Sunday, July 31, 2011

POETRY SLAM! #7

Built Like a Library

If I were a library all made up of books
You'd think Adult Section, African American by looks
My attitude has pictures, probably written for kids
My brain would be mystery cause who knows where it hid
My face should be comedy for its goofy smiling ways
All my nails are horrors when they've not been cut for days
My hearts probably the thing that's living in a fantasy
All together not too bad of a mixed up little library


What kind of books do you think you'd be made of?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Little Red Riding Hood

In the writer's group I'm in, we do these drabbles where someone chooses a topic or idea that we can write something short about and share it the next week. I think I'll start posting them whenever I do them. When we did this we all took an object out of a bag. Mine was a Little Red Riding Hood Happy Meal toy. :)


She found her in one of the upstairs rooms stroking the dark hair of a doll. The young babysitter knelt down beside her on the floor.

“Who’s this?” She asked.

“This is Red Riding Hood.” The girl said, admiring the doll some more before looking up at her. “You want to play with her?”

The sitter smiled and reached for it but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She jumped then laughed when she saw it was the girl’s mother. She smiled back at her and took the doll from the little girl’s hands.

“I’m sorry I startled you. It’s just that this doll was handed down through generations and I don’t like for it to be played with. This little girl knows this.” She said sternly yet playful and ruffled her daughter’s hair before placing the doll back on the shelf, too high for the girl to reach but right at eye level for the babysitter.

Soon her parents left on their night out and she put the little girl to bed. She just left the bathroom tying her blond hair in a ponytail and was going to watch TV when she passed the doll room again. It was a very beautiful doll. All she wanted to do was look again, but when she found herself in front of it the temptation was too great and it wasn’t long before she had the doll in her hands and was stroking the hair like the girl did.

She lifted the dolls hand with her finger and when she let it go a good amount of the wax came with it. She quickly put it back on the shelf and examined it with her other hand. The doll looked fine but more wax came off the other hand. She tried hard to wipe it off but it seemed that the more she wiped at it the more it spread. She was just going to rush to the bathroom to try and save her babysitting career when she saw that the little girl was in the doorway.

She shook her head with a disapproving yet amused look on her face. “Mommy told you we shouldn’t play with the doll.”

The babysitter would’ve screamed had she felt something was wrong. What she should’ve noticed was that she didn’t feel anything at all. Soon the little girl picked up her new friend off the floor and played with her light haired ponytail while she walked to the back closet that no one seemed to notice, opened it up and placed her gently among the others before shutting it tight and sending herself back to bed.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Must. Finish. BOOK.

There has only been one book, to my knowledge, that I didn't finish because I didn't like... Until last week when I made it two. These books will remain nameless here because I think it would be a little unfair for me to say something 'bad' about a book I haven't finished all the way.

It's not even that the books were bad. They're published so some one's reading them, they have to be doing something right, but they just weren't for me. There were others that I could tell I wasn't really into but I finished anyways. I can tell the signs: Taking longer with it than usual, not taking it everywhere with me, get easily distracted from it, only reading a few pages at a time as oppose to someone telling me I haven't blinked for seven hours...

I hate it when I realize that I'm not totally into a book. As a writer I know how hard it is to finally let someone else see your work, for me anyways, and one of my worries is that no one will like it. But it makes me realize that I can't write a book that every single person will love. Even some of the most popular books have people that don't like them.

While I would love if every book was fantastic and just not be able to put it down, I have to realize that it's unrealistic if I'm reading from a genre or subject that I don't care for. This can also prepare me for when I finally have a book published. Not everyone will like it. I'll just have to come to terms with that and make it the best I can for those who will.

Anyone else still trying to come to terms with this too? How many books have you just put down before?