creative writing

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

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

Personal – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
how personal is too personal for us?
i pour my heart, soul, and the entire
fiber of my being into you
and i'm not sure if i should regret it

you can't trust anyone but yourself
an old mantra of mine
the only person you can count on is yourself
another old mantra of mine

when i met you, these mantras were
forgotten

am i wrong to trust you?
am i wrong to count on you?

the answers are personal, and
yet to be determined

As always, I hope you enjoyed this piece. The idea of certain things and topics being “personal” was something I wanted to make one of my “deep questions” opinion-type posts, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And what’s more personal than sharing my poem about getting personal with someone new? 🙂 Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try out in the future.

Brooke

Working On My Novel – Q&A

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

If you read my post not too long ago about my latest writing projects, you might remember that I’ve started working on writing a novel during this quarantine. I thought this would make an interesting topic for a post and I could answer some questions that my friends and other people have been asking me about the process so far and what I’m planning to do with it in the future. If you’re interested in learning more about the book I’m working on, keep on reading!

Q: Why did you start writing this novel/what made you take on such a large project?

A: Honestly, a few reasons came together to convince me that this was the time to sit down and give my best attempt at writing a book. I’ve had a few book ideas, but the one that I ended up using had been sticking out to me for a while. I’d written the prologue and brainstormed some of the plot and characters, and I was waiting a time for when I’d actually sit down and write it. Additionally, quarantine’s given me a lot more free time to work on writing and projects like this, so I actually had the time to dive into it and get myself started. I’ve only been working on it for a couple weeks now, but I know that I wouldn’t have gotten this far if it wasn’t for quarantine. The thing that really sparked me sitting down and writing the first few pages was getting an email from NaNoWriMo that because of quarantine, they were making April another novel-writing month challenge. I started towards the end of April and definitely didn’t finish, but I still took that as a sign of sorts.

Q: What is your book about, and how did you get the idea?

A: Honestly, my book is about a lot of things. The main character, Lauren, is trying to find herself. At the beginning of the book, she doesn’t even know that she’s trying to find herself, but she is. In that way, it’s a very typical coming-of-age type book about teenagers growing up, but there’s a lot more than that going on in the plot. Lauren has been selected by the government to live on this island with 499 other people in her age range for a year, and it’s very mysterious as to what the actual purpose of this little social experiment is. I know it sounds kind of sci-fi, but it’s really not. I got the idea because as a high schooler who will be going off to college in a few years, I’m surrounded by people trying to figure out their lives and who they want to be. Some people determine this by just figuring it out in college, some people go into the workforce, some people take gap years- I wanted to explore this idea but with something else going on in the mix. I’m also a big fan of typical YA dystopias, so the island isolation thing was something I’d wanted to play with.

Q: How far are you in the writing process?

A: Not far at all. At the time of writing this post, I’m at about 20,000 words. I got the ball rolling with around 7,000 words in a weekend, but my daily word count goal is only 1,000, and I’ve been doing that pretty consistently for the last couple of weeks. I’ve gone back and edited a few things like mini plot holes, but other than that I haven’t even started editing what I’ve written so far.

Q: What do you plan to do when you finish it? Are you just going to keep it to yourself?

A: I haven’t decided yet. It’s always been a goal of mine to publish a book, but I wouldn’t want to put something out there that I’m not really proud of. I know it would be very difficult to go down the traditional publishing route and that’s a whole other world I don’t know a lot about- I’ll probably do some research to see how feasible it would be. If I finish the project and edit it to the point where I think it needs to be seen by the world, I would probably end up self-publishing it, since that’s a more realistic goal.

Q: What is your main character like?

A: I’ve based my main character largely off of myself, kind of accidentally. Lauren is an over-thinker who’s trying so hard not to be. She’s a fiercely loyal friend who will protect the people she loves at all costs, but she has trouble standing up for herself and putting herself out there. One of the main reasons she agreed to come to the island was to get out of her comfort zone, and she struggles with actually doing this once she’s there. I think that choice proves she’s more daring than she/other people think, but it takes a bit of pressure for her to demonstrate her true potential in a lot of ways.

I could go on with more, but I don’t want to give too much away, and like I said, I am still pretty early on in the writing process. This has been such an exciting project for me to work on, and I hope to write more posts about it and share more about the book in the future! Let me know if you have any specific questions, as I would be happy to answer them in the comments. 🙂

Brooke

War on Bugs – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
my room became a little habitat
first the little spiders scuttling
from wall to wall, using my comforter 
as a launch pad

then the speedy silverfish my
brother tried to kill with his shoe;
he missed and it scuttled behind 
the dresser, not to be seen again

an unidentified bug paid his 
respects the next day, but
my mom successfully stamped
out his existence

bugs, i plead, please don't come 
and visit this room, my habitat
you have the great outdoors
and i have this room

I hope you enjoyed this poem! I actually have found a lot of bugs in my room lately, which is pretty disturbing for me (I am extremely afraid of bugs/spiders), but it makes sense since the California sun is finally shining, and it is hot! Please let me know if you have any feedback on this piece you’d like to share, or writing challenges for me to use in the future 🙂

Brooke

Checkpoint – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
we've made it to our checkpoint
who thought that things would end up like this?

a few months and the world's turned 
topsy-turvy absolutely upside down

a few months with you and my world's
been completely spun around

it seems wrong that this isn't more of an 
accomplishment to have made it this far

maybe it wasn't the right time for us
is the world trying to give us a sign?

or maybe we should've set our expectations lower
and not decided to designate a checkpoint

I hope you enjoyed this poem! It’s a bit more open-ended and all over the place, but I think it’s still clear/easy to interpret the meaning. Everyone’s lives really have been turned upside down at the moment, and it affects everyone differently. Hope you all are staying healthy and safe.

Brooke

How Is Quarantine Going? – Prose

Brooke2 Comments

“How is quarantine going for you?” My friends ask me through texts, Snapchats, and pretty much any other form of social media.

Oh, it’s going, I think to myself, not bothering to give an actual reply. I respond with messages that change the subject before setting my phone down and searching for a book to read. I need an escape, and a good story will do just the trick. No one wants to sit and think about how long life will continue on like this.

The hours tick by quickly; pages are turned, meals and many snacks are eaten, and I might even venture outside when the sun comes out for a few hours, bringing warmth to the pavement. Before I know it, it’s dark and I’m shutting my blinds, showering, and getting ready for bed.

I’ve never had such a monotonous schedule. I’m used to never having enough time and somehow that’s carried on into these days that fly by, but never has time felt so pointless. I’m trying to take advantage of the laziness I can now allow myself to have, but it feels strangely wrong.

I’m about to get under the covers, watch a random soapy TV show on Netflix, and go to sleep. But… the loneliness has kicked in. Have I even had a real conversation with anyone all day? I turn back to my phone, and fire off a few quick messages:

“How was your day?” “How’s quarantine going for you?” “I miss you, what’s new?”

Although I had the urge to send them, I don’t wait around for people to answer. I guess that’s kind of silly, since it means a conversation won’t actually start, but oh well. There’s plenty of time, right? I’ll respond in the morning and catch up with everyone.

I resume my bed lounging and late-night TV watching. Eventually, I turn over to lay on my stomach and drift off until I’m asleep for the night.

The next morning, after I make my bed and get ready for the day, I check my phone. I have quite a few notifications from last night, mostly Snapchats and texts.

“It was okay, what about you?” “It’s boring, how’s it going for you?” “I miss you too! Nothing much, what about you?”

Strangely enough, I don’t feel like getting into it. I send off quick, generic messages to each, wishing my friends well and telling them I’m bored and okay too. I leave behind my phone to go make breakfast and read a book while I eat.

And so it repeats.

I hope you enjoyed this little piece! It’s almost just a personal update, but I figured it made more sense to categorize it as prose/creative writing because of the format and how it was almost like a mini-narrative. Let me know if you have any feedback on this piece or writing challenges for me to try in the future 🙂

Brooke