Day 74: Perhaps inspired by my birthday, I wrote the following (not very good) poemish thing:
Years are like boxes. They hold things. But some things don't always fit neatly inside.
They spill out, overflow. Some boxes are nearly empty.
Years are like doors - no, that's not really true.
Years are like long lists of things to do.
No, years are cars on that distant road,
things that go by quickly as you're paying attention to something else.
Years are heavy sometimes. They have weight.
And yet they're so light that you don't tend to notice.
Years are grains of sand. Years are like air.
The truth is that years are like the absence of light,
the mechanics of mirrors, or why birds have flight -
they're things that I don't understand and maybe never will.
But I'm okay with that. I'm okay.
Forget about years. I'll just worry about today.
Day 75: I wrote more on the house between worlds, including this excerpt:
There are many ways to be wrong.
There’s the wrong where you know it’s wrong, and everyone else does too, and there’s nothing good that could possibly come from it.
There’s the wrong where you know it’s wrong and other people do too, but they figure it’s for the best so why try to stop it.
There’s the wrong where everyone else thinks it’s wrong but you don’t, not really, and you’re stuck trying to figure out how these people you look up to and trust so much could think something so fundamentally different from you, and whether they’re the ones who are wrong or whether you are.
There are many more, but these are the ones I’ve come across tonight.
It’s wrong to ask for a Second. I know that, Jason knows it, and everyone on the ship knows it too. Nothing good could possibly come of it.
It’s wrong that Jason loves a girl but cannot ever be with her. I know it, he knows it, Em knows it… I know she must. But in the end, I think she reasons it’s better this way. Better to cut it off like this than to give him any hope of an ordinary life when he never will lead one.
It’s wrong that I dream of staying when we, of course, must always leave. It’s wrong that I question the curse, that I wonder if maybe there might be some other way to break it, some important thing the adults are keeping from us somehow. But is it wrong? Am I wrong? Or is Em really the one who’s in error here?
Or is it possible that neither of us are really wrong, that all that’s wrong about this is the problem we find ourselves in, that really we’re just two people trying to make the best of an impossible situation?
I saw Jason leave this morning when the others were asleep. I saw that he took his things with him, all of them. I saw the look in his eyes.
And now we are airborne. Moving on to a new place, and Em assumes Jason is below decks with the others.
Which leads to the biggest question of them all: is it wrong that I haven’t told anyone?
I want to give him as much of a headstart as I can.
Day 76: A difficult day for some reason, so all that came out of it was this haiku...
That mouse over there
Looms above me like a giant.
Yes, I feel that small.
Day 77: I had the most incredible nightmare. Usually, if it's the kind that wakes me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night all I remember of it is whatever happened right before that, but in this case I remembered an actual story behind the dream and it almost made sense. There wasn't really a beginning to it, but I jotted down what I could remember of the dream and started trying to adapt it into a short story, fixing some of the weirder dream-element parts that would mess with the logic. I won't get too much into it, because it's definitely going to be one of the 13 days of Halloween this year!
Day 78: Using some beads I bought from the art store down near Rebekah's house in Florida, I made a necklace. I accidentally left it out in my car and I'm lazy and don't want to go get it right now, so I'll have to post a picture later.
Day 79: More on the house-between-worlds story. I know, I know... I'm starting to sound like a broken record. But like I said earlier, it's not a short story; it'll be quite long when I'm done. And there are quite a few characters to juggle, so this section isn't about the same people as in day 75. Here's today's snippet:
The ride to school was awkward. Since we were the last two on the bus at this, the final stop on the route, we were wedged into the very back on the broken bus seat that supposedly sat two but only really fit one person comfortably. Technically, Alexander could have sat anywhere he wanted. He was that kind of person: the waters of high school society would part miraculously for him if he so desired. But today it seemed like all he desired was something I wasn’t about to offer up: the knowledge of what exactly it was that I had seen in that window.
Day 80: So, the house-between-worlds story I keep talking about is very much an autumn-y kid of story. It deals with darkness and shadows and the colder time of year, mysteries and some scary stuff. But one of the first "novels" that I ever wrote (if you can count the 50-page document I wrote when I was eleven as a novel) was very much a summer-y kind of tale. It's always secretly been a hope of mine that I'll get around to rewriting that story one day, and with spring kicking into high gear here in North Carolina, I was reminded of it more than ever. I was also reminded of it because of a drawing Rebekah's sister Bess posted on her facebook of Red Riding Hood on horseback riding into the forest.
I should explain: this story (which I nicknamed "Wishbook" for reasons that will become apparent) is about a young girl named Anna who lives in that kind of pseudo-medieval world that a lot of fantasy stories take place in. She hates all the boring stuff that's expected of her as the daughter of a country knight and longs to go off and have adventures. In a strange turn of events she stumbles upon a magical object; she thinks it's merely a blank book and treats it like a diary, but really it holds the power to grant any wish written in it. Action and excitement ensue as all her wildest dreams for adventure become reality, but as things wind more and more out of her control she begins to realize that getting everything you've always wished for isn't all it's cracked up to be.
So yes, her going off on her journey starts out very similarly to that drawing of Bess's: heading into the forest, leaving the safety of home behind and going off to discover what adventures await. So, between that and the weather I sat down and wrote a few scenes for the new-and-improved Wishbook. I don't think it's something I'll seriously pursue this year, but it was a fun diversion for the day.
Day 81: I pulled out my oil pastels and attempted to draw pictures of two of my story heroines: Anna from Wishbook, and Joan from House-Between-Worlds.
Here they are:
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