotel and back. That's a lot of time for staring out the window and thinking. Thinking about writers and why there aren't more people who look critically at the world and choose to dutifully (and hopefully honestly) pen it down. Thinking about why I write.
Big question. Why do I [need to] write?

It's not that I'm an overly creative person. I don't have ultra unique ideas that pop into my head out of nowhere. I'm sure most of my stories come from pieces of everywhere I look--books, movies, friends, family. But I still need to tell them. Why?

I don't know how this will sound to you exactly but my life isn't that exciting. I mean, it is but it isn't. And I love it. I love my life, how a spend my time, the contentedness I have. I have things to look forward to. There's always something exciting to blog about. But it's not Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, dancing like there's no one else in the room. It's not Joe and Lennie, drinking wine on the porch and making the whole world explode. It's not Katsa finding an almost equal fighting partner in Po. It's just this. And this is great and I'm so grateful to have this but it's not that, you know?

And so I write. I write because I'm a hopeless romantic and I daydream, okay? I imagine boys who talk about more than who is the "fucking hottest girl in [their] grade." I imagine teenagers not being afraid to talk to each other, not stuck in their timid shells. I imagine romance and witty things to say and so much more than probably exists in reality.

Because reality isn't always enough.

Lack of costume

I've dressed up in a lot of great costumes in all my sixteen years.

There was that time my whole family recreated The Wizard of Oz (I was Dorothy, of course). Or that other time when I was Little Red Riding Hood with that awesome cape. I've been a fairy, an angel, a princess. I don't think I've ever been a witch, vampire, ghost or anything else that is considered scary. No, I prefer the pretty costumes that involve dresses, flouncy if possible, and a touch of hairspray.

But this year, I have no ideas. Nothing at all. Obviously I have some check points, otherwise I could just dress up as a zombie and be done with it. What do I want in a costume? I will tell you.

1. There must be a dress.
2. It must involve wearing high heels.
3. It must be pretty (hence the 'no zombies' rule).
4. It must not be ridiculously overdone.
5. If possible, it should be nerdy.

So tell me, what are my options?

White Cat (review)

I've been posting quite a bit of my writing lately (other than that post about my mother's habit for bringing random furniture into our home) so, to switch it up, I'm going to post a review today. I read White Cat by Holly Black a week or two ago and really enjoyed it. It kind of reminded me of Graceling and Inception, both of which I enjoyed. Brief overview? Okay:

Cassel (I say it Cuh-sel whereas my sisters pronounce it like castle) lives in an alternate reality that is mostly like ours only there are supernaturally gifted people walking around who are referred to as 'curse workers'.* These people range from luck workers to physical workers to memory workers and everything in between. Cassel's entire family are workers. All except for him.

All his life, he's been attempting to be normal. He goes to boarding school and had a girlfriend (who he apparently wasn't a good enough conman to keep) and a reputation as the school bookie. Then one night he wakes up after a dream in which a cat stole his tongue and he is on top of his dorm building in his boxers. The school thinks he was trying to kill himself and so they suspend him. Because of this, he has to go stay with his grandfather and clean out his parent's house because it's a mess (his dad is dead and his mom's in jail). The novel goes from there.

It was kind of a mystery, contemporary only alternate reality and the blurbs on the back said romance but that was just one big disappointment. I liked Cassel. He had some problems (trust issues, mostly) but he evolved a bit and he was charming and entertaining. The were some seemingly random plot threads (what was with the girlfriend bit?) but the characters were endearing (and frightening) and it was a pretty good book. I liked the writing. At the end, though, I felt like something was missing, like it wasn't finished or something. I can't describe it exactly but it felt wrong. It was completely captivating and I recommend it if you're wanting to stay up until 1am reading. If not, try The Bell Jar. That's pretty good, too.

*See the Graceling similarity? That's basically the only one.

morning

part I
I shut my door to the light and crawl back to my soft single bed. My hand over my ear, I press my head into the pillow because if my head is lodged deep in my mattress, maybe I won't be able to hear anything except the blood pumping through the palm of my hand. If I can't hear them, they don't exist.

My mind struggles for darkness, a sleep that will not come because, once awake in the morning, I can never fall back to sleep. Stubborn, I try harder, counting backwards from one thousand in my head, as if the numbers could erase this indecent attempt at morning.

If I could fall asleep, I could wake up again. The sun could crack through my blinds like a hesitant child. My eyelashes could part, revealing the room, blurry and unformed with no glasses for aid. I could glance at my watch and smile because nothing worth crying over had happened yet today. I could reach for my glasses as my feet hit the floor and stumble to the window as I fit them onto my face. My fingers could part the crack between the blinds farther, my eye fitted to that opening like it belonged there. Like it belongs anywhere. I could smile at the rain and turn to reach for the door.
To reach for breakfast.
To reach for the day.
To reach for infinity.

But I don't get a do over. There's only one chance to wake up on the right side of the bed. It's gone.


part II
You walk in, a towel draped around your body. You're dripping with cleanliness and a sense of freshness. I ask if I should leave. You respond with indifference. I turn away to grant you the small amount of privacy that I can give.

I keep writing, my words scrawling out on the page like baby sea turtles dashing for the ocean, desperate and awkward. My hands is cramping. I ignore it. I'm good at that.

Light fades into the room, like it's the end of the movie. I can never escape that ever present light for long. I can imagine your fingers twisting and twirling the plastic wand to restore the sun's reign to this room.

What if I wanted to go back to sleep, I ask.
Close your eyes, you say softly.

I do. Slowly, savoring every moment of coming darkness, my windshield wiper eyelids close on my portal to this world. Loss of sight does not equate to loss of memory, however. I can still remember this morning. My eyelids cannot erase it. They try.

Then I realize. I don't need to erase it, to start over, start fresh. Escaping this morning would be wrong, a crime. It's tempting but impossible so I reach for that doorknob a second time today, hoping that take two will exceed the first. Not a do over but a glimmer of hope that second tries can work out, too. I grasp the doorknob, turn and pull because I still have ten minutes left of this morning.
Ten minutes that are mine to create.

My Mother's Habits/Being Watched

My mother has some habits. They aren't bad habits, there's no heavy drinking or other potentially harmful things. It's just sometimes these habits can be--what's the word?--annoying.

What I'm trying to get at is her thing about picking stuff up from the side of the road. My mom loves to get furniture from the side of the road. Chairs, futon couches, desks, tables, etc.

Today, she saw a sewing table. At ten o'clock, driving home from a friend's birthday party, we (unknowingly, at the time) went to pick it up. Now, it wasn't far from my house, probably about five houses down, but when my mom drove past our curb and pulled up a few driveways down I was wondering if she had forgotten where we lived. Or maybe she was kidnapping us. Either way, when she told two of us to get out of the car and carry that sewing table home, I was resigned enough to get out of the car, no complaints and no hesitation. Sometimes it's just best to do as your mother bids you.

But that thing was heavy.

Rachel and I awkwardly tried to pick it up and got about twenty feet away, waddling every step. Even with my grocery store muscles, it was a weird thing to carry. No grip, no handles, heavier at one side. We took a break a few driveways from our house until Rachel told me there was someone in the window of the house we loitered in front of, staring at us. Reactively, I whipped around, only to see the dark figure drop back the curtain and step away from the window. But I could still see them. And it was creepy.

"Don't look at them," she said and I turned back to see her in the dark, hypocritically staring at the window.
"Let's go," I said, wanting to get home and out of the view of dark creepy figures.

Our fingers struggling to grip the sides of the table, we waddled away, extremely aware that when I had stopped gazing at the window, the dark silhouette had returned. After every couple steps I asked Rachel if they were still watching. She always answered that yes, yes they were. I tried to move faster, but very conscious of the idiotic manner in which I walked and thinking that the speed probably didn't help. If I were that person in the window, I probably would have stared, too.

Our mom came back and helped us. Luckily, this sped up the pace. Still, there's nothing quite like shuffling down the street in the dark of night like a criminal, carrying a sewing table with a free sign on it so your mother can bring more roadside furniture into your already cramped house.

At least now we have a place for sewing.