Written by Kristen Kochel, Sumner, Washington at the age of 16.
I believe this appeared in Words on the Page, the World in Your Hands, a book of easy-level readings to develop adult literacy. I found it while clearing out my files a few months ago. I used to use it as a lesson example in my teaching, perhaps for description, perhaps for journaling, perhaps to spark a lesson of creative writing. It's been so long now, I don't quite remember. I didn't use it every year, as I did Cisnero's House on Mango Street or Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, only for a few years in the center of my career.
Reincarnation
"Perhaps reincarnation is not a myth, but merely a time from where we get our instincts. I remember a place far different from where I've grown up, rolling plains and long wavy grasses blowing in hot summer breezes. Winters with snow driving fiercely into my face and the hushed silence after a blizzard. I see these places when I dream, images my subconscious remembers and recreates to tempt me into fully believing I am there again.
I dream of a man, as most hormone-driven teenagers do, but the things I feel are not wholly lust. I never seem to be able to see his face clearly, but I know his eyes are a deep, chocolate brown that I drown in every time I am captured by his gaze. His hair is the satiny black color of a raven's wing; it shimmers in the light, daring me to tangle my fingers in its beautiful length. It reaches his shoulder blades and will soon rival the length of my own. He has strong, capable hands with a beautiful texture put there by years of work and play. Thier strength is hidden beneath a gentleness like silk-swathed steel, a steel that protects and cares for those less capable.
He has a rigid sense of honor which irritates me to no end at times; I remain virtuous by his incredible control. I could perhaps convince him otherwise in today's world, but alas, this is a dream. Once I am committed, I will not be able to back off. What he takes, when it's freely given, he keeps forever.
I believe he was a plainsman, Lakota or Cheyenne, before the Civil War. He was a warrior and was considered a member of high society, giving freely to those who didn't have enough, as is the way among the tribe, whether an adopted member or born of the people.
I do not know his name; I search for it each time I dream of him. The only thing I find is the vision of a hawk, flying on a sky of red, screaming defiance at the wind and at those who cannot fly. I come back from the vision and fall prey to his heart-stopping smile.
If true love exists, could this be it? I haven't met the actual person; perhaps I never will. Is he out there dreaming of me? I can only hope he is. So many questions floating through my head and no answers to be found. My heart aches for someone, perhaps the someone of my dreams."
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Valuable Advice from www.writers-review.com
Again - my writing mentor ROCKS, and rocks hard!!!!
No matter what kind of work I throw at Mike, he handles it with grace and aplomb, lasering a crystal-sharp clarity into his insights and suggestions.
The last few weeks have been so busy with vacation, work, meeting up with my oldest friends, Christmas shopping, new pets, and more, I haven't written any new fiction at all.
(So much for my Nanowrimo dreams!)
So I gave poor Mike one of my newest grant proposals to critique as this week's assignment. Of course, he's so skilled that he has a successful background in grant writing as well as fiction, non-fiction, and editing!! The suggestions he sent back were right on, and the validation that the pages make sense and truly represent the non-profit are invaluable.
Truly, if you are ever looking for GREAT writing assistance, I cannot recommend Mike's consistently excellent work highly enough!
Mike Foley at http://www.writers-review.com/
No matter what kind of work I throw at Mike, he handles it with grace and aplomb, lasering a crystal-sharp clarity into his insights and suggestions.
The last few weeks have been so busy with vacation, work, meeting up with my oldest friends, Christmas shopping, new pets, and more, I haven't written any new fiction at all.
(So much for my Nanowrimo dreams!)
So I gave poor Mike one of my newest grant proposals to critique as this week's assignment. Of course, he's so skilled that he has a successful background in grant writing as well as fiction, non-fiction, and editing!! The suggestions he sent back were right on, and the validation that the pages make sense and truly represent the non-profit are invaluable.
Truly, if you are ever looking for GREAT writing assistance, I cannot recommend Mike's consistently excellent work highly enough!
Mike Foley at http://www.writers-review.com/
Thursday, November 5, 2009
...from beneath like well water...
I've used this quote as writing advice for years, long after I'd forgotten who said it. Thanks to Red Bird and her blog for reminding me of it in its entirety.
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life p.78
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life p.78
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wonderful News
A few months ago, I submitted my first story - to a college literary journal. Guess what?? They're publishing it!!!!
I can't believe my luck. My very first submission!
It's a simple start, but who cares? I'm a published writer now. Published. Yeah, baby. I knew they'd go for all the artsy allusions I wove through the narrative.
I mean I must have beaten out handfuls of other submittors. True, I have roughly double the life experience that they do, thus more to draw from in my writing.
Still, I'm thrilled.
Next stop, The New Yorker.
I can't believe my luck. My very first submission!
It's a simple start, but who cares? I'm a published writer now. Published. Yeah, baby. I knew they'd go for all the artsy allusions I wove through the narrative.
I mean I must have beaten out handfuls of other submittors. True, I have roughly double the life experience that they do, thus more to draw from in my writing.
Still, I'm thrilled.
Next stop, The New Yorker.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Christmas Stories
I love Christmas, in all its crazy, frantic, generous, divine aspects, and I love Christmas stories.
Connie Willis says much the same thing in the delicious introduction to her anthology Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. If you've never read it, it's a treat. The introduction insightfully examines the history of Christmas narratives. Having been scarred by unwitting childhood reading of HCA, I particularly enjoy this bit:
Wow. I wish I'd thought to say that. Still though, with apologies, what follows in the next post is my own short Christmas story, rife with mawkish sappines and impending death. Alas.
Connie Willis says much the same thing in the delicious introduction to her anthology Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. If you've never read it, it's a treat. The introduction insightfully examines the history of Christmas narratives. Having been scarred by unwitting childhood reading of HCA, I particularly enjoy this bit:
"In addition, the Christmas-story writer has to walk a narrow tightrope between sentiment and skepticism, and most writers end up falling off into either cynicism or mawkish sappiness.
And, yes, I am talking about Hans Christian Andersen. He invented the whole three-hanky sob story, whose plot Maxim Gorki, in a fit of pique, described as taking a poor girl or boy and letting them 'freeze somewhere under a window, behind which there is usually a Christmas tree that throws its radiant splendor upon them.' Match girls, steadfast tin soldiers, even snowmen (melted, not frozen) all met with a fate they (and we) didn't deserve, especially at Christmas.
Nobody, before Andersen came along, had thought of writing such depressing Christmas stories. Even Dickens, who had killed a fair number of children in his books, didn't kill Tiny Tim. But Andersen, apparently hell-bent on ruining everybody's holidays, froze innocent children, melted loyal toys into lumps of lead, and chopped harmless fir trees who were just standing there in the forest, minding their own business, into kindling. Worse, he inspired dozens of imitators, who killed off saintly children (some of whom, I'll admit, were pretty insufferable and deserved to die) and poor people for the rest of the Victorian era."
Wow. I wish I'd thought to say that. Still though, with apologies, what follows in the next post is my own short Christmas story, rife with mawkish sappines and impending death. Alas.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Lost (the draft before the draft)
Below are three disjointed sections of what may someday be a story, or may simply stay disconnected. I wrote this just over a year ago, and I come back to it from time to time and feel that there is raw material here worth work.
My writing runs to narrative - I know this. The first reworking would be to add dialogue, more setting, and some clearer conflict to drive it forward. This lacks balance, maybe lacks poetry and grace. Still, though, I like these pieces, and I feel like posting them here.
As it's my blog, I can.
All this fuss about privacy lately. Every time she opens the paper there is another article about Google releasing Internet search records to the government or about your friendly cable-phone-internet provider being able to track your almost every move. There is always a frantic tone to these articles, a shrill warning to hurry and keep yourself safe before it is too late. But too late for what, she wonders.
People have never had privacy, not really. When, ever, in human history, has anyone been immune from the curiosity and concern of others? She fills out a form that asks for a reference, and she supplies the address of a friend. There it goes, she thinks, swirling out into the universe. My friend doesn’t even know that her information has just spiraled away from me and out of her control. But addresses are really not that secret. After all, the whole point of an address is for people to be able to find you.
The 1800s, a culture of social visits and calling cards and prestigious addresses on tree-lined New York or European streets is a society that she knows only from Edith Wharton novels, but still it comes to her vividly. See, those addresses were all about being found and being seen. People wanted to know where one another were.
She pushes even further back in history, and comes up with the image of a small village, rough cottages and thatch roofs among the green fields of an Anglo world.
Where is old Tom?
Why, in the stone cottage outside of town past the split elm.
Tom didn’t have privacy; the villagers knew where he lived and what he was like. True, he wasn’t getting mail offers for the latest credit card, tailored to his spending habits, but he wasn’t immune from unexpected annoyances. At any moment, the marauding Saxons could have burst into his farmyard to shout epitaphs and set fire to his roof.
So, privacy – that’s a useless illusion. And being able to be found by others, well, ultimately, isn’t that what all of us want?
These are the sorts of thoughts that are floating through her mind as she enters the grocery store. She is moving as if she is in a dream. In the front case, ice cream screams its sale prices at her. Wow, when did ice cream begin to cost $4.99 a gallon on sale, she wonders.
She knows she came in for a reason, and she tries to remember it as she drifts past the freezer cases, further up the aisle past the non-sale ice cream brands. She takes in the colors and textures of the display. Cold, she thinks idly, feeling a chill around her ankle that doesn’t fully penetrate her awareness. A man comes down the aisle toward her, purposefully, shifting his basket to the other arm to consult a list in his hand. She realizes that she is still holding her car keys out in her hand, strangely flexed as if she were just about to insert them into the door lock. She wonders if she looks odd. Perhaps she needs a cart. Or a basket?
She rounds the corner and a stock clerk eyes her quizzically. How are you, he asks. So, yes, she does look odd. She picks up her pace and tries to remember why she is here. How unreal it feels to see the people marching up and down the aisles with such intention.
******
She stares at the phone in her hand, small and silver with its screen and buttons. She turns it over and around, looking at it, feeling it. It is a marvel really. She feels as if she has never really seen it before. His voice cuts off, she hangs up, and she simply stands there, turning the phone over.
She can barely comprehend that out of electrons and radio waves and metal come messages that she receives and sends back. Does she really? Does she receive and send them back?
Five hundred years ago, this would have been an incredible musical instrument. Just the sounds it makes as dialed would have amazed and delighted whole courts of nobles. Perhaps by wielding this, I would have been a sage or a magician. Who knows what life would have been if it had been otherwise.
******
She sits at her computer, eating a bowl of cornflakes. The computer is turned on, but she doesn’t know why. She is unsure what she meant to do with it. Perhaps write something. Look for something? She eats mechanically, moving spoon from bowl to mouth as she sits.
Part of her is aware of her body, and also aware of the struggle deep within. She feels her soul rise within her and lie down on the floor next to her, kicking and thrusting at nothing. Perhaps it would help if she actually were to rise from the chair and join her soul there, lying down on the coarse carpet with it. She would lie still and simply wait, wait for whatever it is that will be coming next.
But even that seems like too much trouble. What would be the point?
My writing runs to narrative - I know this. The first reworking would be to add dialogue, more setting, and some clearer conflict to drive it forward. This lacks balance, maybe lacks poetry and grace. Still, though, I like these pieces, and I feel like posting them here.
As it's my blog, I can.
Lost
All this fuss about privacy lately. Every time she opens the paper there is another article about Google releasing Internet search records to the government or about your friendly cable-phone-internet provider being able to track your almost every move. There is always a frantic tone to these articles, a shrill warning to hurry and keep yourself safe before it is too late. But too late for what, she wonders.
People have never had privacy, not really. When, ever, in human history, has anyone been immune from the curiosity and concern of others? She fills out a form that asks for a reference, and she supplies the address of a friend. There it goes, she thinks, swirling out into the universe. My friend doesn’t even know that her information has just spiraled away from me and out of her control. But addresses are really not that secret. After all, the whole point of an address is for people to be able to find you.
The 1800s, a culture of social visits and calling cards and prestigious addresses on tree-lined New York or European streets is a society that she knows only from Edith Wharton novels, but still it comes to her vividly. See, those addresses were all about being found and being seen. People wanted to know where one another were.
She pushes even further back in history, and comes up with the image of a small village, rough cottages and thatch roofs among the green fields of an Anglo world.
Where is old Tom?
Why, in the stone cottage outside of town past the split elm.
Tom didn’t have privacy; the villagers knew where he lived and what he was like. True, he wasn’t getting mail offers for the latest credit card, tailored to his spending habits, but he wasn’t immune from unexpected annoyances. At any moment, the marauding Saxons could have burst into his farmyard to shout epitaphs and set fire to his roof.
So, privacy – that’s a useless illusion. And being able to be found by others, well, ultimately, isn’t that what all of us want?
These are the sorts of thoughts that are floating through her mind as she enters the grocery store. She is moving as if she is in a dream. In the front case, ice cream screams its sale prices at her. Wow, when did ice cream begin to cost $4.99 a gallon on sale, she wonders.
She knows she came in for a reason, and she tries to remember it as she drifts past the freezer cases, further up the aisle past the non-sale ice cream brands. She takes in the colors and textures of the display. Cold, she thinks idly, feeling a chill around her ankle that doesn’t fully penetrate her awareness. A man comes down the aisle toward her, purposefully, shifting his basket to the other arm to consult a list in his hand. She realizes that she is still holding her car keys out in her hand, strangely flexed as if she were just about to insert them into the door lock. She wonders if she looks odd. Perhaps she needs a cart. Or a basket?
She rounds the corner and a stock clerk eyes her quizzically. How are you, he asks. So, yes, she does look odd. She picks up her pace and tries to remember why she is here. How unreal it feels to see the people marching up and down the aisles with such intention.
******
She stares at the phone in her hand, small and silver with its screen and buttons. She turns it over and around, looking at it, feeling it. It is a marvel really. She feels as if she has never really seen it before. His voice cuts off, she hangs up, and she simply stands there, turning the phone over.
She can barely comprehend that out of electrons and radio waves and metal come messages that she receives and sends back. Does she really? Does she receive and send them back?
Five hundred years ago, this would have been an incredible musical instrument. Just the sounds it makes as dialed would have amazed and delighted whole courts of nobles. Perhaps by wielding this, I would have been a sage or a magician. Who knows what life would have been if it had been otherwise.
******
She sits at her computer, eating a bowl of cornflakes. The computer is turned on, but she doesn’t know why. She is unsure what she meant to do with it. Perhaps write something. Look for something? She eats mechanically, moving spoon from bowl to mouth as she sits.
Part of her is aware of her body, and also aware of the struggle deep within. She feels her soul rise within her and lie down on the floor next to her, kicking and thrusting at nothing. Perhaps it would help if she actually were to rise from the chair and join her soul there, lying down on the coarse carpet with it. She would lie still and simply wait, wait for whatever it is that will be coming next.
But even that seems like too much trouble. What would be the point?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Coming Attractions
Oh goodness. It is so difficult to find the time to write even a fraction of what I want to. Plus there's that whole annoying (no, really it's wonderful!) job of writing grants. So whenever I write here, technically I'm using precious "free" time that should be used to work for money. Sigh.
Still though, here are some things I desperately want to write about and plan to get back to in the near future:
1. Short short fiction and Lydia Davis's excellent story collection A Variety of Disturbances
2. Elizabeth Gilbert's Pilgrims and her advice for writing
3. The importance of setting to help establish and ground characters in fiction. A good balance between dialogue, description and setting works best.
4. Demons - positive or negative? Plus explain Buddhist Demon Meditation technique (I'm not making that up, I swear!)
5. The 8 limbs of Yoga
6. An exploration of Yamas and Niyamas
7. Spam and Sincerity in writing
8. Continue posting directions for poses (good practice for teaching, like lesson planning)
9. Samantha Dunn and an excerpt from her wonderful novel Big Love
10. Ghosts and my own daughters' photo of a San Diego ghost
Alright, this can tease your interest, and now I can just refer to this list and stop carrying it around in my memory!
Still though, here are some things I desperately want to write about and plan to get back to in the near future:
1. Short short fiction and Lydia Davis's excellent story collection A Variety of Disturbances
2. Elizabeth Gilbert's Pilgrims and her advice for writing
3. The importance of setting to help establish and ground characters in fiction. A good balance between dialogue, description and setting works best.
4. Demons - positive or negative? Plus explain Buddhist Demon Meditation technique (I'm not making that up, I swear!)
5. The 8 limbs of Yoga
6. An exploration of Yamas and Niyamas
7. Spam and Sincerity in writing
8. Continue posting directions for poses (good practice for teaching, like lesson planning)
9. Samantha Dunn and an excerpt from her wonderful novel Big Love
10. Ghosts and my own daughters' photo of a San Diego ghost
Alright, this can tease your interest, and now I can just refer to this list and stop carrying it around in my memory!
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