So, if you are at all creative, you may know that a lot of the times your creative juices come in surges and falls. That is most definitely the case for me (unfortunately the falls seem to make up the majority of my time). However, I will often be inspired by certain things, and they are almost always random events: something a person says or does or how they look, or even a single phrase in my mind. Those are the more unconventional of my methods. I am also inspired, much more conventionally, by beautiful things. Therefore, you can assume that I must be bursting with inspiration coming from Maui, Hawaii only a few weeks ago. Well... you can say that or you can not.
I'd like to point however, that it wasn't just the aesthetic beauty of the island that inspires me--that, of course, is not the only type of beauty there is. Yes, the water is pure, crystal blue and can make a fiction author like myself imagine great worlds in the depths below. Yes, the sand is hot and perfectly white, yellow, red, or black depending on where you are, making a fiction author like myself imagine a hundred years ago, when the exploding volcanoes trembled the earth and created those millions of tiny pebbles that now make up the beaches. Yes, as soon as you step foot in the open air you can smell the scent of pineapples and ocean salt and sugar cane, making fiction authors like myself live the life of an islander in a single breath.
But then there are beauties in life that not every fiction author stepping foot in Hawaii would experience: like the overwhelmingly loved feeling you get from having four generations of your family around you; or the complete elation of sitting in the back of a jeep with the top down, and dancing with your family like complete idiot but not feeling like an idiot at all; or the mystery of finding a hidden, natural pool in the middle of a nondescript jungle-like forest.
So yes, Hawaii can be rather inspiring for me. :)
Some people want me to continue my work with Violet St. Clair, but I have not been further inspired into that work just yet. However, I do have something else that has been brewing in my mind since about four days into my island getaway.
And here is a first look:
To Venus and Back
... Elliana Malani Williams, known simply as Elli, was perfect: perfect grades, perfect record, perfect parents... at least, that's what everyone else saw when they looked at her. In reality, she had been working to the very brink of her sanity to get those perfect grades. And the reason she has that perfect record is because she has spent what seemed like every waking hour of her highschool career studying--not going to parties or having any fun at all. And her perfect parents... well, very few people actually knew that half the reason she tries so hard is that she can get into a rigorous college program far, far away from her perfect parents. It wasn't that she didn't love her father or her step-mother-- no, she loved them very much-- but being around perfect people such as her parents all the time made her seem completely, aggravatingly imperfect. Then, when she falls head over heels for what seems like the perfect guy, everything else seems to not matter anymore. None of it matters--until she finds herself over her head in mistakes, a probationary period to reevaluate her scholarship, and utterly heartbroken. A much more perfect person would have snapped sooner.
That's how she finds herself on a plane, soaring over miles and miles of clear ocean, with her savings account emptied into her wallet and a note telling her parents she had to get away and that she's staying with her Aunt Nani until she's ready to come home. However, Elli doesn't realize that the Island has more for her to deal with than she bargained for: an Aunt who reminds her painfully of a past she couldn't remember; a pool, which seems to be the only place she can forget everything; and a boy who she desperately could not fall in love with.
Sooo... sound good yet? :)
-TG
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Grateful
Soooo.... I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I seem to have a pattern in my writings and characters. They all seem to have something horrible happen in their lives that they have no choice but to bounce back from. Don't believe me? Examples:
Violet St. Clair from my current work in progress which is still untitled -_-:
She is a bastard child of a guy who doesn't really love her mother, is sold into slavery at the age of four, sold again when she's 18, doesn't know that... heeheehee, well we have some eager followers for that story so I'm not going to give anymore away ^-^ *evil laughter*
Juli Leopold from my amateur-ish book "The Other Side":
Kidnapped at the age of two to be a citizen of a communist society in which the children's growth are stunted at the age of thirteen, making them mindless slaves forever. She loses both of her best friends, is saved by her long lost best friend, Tom, only to have him die saving her life.
Adelina Marshall (Jeez, I like heroines... one of these days I'm going to write something with a hero) from a very rough project which is untitled:
Has an inconsequential life until she meets Jay Hawkins, who ends up turning her whole perspective on life around and ends of being the love of her life... only to have him die the day he plans to tell her how he feels about her.
Jeanna (again with the heroines) what's-her-name from another really rough, old project of mine:
Is so humiliated by her ex-boyfriend that she doesn't find the will to live anymore... this one was REALLY emo of me, and I totally discontinued this.
Not only that, but most of my poetry is much like this one. Not a single happy one in the bunch.
Hehehee *nervous laughter* I've been asked why I like to portray such depressing emotions all the time, but i don't know... I can't help it. These are the kind of things I come up with. It's not like I have much experience with misery! I mean, I love my life. It doesn't get much better than this.
I guess that's the point of this post then. Friends, parents, and all who have supported me: thank you. You can't imagine how much I love my life, and I'm so grateful. Maybe the reason I write such dismal subjects is because, when it comes to happiness, I don't have much of an imagination! I don't have to imagine being happy, because I am. ^_^
Here's to you guys!
-TG
Violet St. Clair from my current work in progress which is still untitled -_-:
She is a bastard child of a guy who doesn't really love her mother, is sold into slavery at the age of four, sold again when she's 18, doesn't know that... heeheehee, well we have some eager followers for that story so I'm not going to give anymore away ^-^ *evil laughter*
Juli Leopold from my amateur-ish book "The Other Side":
Kidnapped at the age of two to be a citizen of a communist society in which the children's growth are stunted at the age of thirteen, making them mindless slaves forever. She loses both of her best friends, is saved by her long lost best friend, Tom, only to have him die saving her life.
Adelina Marshall (Jeez, I like heroines... one of these days I'm going to write something with a hero) from a very rough project which is untitled:
Has an inconsequential life until she meets Jay Hawkins, who ends up turning her whole perspective on life around and ends of being the love of her life... only to have him die the day he plans to tell her how he feels about her.
Jeanna (again with the heroines) what's-her-name from another really rough, old project of mine:
Is so humiliated by her ex-boyfriend that she doesn't find the will to live anymore... this one was REALLY emo of me, and I totally discontinued this.
Not only that, but most of my poetry is much like this one. Not a single happy one in the bunch.
Hehehee *nervous laughter* I've been asked why I like to portray such depressing emotions all the time, but i don't know... I can't help it. These are the kind of things I come up with. It's not like I have much experience with misery! I mean, I love my life. It doesn't get much better than this.
I guess that's the point of this post then. Friends, parents, and all who have supported me: thank you. You can't imagine how much I love my life, and I'm so grateful. Maybe the reason I write such dismal subjects is because, when it comes to happiness, I don't have much of an imagination! I don't have to imagine being happy, because I am. ^_^
Here's to you guys!
-TG
Monday, March 8, 2010
Senseless Drabble: Time
Time is inevitable. It is unchanging and it will go on... even when you can't.
Time is a terrifying thing.
I didn't realize how things change, how people change, until I saw her. It struck me all at once, just at that moment when i saw her walking down the street.
There was a girl who lived down the street from me growing up. She was the same age as my oldest sister. To put it nicely, she wasn't the most responsible girl.
She got into trouble.
She didn't have the best track record.
She did things that people said were scandalous acts.
She wasn't perfect...
But no one's perfect.
The only difference, I realize now, is that when she made a mistake, everyone knew about it.
She couldn't have a flaw, couldn't learn her lesson from the mistakes she made, because- if she did make a mistake- someone at her school knew about it.
And if someone at her school knew about it, they told their siblings about it.
And if all the children of a family knew about it, then the parents of the family knew about it.
And, you see, that was how our whole neighborhood came to know when she made those mistakes.
People are hateful, judgmental creatures by nature. We criticize and pass judgment when it's not at all our place to do so...
But what can we say?
As sickeningly ironic as it is to say, we are not perfect.
Yet, somehow, we find the audacity to expect everyone else to be.
This girl, her name was Stephanie--same name as my sister.
She was pretty, if you took the chance to really look at her.
She would walk around the neighborhood so often that, if you left your house, there was a good chance you would see her at some point in the day.
She would walk with her two little dogs--some kind of terriers, though that doesn't really matter.
She would walk her two little dogs around and around our tiny mile stretch of a subdivision.
She walked so consistently that I found the reliability of seeing her there a simple comfort to me as a child. She would always be there, walking her two little dogs around our little mile stretch of a subdivion. In a world of uncertainties, that seemed certain.
As she walked, she would pass the ladies that lived around the neighborhood as they did their odd brisk-walks together incessantly. For some reason, their constant walking- unlike Stephanie's- wasn't as comfortingly reliable as it was just plain annoying. They bothered me, for some reason.
As they passed Stephanie, they would look over at her--see her, whisper something unpleasant about the girl to their walking partner, who would- in turn- whisper something equally unpleasant back.
They were all gossiping busy-bodies with nothing better to do: every one of them.
It's still a mystery to me how women who were as generically over-weight as they all were walked as ceaselessly as they did without seeming to have lost a single pound.
Stephanie had a little sister.
I don't know her name, but it's not really important.
She and her sister grew up together, and Stephanie's sister grew to be the spitting image of her older sibling. They quite realistically could have been twins born at different times.
Without my realizing it, the task of walking the two little dogs around the short mile stretch of our subdivision was passed from older sister to younger of the years.
As I grew older, it was still a comfort to me to see Stephanie there was always: walking her two little dogs around the short mile stretch of our subdivion.
Only, this girl wasn't Stephanie.
This was Stephanie's younger sister.
So I found myself, years later, driving home through the entrance of my little mile stretch of a subdivision. As I drove, I passed Stephanie walking down the street--the same comfort I hadn't yet realized I had so relied upon seeing as I grew older.
But today, Stephanie, wasn't in her usual little gym shorts and pink t-shirt, walking her two little terriers down the street of our short mile stretch of a subdivions.
She was dressed in a practical black sweater, comfy-looking black gaucho pants, and a cute little gray scarf.
And as she walked down the street, she pushed a stroller ahead of her carrying a tiny new-born baby girl--her baby girl.
But, seeing this odd spectacle in plain saight, there was nothing scandalous or disreputable about this sight.
She looked... like a mother.
She looked like she was right where she was supposed to be: wearing practical sweaters and walking a new-born baby.
I hadn't even realized that she had gotten old enough for having a baby to be acceptable...
But she had.
As she walked, she laughed and chatted aimlessly with her sister who strolled beside her.
She, on the other hand, was wearing little gym shorts and a pink t-shirt and walking two tiny dogs ahead of her.
I had to slow the car down to watch the sight before me.
Not having realized the presence of the sister, this was like looking at the effect of time right in front of my eyes.
There was Stephanie, as always, walking her dogs--the same old comforting sight from my childhood.
And there she was again, this time as an adult with a daughter of her own.
It was frightening and miraculous at the same time.
Suddenly, I looked down. I realized what I was doing--I was driving.
I wasn't watching this somewhat familiar sight from the back seat window of my mom's van.
I was old enough to drive myself, have my own car, and go to and from where I needed to be without the assistance of a parent.
Without realizing it, time had caught up with me.
-TG
Time is a terrifying thing.
I didn't realize how things change, how people change, until I saw her. It struck me all at once, just at that moment when i saw her walking down the street.
There was a girl who lived down the street from me growing up. She was the same age as my oldest sister. To put it nicely, she wasn't the most responsible girl.
She got into trouble.
She didn't have the best track record.
She did things that people said were scandalous acts.
She wasn't perfect...
But no one's perfect.
The only difference, I realize now, is that when she made a mistake, everyone knew about it.
She couldn't have a flaw, couldn't learn her lesson from the mistakes she made, because- if she did make a mistake- someone at her school knew about it.
And if someone at her school knew about it, they told their siblings about it.
And if all the children of a family knew about it, then the parents of the family knew about it.
And, you see, that was how our whole neighborhood came to know when she made those mistakes.
People are hateful, judgmental creatures by nature. We criticize and pass judgment when it's not at all our place to do so...
But what can we say?
As sickeningly ironic as it is to say, we are not perfect.
Yet, somehow, we find the audacity to expect everyone else to be.
This girl, her name was Stephanie--same name as my sister.
She was pretty, if you took the chance to really look at her.
She would walk around the neighborhood so often that, if you left your house, there was a good chance you would see her at some point in the day.
She would walk with her two little dogs--some kind of terriers, though that doesn't really matter.
She would walk her two little dogs around and around our tiny mile stretch of a subdivision.
She walked so consistently that I found the reliability of seeing her there a simple comfort to me as a child. She would always be there, walking her two little dogs around our little mile stretch of a subdivion. In a world of uncertainties, that seemed certain.
As she walked, she would pass the ladies that lived around the neighborhood as they did their odd brisk-walks together incessantly. For some reason, their constant walking- unlike Stephanie's- wasn't as comfortingly reliable as it was just plain annoying. They bothered me, for some reason.
As they passed Stephanie, they would look over at her--see her, whisper something unpleasant about the girl to their walking partner, who would- in turn- whisper something equally unpleasant back.
They were all gossiping busy-bodies with nothing better to do: every one of them.
It's still a mystery to me how women who were as generically over-weight as they all were walked as ceaselessly as they did without seeming to have lost a single pound.
Stephanie had a little sister.
I don't know her name, but it's not really important.
She and her sister grew up together, and Stephanie's sister grew to be the spitting image of her older sibling. They quite realistically could have been twins born at different times.
Without my realizing it, the task of walking the two little dogs around the short mile stretch of our subdivision was passed from older sister to younger of the years.
As I grew older, it was still a comfort to me to see Stephanie there was always: walking her two little dogs around the short mile stretch of our subdivion.
Only, this girl wasn't Stephanie.
This was Stephanie's younger sister.
So I found myself, years later, driving home through the entrance of my little mile stretch of a subdivision. As I drove, I passed Stephanie walking down the street--the same comfort I hadn't yet realized I had so relied upon seeing as I grew older.
But today, Stephanie, wasn't in her usual little gym shorts and pink t-shirt, walking her two little terriers down the street of our short mile stretch of a subdivions.
She was dressed in a practical black sweater, comfy-looking black gaucho pants, and a cute little gray scarf.
And as she walked down the street, she pushed a stroller ahead of her carrying a tiny new-born baby girl--her baby girl.
But, seeing this odd spectacle in plain saight, there was nothing scandalous or disreputable about this sight.
She looked... like a mother.
She looked like she was right where she was supposed to be: wearing practical sweaters and walking a new-born baby.
I hadn't even realized that she had gotten old enough for having a baby to be acceptable...
But she had.
As she walked, she laughed and chatted aimlessly with her sister who strolled beside her.
She, on the other hand, was wearing little gym shorts and a pink t-shirt and walking two tiny dogs ahead of her.
I had to slow the car down to watch the sight before me.
Not having realized the presence of the sister, this was like looking at the effect of time right in front of my eyes.
There was Stephanie, as always, walking her dogs--the same old comforting sight from my childhood.
And there she was again, this time as an adult with a daughter of her own.
It was frightening and miraculous at the same time.
Suddenly, I looked down. I realized what I was doing--I was driving.
I wasn't watching this somewhat familiar sight from the back seat window of my mom's van.
I was old enough to drive myself, have my own car, and go to and from where I needed to be without the assistance of a parent.
Without realizing it, time had caught up with me.
-TG
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