English Studies with Creative Writing: Second Year

Transformative Writing - Week 1

Source: Oppa Gangnam Style - Virginia University Flash-Mob 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsvUqnqPtGk)

Challenge: Imagine you are one of the dancers participating in the flash-mob. Write about the experience.

Thirty-five seconds. I’ve been listening to Gangnam style repeatedly for days, ensuring I have perfected his bizarre horse-riding dance move. Thirty seconds. Why on Earth did I agree to go first? Twenty-five seconds. Oh shit, I think that’s Lucy; please let it be Sophie or Abigail or anyone in the world but Lucy. Twenty seconds. There’s no way I’m doing it. If Mr. Gangnam Style himself was here, I wouldn’t. Ten seconds. When the music starts, I’m just going to casually walk away. Five seconds. I could say that I’ve forgotten how to ride an imaginary horse. Three seconds. She’s looking; oh shit she’s looking. Two seconds. That’s it, I’m going; I’m definitely going. One second. Oh Lucy will have to get over herself - it’s Gangnam Style!

Transformative Writing – Week 2: Vanitas Art

-      Objects: A compass or pocket watch; a crown; a globe; a skull with a missing jaw and missing teeth; red ribbon; magnifying glass; a page of writing (possibly a map); flowers; a table; a scarf; bubbles; a candle holder; holly leaves.

Skull – crowned death

Crown – bejewelled

Globe – glowing

Table – burdened 

Ribbon – twisted

Bubbles – light/free

Map/page – worn

Book - colossal

Challenge: Transform the source.  

There was so much darkness in the room, an eeriness that seeped in beneath my skin. The air inside was bound to the thick dust and completely starved of oxygen. I received the letter a week before, that fateful page that determined my coming here. 

The table was cluttered with the remnants of a life that had long since escaped this world. A jaw-less skull wearing a crown of hay sat in the centre, its front teeth biting into the book below it that resembled an encyclopaedia. Was this symbolic of his appetite for knowledge, an appetite so profound it existed even in death? Or did it represent how when one seeks absolute knowledge, he must fall? As my gaze brushed across the items I thought of an ordinary man that should have been a king; a pioneering force that thrived on nature, never satisfied until he had explored all that was explorable. I imagined him meandering in unmarked territory with only a compass as a companion; his veins brimming with wanderlust, his ink spilling from his pen. 

Maybe he was a man who saw through the falsehood of precious items like jewels and gold, how the men who wore them never deserved the power they entitled. Perhaps his treasure was bubbles. Maybe he admired their perfection, present in their fragility and their temporary existence. Or was he the treasure-hunter? The only item that inclined me to believe such a thing was the holly leaves; it was something about the sharpness of their edges. Who stole his jaw, and what did it mean to them? Was he so villainous that someone removed it while he was breathing, living, talking? Despite the scent of morbidity emanating from the skull, the left side seemed full, spirited; meaningful. The right side – cold, metallic and fragrant-less. Which was his life or was it all his? 

I didn't know. All I knew was whoever's life it was withered to a handful of items before me. I obeyed the words from the letter and painted my snapshot of this mystery-man, falling in and out of love with the several possible lives I coloured. 

My Vanitas

This ill-thought out assembly of a horde of my personals pretty much sums up my life. The funny thing is that when I came to create this, I realised that I didn’t have all that I wanted at hand. For instance, I couldn’t find my Paul Simon CD, my Jimi Hendrix T-Shirt is in the wash, there wasn’t enough room for friends and family on the blanket and Flint Lockwood was far too busy to bring his animated self to sit in for the picture. What was more surprising was what I did find and I didn’t think about. What you see before you is a snapshot of nostalgia for the most part, that begins with a poem from an ex-boyfriend, which is partially veiled by a scrap-book. The scrap-book, I discovered this afternoon in a forgotten drawer. The picture on the left is of my Year 4 class at Primary School, attached to a card from my teacher who was leaving. At the side of the photo, he has drawn a cartoon picture of himself holding a sign saying “I’ll Miss You”, which I can only assume is what triggered my response below:

Even as a bairn, my affection was won very easily. As you can see, there is some serious underlining going on. I’m not at all sure of its purpose; I only hope I can forgive my eight year-old self in spelling whole as hole. And as you can see by the beginning of this sentence, old habits never die. It’s not clear in the Vanitas image, but I’ve even written an annotation at the side of the photo stating, “This is Thomas and I fansy him”, which amused me. I wonder who I was pointing him out to. Perhaps I was writing it down just in case I forgot for a second. Either way, the whole thing cracked me up, particularly given that it was one of just three entries into a very exciting scrap-book. The following page contained a “Worker of the Week”, award from my next teacher because I had worked so terribly hard. The next page, I regret to say, is rather cringe-worthy and I shall refrain from uttering a single word about it. But, I couldn’t resist uploading the picture.                                                                                                       

                                                                                                       

I did have a comrade in this memorable moment of womanhood, but I didn't want to publicly humiliate her in an expose. It's not my most glamorous of moments. But hey, if you can make a thong work as a hair-band too, you’re just saving money really.

The next item that was a surprise was a piece of writing I did in year 11, where my teacher (who loathed me entirely mostly due to my voice and it's relentlessness, only on topics that weren't anything to do with English), told me that I had written such a serious piece for such a lively girl. "Write a book- you could do it!" How I wish I'd believed him at the time. It was really nice stumbling across this today, despite the fact that the piece I had written was kinda tosh. I was so glad to find it, because it's something I have always remembered and really meant something. So that earned a place on the bunny-rabbit blanket (a childhood treasure). 

Now I will take you over to the tennis racket laid on the left. That belongs to my Federer-loving, ace-serving pappi who has adored tennis forever and always. The comedy value is coming home to find him standing in the back room practising his serve over and over. Unfortunately, he has a bad knee due to being Mr. Sport himself and can't really play any more - apart from when he sporadically decides to wear-out my nephews on the court. But when he played, he had this spark about him just over the eyes. He lives for sport and every moment of watching him you could see it. I love that my dad loves tennis, and that means I love tennis and I will never understand why Andy Murray looks permanently miserable or Venus Williams grunts like a psychopath. 

Towards the back there is a photo of my brother Daniel and I on holiday in Italy. It was an enjoyably chaotic holiday, for we got to spend a handful of days in Milan, Bologna, Florence AND Verona; an absolutely dreamy two weeks that I wish I remembered better, or wrote about at the time, or something. I remember lots of "Ciao Bella" shouts, which would probably be much less frequent if I were to go there now. I remember swimming in the 'pool' at the front of the hotel, wondering why it was at the front of the hotel and not out the back, not contemplating that it might in fact be a water-feature that was pretty much a pool pretending to be a water-feature. The ice-cold water and blue-skin proved otherwise. It's a brilliant memory of having all the family together bonding over gilatto's and jelly-fish stings, that certain brother's offered to piss on (when in fact, you can just get some cream from the lifeguard on the beach. Needless to say, I got the cream).

The boots that are sitting at the back have been invaluable to me and kind of extraordinary. You see, I bought these boots about four years ago and they are still standing! Still standing despite the mountain climbs, trekking in the pouring rain and hail, despite walking over fire and liquid-lava. The last might not be true, but they be some good boots! And I love to walk everywhere, so the boots are not just a pair of boots but a record of all the places I have been in the last four years.

The guitar is a rather new purchase, but an instant love and addiction! But I regret to say I've done that thing us novices do, which is learned about ten chords and started making up my own songs. So long as I stick with them, I'll be dandy with a production of about five songs all containing various combinations of the same sounds. I'm not going to do that, I'm going to learn, learn and conquer the music scene (probably not), but at least add to it, maybe..? At least not take anything away from it. 

The tickets are from concerts. The train tickets are from visiting my friend Charlottie in Leeds when she went to University there. The gel seat is representative of cycling (I love cycling). The Princess Bride is my favourite film because who could be cooler than Inigo Montoya? Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the most wonderful book I have ever read and was a major inspiration to my writing. There's also a beer-mat signed by Dylan Moran who I completely idolise, because for all the nonsense he speaks, he makes more sense than most. Oh, and because he is fudging hilarious. The Easter Funnies poster is actually for a sketch-show I didn't participate in (I know, how terrible, taking credit for something I wasn't even involved in!) but I didn't have a copy of the poster from the show I did participate in. There is a broken violin bow from when I used to play, and might still had it not been broken (I swear it was my nephew). My lovely ma took me to violin lessons and stayed with me every time because the man had a high creep-factor, heck of a good teacher though! Aside from that, there is a leavers book, a small wooden chest with photos in and the first notebook I wrote in as an adult. This is my life - not completely, though by the length of this piece, you would think it was more! I wonder how you interpreted it. 

The Apple

For Craig Cass...a most ardent hater of apples. 

Apple…the big apple…how do you like those apples? You know, you really are the apple of my eye. Does anyone object to this glorification of possibly the least exciting of fruits? Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Pink Lady’s, they’re all just red and green sphere’s right? I mean, it was fairly abstract that of all things, an apple fell on Newton’s head. And whoever wrote the Bible and Snow White was clearly apple-deprived during their upbringing. It would be the same if someone was deprived of climbing trees; for we all know that’s how Tarzan happened. And if a child wanted to really impress a teacher, I think it would be more suitable to present them with an excerpt from Hamlet, or spell onomatopoeia, or shut the hell up and do work in class, than to present them with an apple. Surely, a pineapple is more exciting than an apple? It still includes the word apple, and though it’s a little harder to sink your teeth into, the citric euphoria is worth the struggle. It’s the quintessential object for the metaphor “don’t judge a book by its cover”, and other things. Yeah you could say the same for an apple, but my point is: it’s an apple. The creative genius Steve Jobs made an apple the symbol of his entire life’s work. Why? Because after working for some time in an apple orchard and indulging in a fruitarian diet, Jobs decided that it was worthy. And there was some truth to his justification. He said “An apple is not intimidating”, until you make it the metaphor for places like New York; “An apple is fun”, much like the red and green traffic lights battling against each other. And “apples are…spirited”, much like I’m sure, the object of your affection is. And is it a coincidence that one of the greatest bands of all time founded Apple Records? I don’t know. People just love apples. And as I’m writing this, it’s becoming more and more obvious why they do. Apples are simple, surprising – particularly when worms worm their way into them – and they remind us of the importance of simplicity. They represent the first letter in the alphabet, and if you think about it, that’s the first thing that children usually learn. Simplicity. The foundations. The basics. And you look at the apple long enough; it begins to resemble the world.

 

Some kind of diary-shaped thing.

So, I've had a revelation today and clearly, that is more worthy and contented than a blank-post might be. That's not necessarily true, but here are some words and stuff about some stuff I've been thinking. I have always been obsessed with music, strums, beats, whistles, noise - real sounds have always succeeded in arousing the hairs on my neck to the extent that they almost pull my skin off. But it is only recently that I have thought, "Hey, maybe I could do this". Stupid really, to be completely absorbed by something but never partake in it. But as it is always the present, I tend not to look at the previous present and resign in a sigh because I didn't use that present for this purpose. And I'll pretend I'm not worried about lost present's because the present is never invalid, never late and never negated. So...in this present, I am calling guitar Teachers in the local area to see if they will be able to interpret the sounds formed by my scarred larynx (after screaming along to Californiacation last night, positively dying as Flea walked across the stage on his hands) and will my musical education. Those I have spoken to thus far clearly assume correctly that I have been to a concert and am thus instantly determined to achieve rock-star status; that fame and talent is merely a guitar lesson away. "Naive twat", screamed all of their thoughts in unison. This is regrettably a little accurate, save for the rock-star status desires. I don't want to be musical to be famous (though last night I did think, "Fuck I want to make music"), I want to play and sing for the sake of playing and singing. Over the past few years I have written songs, but songs without music are a tricky one, and usually an unlikely victory. The concern is that you may be singing your words to fit the instrumental of an existing artist's song. But I couldn't do nothing. And since I need to write more than anything and didn't have ten years worth of instrument-perfecting on my side, it was my only option. So I have words but no music. But I'm hoping that is going to rapidly change. Hoping, hoping and more importantly, dreaming that I'm better than say if you asked a hyena to play the cello. I'm being discriminatory there and not taking into consideration their possible potential with a cello. How the hell would I know if a hyena could play a cello or not? Maybe it's a hypothesis that should be tested. But yeah, next stop, guitar. And I sincerely hope it's the last stop I make.

Sun Days

I’ve always understood the judgement call of a snow day, particularly when I was benefitting from such an indulgence. In circumstances where it is close to impossible for children to surmount the sea of snow obstructing both their escape from their houses (except for sledging marathons) and the entrance to school, I completely understand the decision to call it off. But today, I appear to have stumbled across a new convention, some invigorating secret that I was not made privy to during my school years. I discovered the manifestation of a Sun Day. Like me prior to today, you might be a little perplexed as to what a Sun Day is, excluding the latter day of a weekend. A Sun Day, entitled due to its nature, is apparently an occasion when the sun is just that bit too alluring and deterring for children to withdraw their sungasming eyes from it and carry themselves to school. And as a vital alternative, they gather and dissipate on the beach. The difference is obvious between these two scenarios - one involves obstruction, the other, distraction. But in Whitby, both qualify as reasons to avert a day of schooling.

Of the two, I must say if one had to go, I would vote for snow days to go. I mean consider the Sun Day, particularly today and particularly in Whitby. I would have been incredulously pissed if I was within range of viewing the sea, but restricted by an opaque glass barrier and teacher-shaped dictator who prevented me running into it, in that way we all humanly have the impulse to do. You know it, I know it, and we all pretend that what’s going to happen is not going to happen. We walk along the beach, we remove our substance-less flip-flops which we all know are excessive for the sporadic flicker of sunlight that grazes the North. We proceed in walking swiftly towards the breakers and we begin to run. We run faster, running to something larger than our miserably insignificant bodies, running straight into what makes up most of the world, something unconquerable and untameable. And when we get there, when we are just on the verge of the end of the beach, our feet carrying part of it with them, we encounter something entirely familiar, yet entirely surprising. Waves, crashing into us, salting and reviving our bodies. And electrically, we throw ourselves backwards and giddily run away from the toppling crystal waters. And then we turn and repeat the running motion, yearning for the icy collision, and unfailingly gasp in astonishment when the waves repeat the same ritual as we repeat ours. We love it. We cannot help it. And we want more of it. But there is never enough of it. And we do it for as long as we can, always absorbing this fresh taste of nostalgia, this sea-salted gesture that allays every scattered thought and revitalises every dream we hold. And we long to stay there, expecting the waves to one day surprise us and shy away. But they won’t, and we love them for never disappointing. Imagine attending a school that stood opposite such an enrapturing landscape, gazing on such a human simplicity that we cannot help but adore, with no ability to indulge in it.

So, my postulation is that upon unanimous request, they invented Sun Days. Either that or all the teachers in the Whitby area couldn’t be arsed showing up today. If so, they were probably wave chasing too. 

Just.

It was dark and she was light…much lighter than the dark air pressing on his shoulders. He had always spoken with such conviction, until he heard her voice. Hers shattered his. His words broke before they fled his mouth. But she caught them in her ears and they rested there a while, before swimming through to her mind. It wasn’t the sounds of the words that made them particularly all-consuming. She had heard the words before, spoken them, but it was the look that delivered the words…that irresistible thought-stilling look.

It almost didn’t happen. It was like juggling, only with words. What he was supposed to say, and what would have been conventionally appropriate to say was “Congratulations” or “Kudos” or any other token of praise. He didn’t need to say anything at all. And yet he was compelled to say something, and for reasons unknown to him, it had to be the right something. He had to have the right words. And what he did say...he almost need not have said.

“Though I am not…somehow…in your presence…I am.”

Puzzling words - extensively ambiguous words, words completely absent of, and yet completely electrified with meaning. And she held his stare for some time, more out of paralysis than anything else. He had heard her singing, that alchemy that dazzled and enraptured him. So…what else could there be? He had listened and she had sung straight from her soul, so what was he looking for? Did he need a visual? Could her eyes ever convey it?

And suddenly, for less than a nanosecond, less than was possible to qualify as time…he saw it. And as he saw it, she felt his, their whole lives in motion though they were standing perfectly still. The magic he had longed for…the impossible she believed did not exist. They had it…

…But that’s the tragedy - the life-breaking reality. It was over before it had begun, for that was it, that one moment, the break in the circuit. That was that moment you have all been warned about and conditioned to avoid. That was the moment when two people of our human breed felt too much.

They felt so much…that they both burst into flames. 

If I had a pet alpaca...

I want a pet alpaca. I would call it Meeko and Meeko and I would be buddies. We would compare stories and lives, my loves and her conquests. Meeko would be irresistibly funny; a humour that need not upset the feelings of others to shake my whole being and separate continents as an earthquake would. Meeko would say "mmm" and I would instantly realise that she was saying "I had a pet human once, but then humans developed brains. And my human pet beat me in an enunciation contest, saying ‘mmmmm’ - wait a minute, ‘mmm’, just one moment.” She would clear her throat at this moment. “It was simply the letter ‘mmm’, you see, this is how she won". 

Meeko and I would meander until the dark gathered up all the light and put it in his pocket. Darkness is usually the most fearsome thing, but it wouldn't be if Meeko was by my side. I would tell Meeko what her name means: that she has great strength and is very wise, according to Babynology website. To which she would respond “mm mm m mm?” which would mean “what is a website?” which would have been more convincing if she didn’t  then collapse on the floor, emitting a series of hysterical “mmm’s” asserting that EVERYBODY - even alpaca’s - know about the internet. That would be Meeko. I would tell her about prime ministers and that she is 1000% smarter and better looking than them. She would “mm mm mm, mm mm mm”, meaning “you’re too much, really too much”. I would then tell her that they are more pompous than the word pompous intended, but if that weren’t the case, then I might watch the news, because then at least the news would be news. If it is only ever what you expect (excluding exceptional, unfathomably possible events) then by definition, Meeko, it is not called news.  

I would then point out the stars and tell her that every single one of them was burning for her, because she was smiling so kindly. I would then explain that if she were to stop, the stars would die away and there would be nothing to separate me from the darkness. She wouldn’t like that idea, so she would promise that she would always smile as long as I was smiling. We would wander, and drink the finest eye-wrenching tequila, and hum along to the ukulele. We would seek out climbable trees and I would climb them and throw a rope down for her so that I could pull her up to the tallest branch. And we would see all of nature communicating, complimenting each other. We would follow the ivy with our eyes as it made its way up trees. We would watch daisies being altruistic, shedding their hair to enable the happiness of children. “He loves me, he loves me not – ohhhhhhh”, and just in that moment, the daisy would grab the spare hair they had been concealing in their stem, while the child wasn’t watching of course. Then the daisy would clear their throat. “What’s that? Wait a second…Oh! He DOES love me!” We would sit there and I would offer Meeko the hay I had brought along for her. This would be the hay I usually filled my rabbit hutch with, but Bernie wouldn’t mind sharing, especially with Meeko. He would love Meeko more than he loved hay. 

And Meeko and I would have adventures that were true, and full of feeling and life. And if I fell down, or lost my way, Meeko would protect me, because Meeko would be strong…and Meeko would be wise. I wish I were like Meeko, the entirely hypothetical, imaginary wonder. 

Shadows and Quadrilaterals

Creative Writing Workshop Exercise: To walk around the room impossibly slowly and write what we saw, our thoughts and triggered memories. 

Everything. It’s staggered. A ticking clock. It is every rooms dictator. When the room is fruitful of life. The stadium sits open in the distance. The green drowning in drizzle. A light smothers my face. An air vent is nestled in the wall. So small, that no human breed could crawl through. Not if under attack. His shadow paints the board. But shadows change. Shadows are replaced by the shadows of others. Even replaced by shadows of inanimate things. Imagine that. Locomotion enabled shadow theft.

A plug hangs directly below a vacant plug socket. Teamwork is rejected I guess. Or maybe electricity has told them where to go.

                                                                                                                        

I’ve borrowed the sky to clothe my legs today. Only, I didn’t say please. That could be the reason it is raining. Someone has abandoned their phone. The Mayan Apocalypse must be imminent. Pieces of paper rustle as they are indented by caffeinated pens. Changing them. Possibly forever.

The desire to be comfortable. Maybe seated. With a cherry-flavoured slush puppy. All of those disconnected buildings. All alone, mocked by the taller ones. Isn’t it odd how taller buildings become egotistical? There’s paper supporting a table. It doesn’t make sense. My eyes are drawn to trust. Open bags exposing money bound in leather and expensive music-playing technology.

It has stopped raining.

There are but two bottles of water in the room. The rest are caffeinated and E-numbered. I really like the colour of burgundy. But it really doesn’t suit that house. The camera is watching us, wondering about us. What are we doing?

Is the clock dictating us now? Or is it not?

The screen is now blue. It also must have borrowed from the sky. That would explain why it is now raining again.

Everything is a quadrilateral. Tables. Chairs. Wall panels. Window panes. Blinds. We exist within a cube. It’s how we trap space. We make cubes. Triangles lack the capability of space-stealing.

A man crosses the road on his mobile phone. He does not look left and right. Police sat in their quadrilateral van are doing nothing but enjoying their space.

Smoke is diffused defacing building upon arrogant building. Excretions from Corus are forming new clouds, or rather, transforming existing clouds. Giving them new faces. I am thrown back into childhood, into Fern Gully. The monster whose name I momentarily forget. I watched Fern Gully on a quadrilateral screen.

We’re still staggering, barely moving, but barely still. A body that yearns to move forward, to move faster, to change shape and angle, is denied. A body that’s prohibited. Right now anyway. At least we are protected, in our cube. The mediator between me and the sky who I didn’t give an I.O.U. to. Poor sky. But come on. There’s too much sky and too little time to dress to worry about manners.