Follow Orders

            In one of my classes, we had to write short, 10 minute plays to practice developing our playwright skills. We submitted a few to our local theater, hoping to have them considered for a short production. I wrote one with my friend Sara Rule, called Follow Orders. If you wish to read it, click here: Follow Orders

Shudder: How Far We've Come

            Now that it is the end of the year, I have decided to post a collaboration story from the beginning of the year that I worked on with my friend Alexander Christie (author of blog: On the Corner of Broadway- http://onthecornerofbroadway.blogspot.com/ ) and I just now realize how terrible it actually is. Take a look: Shudder

Stranger: The Oddest Poem Ever

            This poem began as 20 separate lines, each with specific guidelines it has to follow. It was probably my least favorite thing I ever had to do. The guidelines ranged from 'must contain a metaphor' to 'you must use a line of slang with a reference to a specific person and place and the blood of a rare amazon tortoise'. After painstaking classes working on it, I finally finished, only to edit out all of the really weird and terrible parts to leave this:

Stranger

Going back home is like seeing a stranger in disguise
and they live to pickpocket.                              

Fake smiles swarm you.
Names you’ve never heard sting your ears.
Foreign hands shake yours and familiar ones grab you                   
as piles of food are shoved at your face and
the distant scents of familiar laundry soap touch your nose.
Every word from someone I don’t remember
stabs my skin with tiny needles.

So I ran out, untouched, night air streaming into my nostrils.
The humidity silently drenched my clothes,
I am the man on the moon,
casted away from all others.

I am the stranger.
I was as happy as a child on his first day at a new school.
My thoughts undecipherable,
melting together in a boiling pot.
Running, waiting to sleep in my own bed once again,
cool sheets embracing my warm body.

My legs burned and begged for rest but I refused to stop
as the thought of the crowded kitchen spurred me forward.
They talk and talk but I realize that what the strangers say, doesn’t matter.

Letchworth State Park

            As a project, we had to write creative narrative, non-fiction essays about a place we wished to go or a memorable place we have been. I wrote about a trip to Letchworth State Park with my Grandparents. If you like insane description, check it out: Letchworth State Park

Haiku: Moving

Streetlight flickers
on the damp pavement
of an unknown street.

Newest New Addition

            Great. Just what I need. Another slobbering, fat, nipping monster running around, tearing up the place. The last biting scars just healed...time for new ones. I've been kicked, chewed on, drooled on, and peed on like I was nothing and I am not doing it again. I'm gonna write a letter.
Dear Mr. President,
            I am requesting an immediate relocation of a savage beast that is destroying my life. Please. You do not understand what it feels like to get peed on...at least I don't think. Send help ASAP.
Save me from this:

Science Ficition: The Genre

            Science Fiction as a genre is very entertaining to certain types of readers. It mostly appeals to fantasists, due to the often inclusion of unrealistic or impractical situations and ideas, but it could possibly appeal to loose pragmatists because of the frequent everyday problems that occur within the plots. This genre may be far off, but it still connects with everyday human life. 

            The expectations of the genre are usually to be removed from the humdrum routine of everyday life into a new world of exploration and excitement...it also should consist of some sort of element of science. Also there should be a conflict, usually one of these: person vs. machine, person vs. other life form, person vs. post-apocalyptic surroundings, and/or person vs. time. 

            Science Fiction has many, many sub-genres, but I will only name a few of my favorites. First is apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic, in which a devastation of some sort has taken place and humans now try to survive the dangerous new age. Secondly is time travel, epics of humans traveling across the space-time continuum- to the past of future- coming across unexpected problems and excitement. Next is military Science Fiction where humans battle savage aliens, machines, and other wild creatures to survive in a hostile environment. Lastly is Cyberpunk, consisting of loners that live in a dystopian society where perilous information and technology have spun out of control.

            Many of the most popular novels in our society today are Science Fiction. Some of these include The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, Divergent, by Veronica Roth, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, and Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton. Many classic science fiction novels by authors such as Jules Verne and Stephen King have paved the way for the novels of today. They will truly take you on a journey you never expected.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: Setting

            In the novel, Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie the setting plays a very important role in the conflict of the story. Detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American criminal, Mr. Ratchett, on the Orient Express. The crime is creepy enough, twelve stab wounds to the chest, but the fact that the criminal still hides on the train is even creepier. The criminal cannot escape because the train is completely stopped in a raging blizzard. The setting, on the train and in a snowstorm, effects the conflict because with this, Poirot has to work hastily if he is to catch the killer before he claims another victim. This effects both him and the tone of the entire novel. Now, Poirot has to be aggressive with his investigation, leading to a change of character from a civilized Frenchmen to a hostile detective. Also, the plot becomes extremely more intense and suspenseful, keeping you on the edge of your seat until you reach that final page.

Operation Red Jericho Quick Review

            In Operation Red Jericho, written by Joshua Mowll, the perilous adventure of Doug and Becca McKenzie is told, every page pulling you deeper into Shanghai, 1920. Doug and Becca have been trying to find the secret to their parents' disappearance for a while, but are spurred closer to their answer when they are sent to live with their Uncle, Captain Fitzroy McKenzie, aboard his ship, The Expedient. They find out that their parents had worked for a secret organization, The Honorable Guild of Specialists, and had gotten tangled up in dangerous business with pirates and a dangerous chemical. In the hands of the vicious Chinese warlord, Sheng-Fat, it could destroy China's entire economy. They are on a mission to find out more about their missing parents and unknowingly to save many of Sheng-Fat's prisoners. This story was intriguing from the very beginning with the troublesome siblings in a new place in a new home. The characters were very well developed, with very defined personalities and characteristics. The plot was relatively straight forward, but with the many interesting settings and the complicated situation with the perilous chemical, it was a bit hard to follow at times. The book provided very interesting and helpful graphics to visualize what was happening. Overall, if you are an adventure fanatic with a taste for history, then this book is strongly recommended for you.

Seven Ways to Look at Newspaper

I.

Covered in plastic and slick with the saliva of a dog,

it arrives.

 

II.

Read through glasses

at the early morning table,

always carrying

terrible news.

 

III.

Spread in water and glue

and plastered against a metal mold

with sticky fingers.

 

IV.

Forcing the gears to turn

in your head

as you try to solve the puzzles

on every page.

 

V.

Folded into little hats

that sit on the heads of

little children.

 

VI.

Thrown into a dying pit

to feed the flames of a dwindling fire.

 

VII.

Spilled coffee.

Stray pen marks.

Creased and ripped.

All renewed the next day

to begin again.