Author: Brooke

Be Silent – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
the quiet envelopes us in this room
       we say nothing to break the silence
but i like spending this time with you
       and the outside world is too loud

if only everyone could learn to be silent
       the birds pecking at the trees in the yard
the neighbors mowing their lawn 
       the kids across the street who don't

yet know how quiet the world can get
        if you just let it be

This is a super short piece, even for me, but I felt it was best to keep it short. I mean, that’s kind of the point of it. I hope you enjoyed it, and I would love for you to leave any feedback or any writing challenges you may have for me to try in the future in the comments. Stay safe and healthy!

Brooke

Bumpy – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
i hadn't ridden a bike in a long time, but here i was- three miles
         on the smooth, flat Palm Springs streets. all identical,
brown tones, desert landscaping, community pools
          seemingly endless, which is why i kept going. i'd never gone

on such a long ride. a mirage; i showed no signs of tiring, even
          in the April desert heat, instead picking up speed, whizzing 
by golf carts and happy families unloading their cars. 
           i probably wouldn't have stopped, if i didn't find myself 

back at the vacation rental. i put the bike in the garage, where it 
           wouldn't be touched for who knows how long. but i didn't 
even consider going on a bike ride when we came home.
            "the roads are too bumpy" was the excuse i'd give

i didn't want to navigate the sloping, cracked streets of my
              neighborhood, or pass by people i knew. i wanted to chase 
that desert mirage, and navigate the roads of life that were less
               bumpy.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! It was a fun one to write; I got the idea while I was reminiscing on my spring break vacation to Palm Springs last April. Luckily, the weather is heating up where I live and it’s pretty nice (not as hot as the desert, that’s for sure!) so I can comfortably blog from my backyard while basking in the sun. Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or any writing challenges for me to try out in the future! Stay safe and healthy.

Brooke

Never Enough – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
i've spent countless minutes, hours, days, even months
by now trying to figure out what you want from me

you look at me like i'm dirt at the bottom of a barrel,
or dust collecting in the corners of an old pan

i'll never be enough for you and in turn,
i'm not satisfied with the limited love you have for me

always left wondering why you'd stoop so low to be
with me if you think so lowly of me

every put-down, every scolding, every cutting remark
leaves another mark on my soul

and yet you're never done criticizing me
this is your sport, and it's never enough

I hope you enjoyed this piece! It’s definitely a little more on the sad side, but that’s the place I was in while writing it. There’s some people like this, where you feel like you’re never enough for them, yet they keep sticking around and won’t get out of your life. Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece, or if you have any writing challenges you’d like me to attempt in the future!

Brooke

Why I’m Only Comfortable Sharing My Writing With Strangers

Brooke2 Comments

Hello everyone!

As a writer, my goal in sharing my work is to connect with other people, and hopefully help them in some way with my words. There are definitely pieces that I don’t end up wanting to share or post anywhere and that I keep to myself, but other than personal writing, the goal is to get your work out there… right? Today I’m going to be discussing why I’m still somewhat uncomfortable with sharing my work where people can see it attached to my name, and why I’m only comfortable sharing it with strangers when I do share it somewhere. If you’re interested in finding out why this is the case, keep on reading!

I’ve been writing on-and-off all my life, but I only started getting super into it this past year. I got my first poem published through a writing contest in fall 2019, and it was very exciting for me. I told my friends and family about it and they all wanted to read it, but I awkwardly declined. Somehow I had felt completely comfortable sending my poem off to a committee of strangers in hopes of them selecting it for publication where other strangers could read it, but I didn’t want my family and friends who were proud of my achievement to read it.

I think it’s because when someone you don’t know reads your work, the name it’s attributed to doesn’t matter. It’s just them deciding whether it speaks to them are not, and making their own interpretation of it. But when someone you know reads your work, especially someone you know well, they might try to figure out the inspiration of it or wrongly assume something based on the piece. Since they actually know you, the baring of your soul is a lot more serious since they know who that soul belongs to.

A lot of my friends don’t even know that I am a writer, or at least to the extent of what I write and what I do. I tell them I like to write in my free time or I’ll mention it once in a while, but not that I have a blog, or that I’m an editor for a teen literary magazine, or that I submit my work to certain contests/publications and hope to get published through those. First of all, none of my friends are writers, so this probably wouldn’t flow naturally in a conversation anyway. I’m sure they’d be supportive, but I wouldn’t want them to go and find my work and read it- not that I’m trashing them or even mentioning them in it, but just because that feels awkward to me.

I know it’s kind of weird, since these are the people that could help me gain more traffic on my blog or help me “promote” it, but that’s the thing. This blog and my writing in general is more of a hobby and something I do to unwind, because it’s fun and I love to write. Obviously I want these posts to reach people who they’ll be helpful to, but I want them to do that on their own merit, not by selling myself to people I know, and then having them read my personal thoughts at their pleasure.

This might sound very odd, but I’m assuming there are other young writers (or older writers!) out there like this too. Writing is so personal, and writing from your perspective and your experiences to have anyone who is a part of your personal life read it would be even scarier than someone who doesn’t know you at all read it, in my opinion. There’s a bigger possibility of judgement, or it changing the way these people in your life view you. And I don’t want that, so I choose to keep most of my writing private from my family and friends. I probably will continue to do so, unless by some crazy change of events it’s unavoidable. That’s my personal choice.

I hope this offered an interesting perspective as to some reasons why writers may choose to keep their work private. I know my family and friends don’t necessarily understand, but hopefully some of you might! Let me know if you have any writing challenges for me to try out in the near future 🙂

Brooke

My Mother’s Garden – Prose

BrookeLeave a comment

I’m sitting in a yard that is unfamiliar, yet it’s been my occasional sanctuary for a few years. The breeze ruffles the petals of the various flowers and plants around me. My mother has so many plants that you can’t even see the layers of dirt and fertilizer in the planter anymore.

My hair, becoming a lighter shade of golden under the sun, flows around my shoulders. Some pieces occasionally float in front of my eyes, obstructing my view of the yard, but it doesn’t trouble me. I don’t think I’ll miss anything.

I get nervous when the bees come to harvest pollen from the large bush of lavender beside me. Sometimes one will buzz too close to my ear, and I’ll abandon my normally secure spot on the lounge chair nearest to the flowers. I never understood why the bees only come to that lavender bush, when it’s probably the plainest, dullest colored plant in this yard.

The orange poppies with yellow rims have opened up, a few pink poppies beginning to open themselves right next to them. Succulents of all types inhabit colorful pots my mom has collected from a variety of places; a few have grown so much they needed to be replanted into the dirt in the actual planter alongside all the “normal” plants.

I turn to look behind me and notice the light pink rosebush in the corner, nestling against the ivy that covers our fence. I could’ve sworn the roses were white last year.

There’s flowers among flowers among flowers among other plants I can’t name- rich with pinks, greens, reds, oranges, blues, and purple that is much more vibrant than that of the lavender bush.

Sometimes I forget how beautiful this garden has become. It’s so easy to think of the barren patches of dirt, or weeds that resided here years ago. Or the fact that as I try to admire the plants, there’s at least one neighbor currently mowing their lawn, or a plane flying overhead.

There are no real sanctuaries from everyday life, but if there were, my mother’s garden would be one of them.

I hope you enjoyed this little piece! It was kind of fun to just look around my yard and pick out the parts I wanted to write about. I do love admiring the various flowers and plants- my mom’s become quite the gardener in the past couple years. Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece, or any writing challenges for me to try out in the future!

Brooke

A Letter to the Class of 2020

BrookeLeave a comment

Dear Seniors,

I am so sorry for the loss of your senior year second semester, graduation, and all the activities and celebrations that were supposed to commemorate your hard work leading up to this point. I understand this is a time of mourning and yet a time of excitement at the same time; the unfortunate situation does not strip away these accomplishments and the fact that you have committed to colleges, or that you are, in fact, still graduating.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in your position. This COVID-19 crisis has affected the whole world in different ways, but the class of 2020 is all experiencing similar emotions in terms of grieving the loss of finishing the rat race that is high school in its traditional form. As a current sophomore, I’ve looked up to you guys the past year. Observing the seniors and eagerly awaiting the time when you’ll get to be in their shoes is commonplace for underclassmen, but this year is clearly different.

This experience may be defining of this year, but it does not define your high school experience. I’ve seen articles about people trying to organize “redemption proms” at their respective colleges they will be attending, and I hope you are able to achieve this chance at “redemption” in some capacity. Regardless of the eventual outcome, whether your graduation is online, postponed, or cancelled altogether, just know that you are still on the path to bigger and better things in life.

I realize this may sound annoying coming from a sophomore and I know I don’t understand exactly what you’re going through because I’m not in your place, but I want any seniors out there to know that we are here for you. You might be about to enter the next stage of life, but as someone in high school looking forward to being a senior, I do have some idea of what you’ve lost.

Best of luck in all your future endeavors! There will hopefully be opportunities to make your own celebrations and try to make the best of this situation, no matter how difficult it is. Congratulations- regardless of the situation, you still made it.

Brooke

After Dark – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
i can't remember the last time i was out after dark
the oranges, pinks, purples, and reds of the sunset

mark the ending of my day. i close the blinds, 
get ready for bed, and wait until the sun returns

but i'm tired of playing by the sun's rules, everyone's
rules. maybe i want to be a walking cliché

dancing in the moonlight, taking walks in the dark
while the summer heat and humidity lingers

surrounding my body like invisible sparks in the night
invincible strolling down the streets

the night lasting forever because 
i don't want to go back home

I hope you enjoyed this poem. It’s not my favorite, but I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific I wanted to change. It’s definitely a very accurate portrayal of my thought process regarding summer and staying out late- as much as I want to have the stereotypical teen adventures, I’m a grandma and usually don’t go out past ten 🙂 Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try out in the future!

Brooke

(Another) Summer Writing Program Update

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

Today I have an exciting post to share with you all. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that I applied to a few summer writing programs this year. I applied to the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program, and the CSPA Cal Poly journalism program. If you’re interested in hearing my final results and how these programs are being impacted by COVID-19, keep on reading!

I want to get out the good news first. I am so happy and excited to say that I was accepted off of the waitlist to the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference! I will be attending, and I got accepted into my first choice genre (poetry). The program has been moved online, so we will be having Zoom classes with breaks between classes to work on reading and writing assignments, as well as evening assignments. There are a couple works we’re supposed to read before the conference starts, and I believe they’ll be holding extra Zoom conferences before the program officially starts so we can get to know people and the amazing staff members. I am so, so grateful to get this opportunity to work on my writing.

I also got accepted into the CSPA journalism program held at Cal Poly. They were unsure of their plans regarding cancelling the conference or moving it online; at the time of acceptance, they were being optimistic and saying at the moment the plan was still to hold the conference in person as normal. They gave us the option to wait until May to send in our deposit, or to defer our acceptance to next year. I chose to defer my acceptance as I was still waiting to hear back about the Sewanee waitlist and the Adroit mentorship at that point, and it’s nice to know I already have a possible summer plan for next year!

The Kenyon Review Young Writers’ Workshop was completely canceled, and they did so before ever announcing decisions. I guess I’ll never know whether I would’ve gotten in or not, which is okay but kind of disappointing. I might end up applying again next year, as it’s such an amazing program and I would’ve loved to go. They offered a discount code on a subscription to the Kenyon Review literary magazine though, so I was happy to take advantage of that.

I got rejected from The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program, but that was not exactly a surprise. Their program will continue to go on as normal since it’s always been completely remote/online and flexible, which was one of the things that drew me to it. They had a huge spike in applications this year- around 650 last year to over 1000 this year, and I believe the acceptance rate was around 5% or less as a result. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed to get rejected, but I knew that this would be the biggest stretch to try and get into. I’ll most likely try again next year for this one as well! I’ll definitely be looking out for the work that emerges from the no-doubt extremely talented writers who did make it into the program!

That pretty much sums up my experience with summer programs this year. As a sophomore, this was my first year trying to apply to programs like this, and I’m grateful I did. I cannot wait for Sewanee, and I will most definitely be blogging about the experience. If you applied to any summer programs, I hope you got in and are still able to participate somehow even with COVID-19 going on; I assume it’s pretty half-and-half between programs cancelling and programs moving to online instruction.

Let me know if you have any questions about these programs or anything else in the summer program/writing summer program realm! It’s not a guarantee that I’ll know the answer since I’m not an expert, but I’ll try my best to help. Stay safe and healthy!

Brooke

How I Write My Blog Posts

BrookeLeave a comment

Welcome back everyone!

Today I’m going to be sharing my blog post writing process, from start to finish. In case you’re new to my blog, here’s a little bit of background: I pre-write and schedule all of my posts a week in advance on weekends, so I write seven blog posts each weekend. Usually about half of those seven will be sharing my poems/writing, and the other half will be related to school or some other topic. If you’re interested in learning what goes into each of my posts, keep on reading!

First, I start with what type of post I want to write. Usually for this, I simply make this distinction: is it going to be a writing post, or not? I usually have a supply of poems I want to share on this blog, so if it is a writing post, I can easily choose one. If not, I have to do a bit more brainstorming before I start writing.

I actually usually title my posts before I start writing them, but I sometimes change the title before I’m done if my writing takes a turn and I think a different title would better reflect the post. After I title it, I choose the time I want it to be posted, I select the category I want it to be posted under, and I write three tags for it (usually one is always “wordpress”). I find an image that reflects the content of the post on unsplash.com since they offer free high-quality images, and then I get to writing the actual post.

My posts tend to be on the shorter side unless it’s a rant/opinion type post, so it takes between 15-45 minutes for me to write it from start to finish. I’ll have a little introduction paragraph, the bulk of the post, and then I’ll have a really short conclusion where I let readers know that I’m always open to suggestions and answering questions. I also always sign my name at the end (not even sure why- I don’t really think it’s necessary, but it’s a habit).

After I’ve written out the full post, I’ll read it over myself and edit anything I think needs to be changed or fixed. If it’s a poem, I’ll make sure the formatting is in “verse” rather than paragraph so the line breaks are where I want them to be. Another thing I do differently when posting poetry is I write an excerpt, since I don’t do an introduction paragraph for those posts; I go straight into the poem when you open up the post.

It’s a pretty simple process, but here it is in steps:

  1. Decide what type of post I want to write (writing/education/organization/review, etc.)
  2. Brainstorm post idea.
  3. Title post.
  4. Adjust all the settings- choose the pre-scheduled time to post, select the category I want the post to be under on my blog, add 3 tags.
  5. Find a picture to go with the post on unsplash.com that will be the featured post image.
  6. Write the actual post. Introduction paragraph, content, conclusion, sign-off.
  7. Read the post over and make any necessary changes.
  8. Press “schedule”!

Hopefully this shed some light on the blogging process if you’re a new blogger and wondering how other bloggers get their posts up, or if you’re just curious on what goes into each post. Let me know if you have any questions, as I’m happy to answer them in the comments.

Brooke

Shadow in the Mirror – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
i have a thousand different faces
that have been reflected 

in this prism of light and dark
not one of them has stuck around

my stomach sticks out and lies flat
my face fattens and thins out
my legs lengthen and shorten
my hair grows and disappears

i am a thousand different people
but i have not seen myself

i am a shadow, wondering which
of my disguises will be reflected

the next time i look into the 
wretched panel of glass

This was a really short piece, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Body image is something everyone struggles with at one point, and I’ve found a lot of comfort in reading pieces about it. Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece, or any writing challenges for me to try out in the future!

Brooke