Becoming Someone Else

Most of my writing is at least loosely based on someone or something I know well. I have found that it makes the stories seem more realistic. My first stories in elementary school were about my own life and some of best work in college has been the same. But now my fiction writing teacher is pushing me out of my comfort zone. All weekend so far, I have been trying to write a story with characters and circumstances absolutely foreign to me. Actually, right now I am having writers' block but I don't want to stop writing so I'm blogging until I can come back to it.
In some ways I am frustrated about this assignment because I think I have found my forte and shouldn't have to change, but in all reality, I've always wanted to write as another person. Like so many kids of my generation, I dreamed of being the next J. K. Rowling. She never went to a school for wizards or fought the Dark Lord, but readers fully believe that her characters did. I even read a news story last semester that fans of Sherlock Holmes constantly send letters to him as if he were real. That's so amazing. So, since I know this blog is not super thoughtful or exciting, I'll share an exercise I worked on this week in order to try out becoming someone else. Thanks to everyone that keeps reading my blogs. It means a lot :)

I had my first beer in the 4^th grade.

            My father had been working cows all day. He plopped down on the brown recliner in the living room and dust filled the room. I wasn’t sure if it was from his shirt or the chair, which probably hadn’t been cleaned since mom was around.

“Could you hand me a beer, Kels?” he asked.

            I paused for a moment, hoping he would say something more. I adored that gravelly voice when he wasn’t hollering about my God-damned whining. Then, I scurried off the couch and opened the fridge. And there they were. Two cans of Bud Lite sitting side by side on the top shelf. Without hesitating, I grabbed one in each fist and carried them into the living room. I handed the first one to him and carried the next to my place on the couch.

            He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look up from the rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger on the old television set when I handed him the beer. I waited for him to pull on the tab of his can and then I pulled too. A long hiss filled the space between us. He tilted the can up and starting chugging. I saw some drip down onto his beard. I began to mimic his style and let the beer run down my throat. I wasn’t awfully good. I remember grimacing for the first few gulps. Then I looked up and Dad was staring at me. He was silent for a few moments and then he chuckled. We spent many nights after that bonding over beers in that dusty room with cowboys on the TV.

How Lucky Am I?

So I obviously haven't posted for quite a while. It wasn't writer's block, I kept thinking about writing, but kept getting busy and forgetting to post. I was planning on doing a "lucky" post for St. Patrick's Day and even though it's a little late I think I will still do it because I have a lot to be thankful for lately. So here it is: How Lucky Am I?

1. I got into the teacher's program at UNL. Hooray!

2. The morning after I got into the program, I work up to these...

 

...and this....

I have amazing friends. :D



3. I got to spend 2 weekends visiting my extended family in Columbus and celebrating a new cousin's baptism. I've learned how lucky it is to have so many people who not only love me, but who I can love back.


4. My parents drove over 2 hours to have dinner with me....and my mom made brownies!

5. My resident director randomly gave me cereal! Haha

6. I spent spring break shopping in Colorado with my mom and then at an concert with my sister. It was more amazing than any beach vacation, I promise. 


So thanks to everyone for making my last month so wonderful. I am so LUCKY to have all of you in my life. :)

Being Pretty

If you have a Pinterest account or a Tumblr account, you will probably agree that there isn't a day you log onto your account and don't find some new exercise plan or fitness motivation or healthy recipe. I think it's a fair bet to say that most girls my age would choose beauty over intelligence if given the choice. My professors are always lecturing me on how our society is becoming more technologically dependent and we need to be able to communicate online. While that is true, this lack of face-to-face interaction hasn't seemed to lower our obsession with appearance. Success does depend on looks, whether we like it or not and being unattractive can be a huge hindrance. Actually, the television show playing on my TV right now is about a woman who is in fear of losing her beauty with age.

 I've been reading a lot of books recently. My insomnia causes more reading, not the other way around like you'd imagine. The two most recent books I read were The Hate List by Jennifer Brown and Every Day by David Levithan.  The Hate List is the story of a girl who's boyfriend initiated a school shooting and the reaction of returning to school. Every Day was about someone who doesn't have a physical body but takes over the body of another person, a different person every day. But even in two books that on the surface have nothing to do with beauty really are all about appearance at the core.

In Every Day, the main character can not find love because of lack of an appearance. The girl the narrator starts a relationship with shows more or less affection depending on the body the narrator is in. In The Hate List, one of the characters gets hit in the face by a ricocheted bullet and becomes disformed. Even though everyone has been through a traumatic event, she is the only one that can't seem to cope because she has lost her status and, in that, her identity.

As Brown said, "Being pretty isn't everything, but sometimes being ugly is."