Winter Photo Drop

We've been getting a lot of snow lately, so I thought I'd share what I've been seeing.

Park near my house

Abandoned School after a big snow/melt

Backyard snow

Park again

Hard to see ducks subjecting themselves to the cold instead of flying to warmer weather.

My backyard

For more, check out my instagram: eternalsun

Compose Yourself Monday

Creatively Named by Annie
from http://explanniefyfed.blogspot.com/

This week I have been concentrating on a new novel idea, so instead of writing from a prompt this week, I am giving a bit of my old writing followed by a prompt to which I will pick up with next Monday. 

I like this excerpt because I don't really write from a snarky place too often, so it was a lot of fun. As always, enjoy and tag-a-long if you feel so inclined. Writing is always more fun when done together!!! 

Office Encounters

     You could hear her coming well before she stepped into the room. Click clack, click clack; it was so loud and so consistent as the noise bounced off the hallway walls that I would bob my head to it. I could block it out, but that would provide the perfect opportunity for her to sneak up on me. I couldn't give her that chance; if I am going to survive these ten minute tortures everyday, I have to be one hundred percent prepared. She will sit down, at the cubicle in front of me. I will get a brief reprieve from the her bear like gait only for a lighter tapping to take its place. Maybe if I break all her pencils, there will be silence. 

     I hear her chair squeak, and I know what's coming. She is twisting a strand of her hair like the sixteen year old girl she wishes she was. The pencil has been forgotten, but the smacking of her gum takes its place. It doesn't matter what she is about to say, it's always the same thing. She looks at her nails, making it seem like it is just too much work to actually look at me while she is speaking and goes on and on about her fabulous weekend with her fiancé Rodney the third. Never Rodney, or Rod, no…always Rodney the third, the rs rolling off her tongue to make her seem even more haughty taughty than she already is. Finally she looks at me with that condescending smile and asks: "It must be hard being almost forty and not havingsomeone to take care of you. No prospects yet there Tip?" She pops her lips around the P. Tip, her snide little nickname for me because I wear a moderate size twelve and opted not to have my stomach suctioned out like the plastic barbie in front of me. 

     My response is always the same, "No prospects yet, Brittany." I smile through gritted teeth as I think of the myriad of ways my chair could do damage to her face. Her eyes sparkle, she knows she has succeeded in pissing me off once again. The chair squeaks, and she is back to her pencil tapping. All I can do is watch the movement and try not to stab her in the eye with it.

Paraphrased Prompt 2 from the book "Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers" by a slew of authors: 

This has to do with writing from different senses. Have a sound, smell, or taste lead the way

YouTube Fav: Spoken Word

So, for some weekend listening/watching, I thought I would share my favorite YouTube video. It comes from a pretty popular, to put it lightly, spoken word poet, Sarah Kay. This is my favorite poem from her because the ending always gives me chills and I think the audience reactions are both hilarious and appropriate. Enjoy! 

And some other famous people's favorite videos too:

Compose Yourself Mondays

Creatively Named by Annie
from http://explanniefyfed.blogspot.com/

A weekly writer's link-up

As promised, my first link-up for writers. Whether you link-up or not (of course I would love you if you did) please leave your thoughts on my contribution! :) 

Guidelines:

• A prompt will be posted every Monday

• Use the prompt or not but write something, any genre or topic you please and post it by the following Monday
• No unnecessary vulgarity or violence for violence's sake. Keep it classy, or at least include a warning
• Link-up
• Once you have linked up, read a fellow author's contribution and leave some feedback
• General rule of thumb: mention both what does and doesn't work. Constructive criticism is key.

If you have prompt suggestions, please leave them in the comment section or email me directly.

Prompt 1:

This first one comes from a creative writing class I took a couple years ago that was a lot of fun to write on:

Make something conventionally beautiful seem ugly, or something ugly seem beautiful.

My contribution:

Rose

On a white windowsill a vase sits, in this vase rests a rose. This rose, once red and fragrant has lost all forms of its once outward beauty. Its petals are cracked and rigid, a few of which have settled at the base of the encasement its parent still resides in. They have been lost in the gusts of open windows and closing doors. The stem of this rose is now lined like a tree trunk, the point in which stem meets flower has lost its structure and now bends with the weight of the bud. The leaves have morphed from their vibrant green to yellow and brown rimmed. The crystal clear water that provided life to the blossom, is now murky, with a film of fuzzy mold growing from the decomposing gift. While most would throw it away, I cannot. In its broken remnants lies the ghost of the giver and for that it will always appear the same way it did when it was received.

Writing News:

I have recently come across a writing contest for those interested.

Brevity Magazine is hosting a flash nonfiction essay contest. If you think you can answer their prompt in 500 words or less, there is $50 and some writing books for the winner. Read more about it here.

Happy Writing, I look forward to reading everyone's stuff this week!  

Changes

My backyard

2013 came uneventfully. My fiancé and I kept it calm by celebrating snuggled on the couch with our two dogs and a glass of wine as the ball dropped. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to 2012. I had a good year. I quit smoking last year, something I had been trying to do for around nine years. It was the year that I didn't worry about finances, I knew what my life as a student would be, and I didn't really worry about what my future held. In one word, 2012 was calm. 

Inevitably it had to come to an end, and I am glad it did--renewal is good--but 2013 is looking to be one of those years full of change. I'm graduating this year. I have to find a REAL career, something that I could potentially do LONGTERM…two scary words right there. It's an odd thing to think about my life after student hood. School's consumed my life for four years, and now it just won't be there. I'm also restarting my health goals; lose fifty pounds, eat organically, cut the crap, run a 5k (the color run specifically. It's in my city this year, super exited!). It's been touch and go this first 7 days. I did however, completely omit pop and all forms of fast-food and about 75% processed foods from my diet. Oh, and I lost 3 lbs. 

As the changes begin in my life, I'm also bringing some changes here. I started this blog as an outlet for my creative writing, and well that just never happened. It turned into a journal. I guess I can blame that on fear. Fear that my writing will be seen and judged and ripped apart. Which I know it will by some and that's a fear I want to face this year. I am a writer. People do read my stuff. Hell, I've had a short story published before. But putting my stuff on my blog, I run in fear of that. 

No more! I will be committing myself to one creative post a week, hopefully more as I gain confidence, but one for sure. It will be either fiction, non fiction, or poetry. There will be a color coding system, or maybe a disclaimer so it will be crystal clear what's based on fact or fiction. I urge other writers to join me. I'm playing around with a link-up for it, something where we can connect our writing and provide some constructive criticism--writing is all about getting better, and you need feedback to do so, right? If you're interested, please leave a comment, shoot me an e-mail, or contact me via twitter @Nikki_Writ (It may seem that I don't really use it, but I keep my eye on it. Twitter just never really took off for me.) 

Sometimes, I will be working off a prompt system to get the creative juices flowing and I could share those, too. I know there are resources out there to connect writers, but I like the idea of a contained writing group, an online writing workshop, if you will. Or even if you don't want to join this writing endeavor with me, if you are a writer let me know; I would love to connect with other writers in any form. 

My writing is not of the short and sweet variety. I like flash fiction, I have written it, but even my short stories are pages long. Obviously that doesn't work well for blogging. So, sometimes it will be of the flash variety, other times excerpts or short chapters. If someone is interested in the longer version of a piece, I will make it available on a request basis. It should be noted that what I post on here will be as polished as I can get them, but the longer works may be more rough.

Let me know if you're interested!

Happy 2013 everyone! 

This Christmas

My instagram

I didn't want to blog about the Connecticut shooting. Not because I don't think it is important, but because I don't feel like whatever I can say about it is adequate to fully describe how I processed what happened, or how I feel about the victims and survivors. But then I felt like I couldn't ignore it, either. 

So, all I will say is that I appreciate this Christmas so much more. Since Friday, I have been so much more aware about what is going on around me because I've felt like I needed to be outside myself for once. The moment I read about the shooting, I lost pretty much all faith I ever had in humanity. I thought: well this is it, as low as one can go. I was incredibly angry and sad; I actually shed some tears, and for those that know me, this is huge. For a girl, I usually remain incredibly dry eyed for most tear inducing things. So to combat the darkness, I've been searching for things to restore my faith in humanity. And praying a lot. There's the story about the teacher hiding her kids and losing her life to protect those kids, just one of the many staff heros. A story about a military retiree who recently passed but during his tour of duty saved some thirty people by risking his life to fly in for the wounded; and the stories from my back yard like my community banding together to give an honest working man back his hotdog cart when careless protesters ripped it apart. 

I am also concentrating on the drawing of my mom's favorite flowers that I am doing for her Christmas present and my dad's knitted hat because even though they don't have department store tags, I am putting my time and energy in them and spending my break with them in that way since I can't go home yet. 

And I am thinking about those children and teachers who should have been here this Christmas, but instead will be spending it in our thoughts. 

I hope this event will finally bring about the change we need to make these careless shootings stop. And I just want to say for the record, because a lot of people talk about how the killers are the ones who always get remembered, that I don't remember any of the shooters names from any of the tragedies. I remember the victims and the amazing acts of bravery and courage that come out of such disasters. I also think there needs to be an overhall on our mental health system. I have worked in the mental health field for four years and I have seen a lot of people who really needed help fall through the cracks because it's too taboo to talk about behavioral or mental illness. We don't have enough educated professionals and not enough studies are being done to adequately treat those suffering. If we could open up the discussion about mental illness instead of treating them like dirty secrets, maybe we could start to see a change. 

Happy Holidays, everyone. 

A Late Thanksgiving

My instagram

It's finals time for me. A fastly approaching ending to the worst semester ever. Thanksgiving was a nice reprieve from the academic stress, but sometimes family stress can be worse. Luckily, I bypassed that for the most part.

My family time is relatively relaxing, aside from being pulled in a million directions in order to see everyone, my parents, the large family, and then my little old granny. Usually that travel is compounded by the added stress of seeing Jay's family. That side is usually not so fun. After nine years, I still don't exactly mesh with the larger part of his extended family. I chalk it up to different backgrounds. Thankfully, they didn't hold a Thanksgiving dinner this year and the arguments were limited to one bad text argument between Jay and his brother where I was once again blamed for their relationship issues even though I've only spoken to the man twice in my entire life…I am apparently the social pariah. That's cool, not a huge fan of you either!

All that aside, I am thankful for the family I did see and the time I got to spend at home. 

And I am more than thankful that I only have ONE MORE WEEK left of classes. No seminar paper, poetry portfolio, probably the worst Holocaust papers I've ever written due to possibly the worst TA on earth, nor French final will put a damper on that excitement. 

Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season. Despite my lack of resources to purchase any gifts, I plan on having an amazing Christmas with my family, anyways. We may not have gifts, but I have Mia and the rest of the family in tact. The exchange was worth it.