Prerecorded; an excerpt

So here is the first part to my NaNo novel Prerecorded.  Tell me what you think!

1.   The Tapes

 

 

“When they come looking for me, and they will, don’t tell them about these.  Please.  They won’t help them find me.  These…are a testament.  They’re special, and if they got out…then nothing would be the same again.

                “So, it’s up to you.  You don’t even have to watch them, really, I guess.  You can throw them away, burn them.  Hide them on a shelf, in a box, if you want.  They’re yours, but they’re private.  They’re…they’re me.  They’re you.  They’re one story.

                “And I need to tell it.”

 

 

The moon looked like a marble, and it shocked Jackson that it could be so big in the sky.  Clouds drifted over it like cigarette smoke, turning grey white, and a halo of light surrounded the moon.

                Jackson leaned on his shovel, the wooden handle dug into the muscles in his arm.  In front of him, the shovels of dirt that Brian was tossing into the air plopped on the pile beside him.  Jackson’s eyes tore from the moon and to the tree where Brian was digging at its roots.  The bark had been marked with a crooked “X” and Jackson still gripped the scrap of paper in his hand with the GPA coordinates on it.  Those had been Brian’s idea.  From when he used to geocache with his dad.  Jackson admitted that he’d hidden the tapes well.

                “OK,” Brian said.  He straightened and dropped his shovel to the ground.  He pressed his hands into the small of his back, and the cracking sounded like crunching fall leaves.  “It’s your turn.”

                Jackson replaced Brain’s position at the base of the tree—the burrow between the roots was too small for two people to dig at a time.  The hole in the ground was almost four feet deep.  They had to be getting close.

                Jackson shoved his shovel in the hard damp dirt and heaved against the weight as he wiggled the scoop free.  Brian fell back onto his back and stared at the sky.

                “Why do you need them anyway?” Brian asked.  Jackson knew he never liked the tapes, but Jackson didn’t either.  They’d just chosen different means of handling it.  Jackson was obsessed.  Brian buried them.

                “To take home,” he said.

                “Don’t bring them back, OK.”

                Jackson glanced up at Brian.  He was staring at the sky, his face in shadows and one cheek reflecting the white light, and Jackson stole one more look at the moon before a rush of navy clouds blocked it from view between the tree branches.  He dug the shovel back into the dirt, and it clanged against a rock, and he moved the shovel to dig around it.

                Jackson and Brian, when the tapes first arrived, had watched them twice.  To make sure each copy was the same.  It’d been like dipping his feet into icy lake water.  His entire body shook watching them a second time.  Since then, he’d seen both sets more than he could keep track of.  Then Brian made him bury them.

                His shovel clanged against the rock again, and he glared down into the dark pit, his back bent from standing above it on the roots of the tree.  His lower back ached from pain and shot tendrils up his spine into his shoulders.  He scraped some of the dirt away with the metal end of the shovel, and the rock began to take the form of a square box.

                When he realized what it was, exhaustion and fear washed over him.  He felt sick and nasueas, and he began to think digging them up wasn’t a good idea, that maybe Brian was right and he should leave them where they are.  He felt like he had just found the remains of an old friend, buried beneath an “X” and a tombstone.  But before he could turn around and pile the dirt back on top of the safe, he threw the shovel away from him and jumped into the pit.  He scraped clumsily aroung the edge of the safe, his feet displacing the mud and dirt and clumps of grass so that whenever he uncovered a corner, the dirt would rebury a side.

                Finally, he found the two handles on either side of the safe, and he lifted it from the surrounding dirt and tucking it under his arm.  Now, Brian was standing above him, his height towering when Jackson looked up at him.  He handed the safe to Brian and pulled himself from the pit, and when Jackson was on his feet, Brian shoved them back into his hands.  “I don’t want them,” Brian snapped.  Jackson glared at him as Brian picked up his shovel and began shoving the dirt back into the hole.

                Jackson sat down in the grass, and breeze rustled the leaves on the ground.  It wasn’t snowing, yet, but now Jackson remembered how cold it was.  His fingers were numb from gripping the shovel, and blisters burned through his dirt covered palms.  His entire body shivered, and his lips chapped when he licked them.

                Jackson leaned back and dug in his jeans pocket for the key.  Brian breathed heavily in front of him, and the sound filled the outskirts of the forest with whispers, and as Jackson unlocked the safe, he shivered again.

                He lifted the lid gently, and tucked inside was the bundle of stolen washrags he’d wrapped the tapes in.  Tied around them was an industrial rubber band, thick and straining around the wad.

                “Stop it,” Brian said.  Jackson looked up at him.  He was standing above the pit, still working, the shovel moving back and forth between pile and pit like a machine, dumping dirt into one and stealing it from the other.

                Jackson looked back at the tapes.  He moved them aside and found the black notebook at the bottom of the safe.  He lifted it up and let the pages swish past his eyes as he flipped through them, the words scrawled there blurring and gliding like wings.  His sketches and notes and websites and news reporters where written in the margins.  He’d spent months on them.

                He stopped on a page toward the beginning and held the notebook up until it caught the moon’s light.  She was talking about Brian:

                “I didn’t think I’d send these to you.  Maybe I shouldn’t have.  Maybe I shouldn’t.  This story isn’t even supposed to be on here.  I wanted…  I wanted to protect him, to spare him from hearing about you.  But, you told me once…”

                The moon slid behind the clouds again and the page was shrouded in darkness.  Jackson’s arms dropped, and the pages fluttered in the breeze, flapping like wings through the night.

                Jackson closed the notebook and set it back in the safe.  He closed it and set it aside and pushed himself to his feet.  He grabbed his shovel and began helping Brian.  They were like brothers, silently shoveling dirt into the ground, burying a mutual friend and pretending they were the only ones that knew why they had died.  They were keeping each other’s secrets, pretending at the same time that the other didn’t know about them.

Oh yeah! This thing!

So...I have an actual excuse for not updating this delightful little blog here.
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School.



Enough said.

But, yeah, hello there!  I'll be trying to update more often.  Maybe.  I'm just starting NaNoWriMo write now (ba-dum-tss).  Visit their site! nanowrimo.org  It's pretty great.  Maybe I'll put a little teaser of what I've been working on this month. (wink wink).

Keep writing y'all!

Paint

1.

First, grasp control of form and muscle,

run my hand down his shoulder and my fingers in the rift of his arm.

Then, paint the sweat and history

and multiply it by the rainbow. 

Dip a brush in fine alabaster; smear glass highlights

in the eye and shoulder. Go over with blue

and trace the shadows. 

Add dust because pink is a soft color

to contrast the horse's purple eye.

2.

Find my name and claim it

with black ink tip with bronze. 

Swirl the letter like stream water 

to quench the thirst of the canvas. 

Then pray that what I mark is correct. 

3.

Mark it with pen's dissatisfaction. 

Gaze at the bud of paint misplaced. 

Receive the score,

and then decide against it. 

When it comes to paint, 

only the artistknows what my hand can say. 

Happiness

Ask me to describe the sun in the sky.
Demand no cliche,
but ask for cliche and that's what I'll get.
Ask for unique,
and skinny jeans, torn high tops, and cut-neck tees
adorn young poets.

Pastels blend rainbows down grated canvas
because only inexperience tries to compromise.
My sin is myself,
and my description is Clarisse's.
My face is like the moon.

Or did I forget to read Fehrenheit 451?
Because it was not a pleasure to burn
the face of I've read it's and I knew it's.

Describe happiness, and I tell myself
of the bird in the sky dancing with walking clouds.
Bravery mixes with happiness
when happiness floats like a feather to the moon,
and fear dissapears in Mars' pink summer glow.

Books I've been Reading

Special thanks to the writer and editor of the blog Jeans, Boots, and Coffee, who believes with all her heart that you can survive anything with jeans, boots, and coffee.  She cheered me up when I was feeling down.

Anyway, onto the subject of this blog, what I've been reading.  But really, it's all about just one book.  One book I've read several times.  Sure, I'm reading more, but maybe I'll get to the other one later (it's called It's Kind  of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini, and, I'll admit, I'm late reading this one, but that's how I tell if a book has some quality: if it stays on the shelves for a while.

And to Emerson: The following book has been approved for your reading (minus, like, 8-10 curse words and some swears).  It's Kind of a Funny Story is not really for you, unfortunately, because I really like it so far.

The Book
Ender's Game (cue super epic, awesome, spectacular orchestra music).  Ender's Game is a sci-fi book that I've loved on and off since I was about 12, maybe younger.  I can't exactly tell why I like it so much.  The writing isn't undeniable good or noteworthy.  Sometimes, I even think that maybe it's a bit long and image-less, but that makes no difference to me (for once; I'm usually so picky).  I think it's the characters.  The fact that the antagonosit is supposed to be the alien invaders, but it's not is fantastic.  The real antagonist, or antagonists, are the teachers of the Battle School that Ender is sent to (to learn how to become a soldier and tactition).  But, at the same time, the teachers are really only trying to save the human race from the aliens, and, after all, the best antagonist is a protagonist.
Moving on.  The only reason I re-reread Ender's Game was because.......wait for it.......the MOVIE IS COMING OUT IN NOVEMBER.  Now, I know November is months away, but that's okay.  The trailer for the movie is coming out May 17 (I have the trailer release date memorized; I am obsessed), and it will premiere in front of the new Star Trek.  I WILL STAND IN LINE AND BUY TICKETS FOR STAR TREK TO SEE THAT TRAILER.  IT SHALL BE A MAD HOUSE AND THAT TRAILER SHALL BE AWESOME.  There are no words on earth that can describe how excited I am.  And so, for anyone else out there that is just as super duper, out of their minds crazy for this movie, I am right there with you.  It will be epic.

Ender's Game poster!
(pulled from imbd.com)

A Short Collection of Poems

Reveal

I was promised the end today.
I was promised the same thing yesterday.
I wonder what it’s like to not breathe,
to have muscles fail you.  I’ll find out someday.

I asked him when he opened the door why he was here.
I couldn’t tell him the truth.
How could I tell someone that they’re not wanted?
Look them cold in the eye
and say that no one wants to see them.

He didn’t know, but I couldn’t touch his pink, molten arm.
Have you ever broken to someone,
and told them that they’re dead?

Then you’ll understand what I’m telling you now.

-Candace Osterhout



Gods

I am blasphemy, the very definition of which is unable to lie,
No.  My mud stained shoes stare up at me, the sharpie
I inhale asks “why?”  But I don’t know.

I wonder, sometimes, if the water is real,
or if, maybe, the stream only fills after a rain drop falls
from my nose and teases my lips.

Don’t kiss me.  Your eyes do all the work for you,
but do you remember what you see?  In the painting,
a lesson learns itself in hell.  Still, when I reach for a branch,
is it possible to say I’m limp?  I hide my face in my arm
and wait until you watch for my eyes.

-Candace Osterhout



Authority

Who am I to say that the wind blows,
that an oasis hides behind the sand? 

Where is the man who docks at sea and sails on the shore?
I learned in geography that, when land is surrounded,
it calls itself Isle,
and builds more to its sides.  But when I am surrounded,

I quiver like a child in the rain,
and I wonder if I am. 

Is it a sin to say that I exist?
Or is it socially acceptable to whither like flame
and extinct?

-Candace Osterhout

Meeting David

            "Sarah?" Mr. Taben's smooth voice called me from the depths of my memory.  I blinked at his kind eyes.  "You've been doing a lot of day dreaming lately, haven't you?"

            I shrugged in response.  It seemed to me that when I wasn't getting lost in my head, I might as well be getting lost somewhere else.  Maybe a park, or, better yet, the woods behind the snug neighborhood I lived in with my grandparents.  If I could, I'd even lose myself in Mr. Taben's office complex, but it was too organized, too obvious, to wander around for long without becoming bored.

            "Sarah," Mr. Taben sang again.  My eyes directed themselves up at him; my lips puckered.  I believe I must have appeared to become a fish, eyes widened, my molars clamping onto the insides of my cheeks, or maybe I was sucking on a sour head.  Yes, Mr. Taben, I can't speak.  I'm a fish with a very horrible sour candy addiction.   Please forgive me; I need to find some water before I die.  Yes, it's urgent.  Well, no, this isn't new.  Have you not noticed before?  I don't know if I'm flattered or appalled by your ignorance, but I really must be going.

            I stood, lifting the strap of my shoulder bag up over my head.  Mr. Taben pushed himself away from his desk also.

            "Sarah?  Where are you going?"

            "I need some water before I die, Mr. Taben," I told him nonchalantly.  "You don't want me to die, do you?  Then you can't help me anyway."

            He gaped at me for a few seconds, during which I was sure he was playing around with my fish idea, before he sat slowly back down into his monstrous black spinney chair.  "There's a water bottle on the desk in front of you.  Remember?  You asked for it when you came in."

            My lower lip stuck out, and I pouted.  I didn't recall asking for any water.  Maybe, subconsciously, my fish self knew I would need water, and, to torture me to no end, killed my only known escape route.  This explained why I didn't remember asking, because fish can only remember things for three seconds; then, it's capooey.

            I slid back into Mr. Taben's squeaky leather chair, but I didn't reach for the water bottle.  I was pretty sure my fish self died before I stood up.  I smiled at Mr. Taben, pushing my cheeks back but not revealing my teeth.  I looked like Goofy from Mickey and Friends, which Jack, my little half-brother, watched every morning, lying on his stomach with his feet swishing back and forth like a pair of broken scissor blades.

            Mr. Taben let out a tired sigh.  "Do you like seeing me, Sarah?"

            I stopped smiling.  Are you allowed to lie to adults?  I'd done it before, but not to a doctor.  "Of course, Mr. Taben."

            "I'm not so sure.  Your grandparents are very worried about you.  They want to know what's wrong."

            I smiled again, big and bright, shiny white teeth and all.  This was familiar territory; this teachers asked about every day at school.  "It's just my mom, Mr. Taben," I told him cheerfully.  "But I think I'm coping fine.  My grandparents are just worried warts, that's all."

            "I have no doubt you are coping 'just fine' with your mother's illness.  They believe you're 'fine' too.  That's not what they're worried about."

            Again, my smile faded.  Mr. Taben, you were not supposed to say that.  You were supposed to say, 'well, I hope she does get better soon', then move on.  That's what everyone says.  You are not supposed to actually try to help me.  What are you?  Some sort of... doctor?

            "Well, what are they worried about?" I asked.  My fish revived itself and began flopping around inside my chest.  Stop it! I told him, He will hear you!  Then, you'll be forced to live in a bowl instead of snuggly inside my chest!

            "They are worried that something happened a long time ago, before your mother was ever sick."  I swallowed the fish down, and he quieted.  Mr. Taben's eyes were waiting intently for an answer, staring me down and burying me with compassion.  He wanted so desperately to be right; I had to give him the pleasure.

            "Maybe, something... might have happened," I whispered, looking away and wincing.  My hands slid beneath my thighs.  I peeked up at him from beneath the hair falling from behind my ear, waiting for his reaction.  He only nodded.

            That's no fun.

            "Sarah, everything you tell me is completely confidential.  I won't repeat what you say to anyone; you know this."  He relaxed in his office chair, rubbing his clad shoulders against the leather to make a crater for his body.

            I puckered my lips, swishing my hair from my face.  I imitated his settling back in his chair and smiled my Goofy smile again.

            A panda, yes.  Mr. Taben reminded me of a panda leaning comfortably against sturdy bamboo sticks, sipping from his thurmace and grinning happily.  I like pandas, maybe we can make this 'friend' thing work.

            Except, you're not grinning anymore, Mr. Taben.  You're waiting expectantly for my secret about what's bothering me.  I would love to tell you; I'd love to tell anyone and everyone, but I can't, because I promised.

            "I can't tell you."

            Mr. Taben coughed at my words.  "Sarah, you know you can."

            "No, I can't, because you will have to repeat what I say."  I let my lips drop to match Mr. Taben's perplexed glare.

            "Sarah," he said desperately, "I won't tell anyone.  It would violate you and my other patients."

            "But you will have to.  If I am suicidal, you will have to tell my grandparents.  If I am delusional, you will have to put me on medication.  If I am about to tell you my secret, you will have to call the police, because this man is evil."  I gave him a fleeting smile.  "But I am not suicidal; I am not delusional, and I am not about to tell you my secret.  So everything is fine."

            He pushed himself up abruptly, leaning forward with his forearm on the desk and gazing at me with the most kindness and concern he could muster in his eyes.  I pushed myself deep into my chair, furrowing my brow.  It was real.  Mr. Taben, you are much smarter than your average panda; you know how to feel emotion for people treating you like crustacean.  I would applaud you, but at the moment, I hate you and your genetically mutated panda guts.

            "Sarah," he said, "your poor grandmother is worrying herself sick, about you and your mother.  She wants to know that you're okay.  I would never tell her what you say to me, but she wants me to reassure her."

            My lower lip moved to start talking, but I bit firmly down on it, pretending to chew on flaking skin.  I settled into my chair, pulling my hands from beneath the warm denim covering my thighs.  Mr. Taben continued to stare at me, and the weight of his subconscious panda began to crush my chest.  My jaw moved to talk, and I jumped forward for the water bottle, twisting the cap off and gulping it three times.  My fish swam up to the back of my throat, screaming at me to say something.

            I smiled nervously, pushing him down and hiding the noise by clearing my throat.  "I, uh..." my tongue wrestled free from its chains and took charge of my jaw, signaling commands and getting words ready for battle.  I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed into the chair, knowing what Mr. Taben was about to hit full on.  Run!! I screamed, but my tongue kept the message from leaving my mouth.  "It started with Mr. Thomas," it blurted instead.  My mouth went dry, and the fish flopped around in my chest, begging for water, but my tongue ignored it and kept sending troops out.  "It was his son, David.  My mom dated him, Mr. Thomas, I mean.  David was sixteen.  I hated them both.  I thought David was stupid, but it was his dad.  His dad's evil, Mr. Thomas- I mean- Taben.  His dad deserves to die.  He should be chopped into a billion pieces and eaten by his non-existent grand kids.  I hate him.  I do.  He's the most dis-"

            "Sarah!" Mr. Taben pushed himself from his chair briskly.

            I froze, startled to find myself also standing with my hands raised to my shoulders in excitement.  Mr. Taben and I gaped at each other for a few moments before he slowly settled back into his chair.  Quickly, I plopped down also, hiding my palms beneath my thighs.  We continued to stare blankly at each other until Mr. Taben sighed in bewilderment.

            "That's certainly more than you've told me in a while, Sarah."  He inhaled deeply and his chest rose.  "But I don't think I understood half of what you just said."

            I nibbled on my lower lip.  Thank you, Mr. Tommy Traitor, there is definitely no such thing as retreat, now.  My tongue cackled.  He knew he was too powerful for me to behead.

            Mr. Taben sighed again, patting his knees and blinking furiously.  Yes! I thought.  You think you're dreaming!  Well, I am your dream wizard, and you'll listen to me.  You don't want to talk to Sarah right now, you want to think about bamboo and let your inner panda take control.  I'll look away; you just do your thing in privacy.

            I stood abruptly and grabbed my bag, ready to rush for the door.

            "Please sit down."

            I swallowed, and Mr. Taben nodded toward the chair.  I sat, but didn't let my bag drop.  I was in enemy territory.

            "Sarah, it's okay," Mr. Taben said soothingly.  "I understand that was a lot for you to give up."  He paused, and slowly, I nodded in agreement, clamping tightly to my lower lip.  "Do you wish to continue?"

            I thought silently to myself.  Was he offering me a retreat route?  Or was it a trap?  My shoulders sagged, and I whined inside my throat, brow furrowed.  My fish crowded against my chest to hear better, and the pressure sprung tears to my eyes.  Desperately, I nodded.

            He relaxed even deeper into his chair.  "Do you want to start with David?  Or go over how your mother and Mr. Thomas met?"

            I blinked, then dumbly shook my head.

            "You want to start with David, then?" his voice oozed with compassion and patience.

            I nodded and opened my mouth, but instead of following orders, my tongue rebelled again, catching in my throat.  A squeak escaped, but nothing else that made since.

            "How about you tell me how you met David?" suggested Mr. Taben softly.

            "Mr. Thomas brought him over to meet me."

            "And what happened?"

            I tried to think, but I couldn't.  I hadn't let myself remember those moments with Mr. Thomas and David since they ended two months before my mom got sick.  They were ants biting at my skin, and they didn't stop stinging.

            "Are you trying to remember?"  Mr. Taben pushed himself up before settling into his chair again.

            I nodded slowly.  An image of David standing in the kitchen of the house my mom and I rented before she was sick forced its way to my mind.  He hid in the corner near the entrance from the family room, starring at his feet as his father pulled my mom close to him with one arm. 

            "My mom called me into the kitchen," I told Mr. Taben.  He bobbed his head calmly.  "I remember because we'd just gotten home from getting my braces tightened, and I really didn't want to do anything..."

Library Walls

This is the piece I wrote before my audition for the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain (see earlier post for more details)

Library Walls

            I plop myself down into the “adult seat” in the pre-K children’s wing of the library.  Already, boys in khaki cargo pants and girls in sweet polka dot and heart-splattered dresses and tights bounce and waddle back and forth across the playtime rug in the middle of the floor. Glancing at the alphabet blocks that are stitched into the fabric of the rug, I remember a poem about forgetting the alphabet in a kindergarteners’ classroom, and I quickly eye each little toddler for any sign of trouble.  No one is choking.  No one is fighting.  What else can I expect?  “Little angels,” my coworker calls them.  She’s the kind of lady where everything reflects her religion in some way.  Whenever she says something like that, I always want to point to the bottom of my mud-clad, grass-smeared rain boot and ask her how that points to her beliefs, but I never do.
            I grip a thick classic in between my two hands.  I carry it around to look smart.  Strangers and other high-schoolers that see me with it glance down at the book in my hand, and immediately their eyes widen and the most splendid mix of respect, honor, and bewilderment befall them.  Names like Tolstoy and Orwell, Wells and Austen are never too far away from me, but still, they mean nothing.  I hide a cheap paperback novel in my backpack for my actual enjoyment.
            My mind wanders away as I watch the children placed under my “responsible adult” care.  Around the coloring table, chubby hands grip at blunt crayons and clumsily, almost pathetically, fold stark white paper into crinkled, flightless airplanes.  A tubby boy with thick curly blonde hair that builds two inches onto the top of his head grips his plane and slings his arm over his shoulder and out in front of him.  The airplane dives into the carpet as if falling from the sky into a vast maroon ocean.  I leave my classic on the windowsill and stand to retrieve the airplane.  I pick it up.  “We can’t fly airplanes,” I say.  My voice is obnoxiously high as I speak to him, and in reality, I’d rather show him how to throw the airplane rather than take it away, but airplanes will “poke eyes out”, and so they are rigorously outlawed.
            The boy flashes blue eyes and a quivering lower lip, a tactic he keeps hidden for airplane confiscation.   I ignore it and fold the airplane up and place it inside my classic.  I sit back down, and he busies himself with toy cars.
            A few minutes later, a girl trots up to me, her uneven pigtails alive with static from rolling somersaults (excuse me, practicing gymnastics) on the alphabet rug.  Clutched between two flattened palms are ten books.  I glance around for my coworker, begging with eyes for escape from an hour of “Mr. Toby ate jam.  Mr. Toby likes jam”, but I find her with her legs crossed and nose in her son’s homeschool textbook.
            My shoulders sag; I repeat an anthem of “I love children” to myself inside my mind, and scooch from my adult chair onto the floor in front of the reading pillows.  The little girl falls into my lap without warning, and my thighs scream against the sudden weight.
            “Okay!” I say with a large smile.  I reach for the first book and open it up.  “ ‘Why I am special’, ” I read.  I struggle against the sarcasm oozing from my voice, and I swallow it down with a noisy gulp.  “ ‘I am special because I wear what I want to.  I am special because I can sing any song….’ ”  I keep going, fluctuating my voice and stretching it for character voices and silly exclamations, but eventually, my throat burns with the repeated rhyme scheme and cliché monkey-bouncing, balloon-popping, kite-flying simplicity of children’s books.   After the ten books originally thrust into my hands, and five more brought by the other preschoolers, the little girl jumps from my lap and runs for the toy figurines in the corner.  She drags the box across the floor with her, and I remember a time when I used to toddle in the old after-school day care room at the past school campus.  The dinosaur figurines—machine painted with claws, talons, teeth, and ravenous facial expressions—once stood at the very top of my list of favorite toys.
            The little girl dumps the entire plastic box onto the maroon carpet, and the carpet is no longer just a carpet but a transformed jungle with purple leaves big enough to sleep on, green vines that hang from trees like pipe cleaners, and a giant block castle where the king of the dinosaurs makes his humble home.  I pick up the plastic T-rex and I smile.  I line up the raptors and pretend they are guards, but I lose my smile.  They are only plastic.  They don’t move.  Their faces don’t change.  The rug is a rug.
            I glance up at the little girl.  A T-rex and a stegosaur in each hand, she bounces them on their stubby fake legs.  Her expressions are vivid, glaring, and her lips mouth little words.  I glance at the scattered books and the pictures in them, at the stack of blocks the little girl had hastily set up.  Suddenly, she knocks the two dinosaurs together, and the stegosaur flies through the air and smacks against one of the blocks.  It tumbles over, and the girl leaves the stegosaur on its side.  She grapples for another figurine, and it too squares off with the T-rex.  One by one, two by two, the dinosaurs challenge the T-rex until, finally, the girl reaches for the first fallen stegosaur.   It scoots slowly over the maroon carpet.  It stares into the T-rex’s eyes, and then they clash.  They fall back.  They clash again.  Over and over, the little girl slams the figurines together, and over and over they always fall back from each other.  I gaze at the figurines, transfixed, amazed, because in her mind, they aren’t plastic.
            One last time, the two clash again, and the T-rex bounces up and down from its side to its back to its other side, rolling fearsomely away from the battered stegosaur.  The T-rex stays on its side, and the stegosaur dances up and down.
            “What just happened?” I ask sweetly.
            Surprise overtaking her, the toddler’s head shoots up to look at me from the dinosaur clutched in her sweaty hand.  “The, the, uh, T-rex was means.  He, he, uh, was, uh, he was, uh, mean, and so the other dinosaurs, uh, they didn’t like him!”
            I nod, smiling broadly and unsurely at her incoherent speech.  “Oh really?  That’s cool!”  Again my voice squeaks and rings obnoxiously.
            She nods vigorously.  “Yeah!  And so, uh, so, uh, all the other, all the other dinosaurs didn’t like him, uh, and so, uh, they fought him!  But he was, uh, mean!  And only, uh, this one—!” she shoves the stegosaur into my fist, “—uh, could beat him!”
            I take the stegosaur from her and stare down at its fake tail, fake face, fake head, and fake fierce look.  I copy the scowl on the stegosaur’s face and squint at it menacingly.  Then I set it down.
            “No!” the little girl shouts, and she snatches it off the alphabet rug.  “He can’t goes over there!  He, he, he’ll get hurt!”
            “Oh, sorry,” I say hastily, glancing slyly at the alphabet rug.  Was it lava?  A lake?  My eyes wander around its border, and the little girl distracts herself from me by gazing unceasingly and intently at the little figurines.  I rock back on my knees and roll my weight onto my feet as I stand up.  I plop myself down into my adult seat, glancing at the khaki cargo pants and the little dresses.  The preschoolers waddle and wander back and forth across the playtime rug—the one with brightly colored alphabet blocks stitched into.  My eyes jump from child to child.  Still no fighting.  Still no choking.  I twist around for the classic on the windowsill, and remember a poem about giving up the alphabet on a classroom wall for the stark white walls of an office.
            Or, in my case, a library.

Quartz Mountain

The Courtyard at the Oklahoma Arts Institute

So...today I'm talking about Quartz Mountain, obviously, and so it may get a little emotional.  We'll see.

First off, let me explain what Quartz Mountain is.  Basically, it's a mountain (duh), but it's also more.  The Oklahoma Arts Institute hosts both a summer and fall arts program at the Quartz Mountain Lodge and Conference Center.  The fall program is designed more for teachers or anyone who wants to go (and I think it's only a weekend or so long), but the summer program is more competitive and designed only for Oklahoma high school students.  To get into the summer program (and spend two weeks at the resort studying your art discipline, which would be either photography, film and video, creative writing, orchestra, acting, choir, modern dance, or ballet) a student has to audition.  I auditioned for creative writing (what else?) last year and had the amazing opportunity of getting to go for a fraction of the cost it would be to stay at the resort (a fraction being $200 instead of $2,500, and this year $3,000).  Needless to say, it was an honor, especially to get in for creative writing, which is one of (if not the most) competitive spots to fill at the program.

So, anyway.  I got in, and I spent two weeks in June 2012 learning from Peter Richards, a poet who has traveled all over the world for writing.  I met great people that also love the arts, and an acting student performed MY monologue in the mid-camp talent show.  It was great, and I felt like it was possible for ME, little Candace O from no-town Oklahoma, to become famous for my writing.  Unfortunately, after the two weeks were over, I had to go home, and a week after my return, my dad passed away.  I suddenly couldn't write anything anymore.  I tried.  I started a blog!  How desperate is that?  But nothing came.  Then, in November when I wrote a novel in a month, I crossed a line where fiction would momentarily become non-fiction, and that scared me.  I always kept the two seperate.  Fiction was ALWAYS my escape.  And so I stayed stuck in writer's block.

Then December came around, and I had a choice.  I could schedule a Quartz audition for creative writing, knowing very well that the idea of writing itself terrified me, let alone writing something that would be scrutinized by three-to-four expert judges.  But I felt like I had to go back, to hold onto to something that wasn't connected to my dad's death, and so I scheduled the audition and took on the burden of not only writing a piece at the audition, but also having to write something completely new BEFORE the audition.

My audition was February 10th.  About a week before, I had a breakthrough.  I wrote a short story that was infused with a voice I'd never heard before, a voice that was more mature and solemn and nostalgic.  It was a voice that was completely my own.  I used to think that I'd developed my voice last year before the camp, but now I've realized that I've just now found it.  So I took the piece in to the audition and I wrote an equally mature piece at the audition.  I think it went well, but I don't know what the judges will choose.  I don't know if my voice is the type they're looking for.  And I won't find out until April.  So until then, I'm going to keep on writing because I can, because it's a part of me, and because I KNOW that I can be great someday.


--
Candace

It's Been a While!

Hey, guys, funny story.

I forgot I had a blog.

Oops!

But it's not as bad as it seems.
Okay, it kinda is.  But let me explain!  It's like this.... In November, I was participating in NaNoWriMo (Ever heard of it?  It's awesome!)  Here's how NaNoWriMo works:
Na No Wri Mo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it's where you write a novel......






.....wait for it......






.....in a MONTH.





It's crazy, and so me and my bud shut down or blogs for the month of November and we got writing.  I wrote a grippingly wordy story (because it had to be 50,000 words to "win" the satisfaction of writing a novel in a month) about a certain Christian I-Forget-Last-Name who goes to a facility for troubled teens.  While he's there, his best friend Tony is awaiting a trial for killing a man in self-defense.  Christian and his sister Drew were the only wittnesses to what happened, but just before the trial, Christian's sister suddenly dissapears, leaving Tony without a reliable, stable witness to testify on his behalf.  Throw in some more drama with the other characters at the facility Christian is at and then BAM one NaNoWriMo story.  And the best part is: nobody died!

(It's a joke to NaNoWriMo novelists that when a certain writer hits some serious writer's block, they kill off a character.  It happens a lot, apparently.  I wouldn't know.  Didn't happen to me.)

So, this blog goes out to all the characters that died in the making of NaNoWriMo novels.  Your sacrifice was very appreciated.  May your memory live on in the lives of the surving NaNo characters.

We were honored to write with you (or, of you, if you want to be literal about it).



Hopefully next time I won't forget I have blog.  Until then, keep breathing!