i am trying to write a short story explaining my thought process throughout a given day, it is essentially all true, i may change some things to make it mildly interesting or names, but the content is or at least was true.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Oh my Buddha, that high, unrelenting, merciless buzzer is the absolute worst, most obnoxious thing to wake up to in the morning. All i want to do is rip that alarm clock out of the wall and chuck it at something hard and preferably explosive. I settle for slamming my hand down on the snooze button as hard as i can. Ah my first violent thought of the day, I seem to have a lot of those, I like to think of myself as a peaceful person but i guess that is solely based on my actions, not my thoughts. I am not really a big fan of the snooze button. It pretends to be your friend saying "yea don't worry, I'll take care of Ol' Buzzy over there," but ten minutes later Snooze turns on you just like every other electrical appliance.
So three snoozes and three betrayals later I finally drag my self out of bed. I stumble over to my desk chair where I left my towel to dry last night, I grab it quickly. Thump, I guess I knocked something over but it is still way to early to care. I head over to the bathroom dragging my feet and consequentially stub my toe. Mumbling curses I hop into the shower and relax as the affectingly soothing hot water cascades down my back. I hum to myself for about five minutes before I realize that I need to get out. It is amazing how difficult it is to turn that little plastic knob that half rotation, knowing that as soon as you do cold will rush in and along with it all the pains, worries and stresses of the day. Something about the comforting water makes every problem seem manageable. After three whole minutes spent encouraging myself I finally work up the strength to shut off the water. Cold strikes instantaneously as I knew it would but it still makes my jump.
Once dried I go to my closet to find some clothes. On the way I dump my towel on the floor and dread about how my mom is going to yell at me for it later. I choose my clothes with painstaking care, I don't like to admit it but I am horribly vain. I care so much about how I am perceived by others. I am too self conscious that I don't let people know how self conscious I am. I check the clock. Damn, I have to leave in like three minutes before I have to leave, I shouldn't have gone for the third snooze. I grab a pain of jeans, a band T, my old beat up pair of rust colored converse, and a worn sweatshirt, looks like I'm going without socks today. I run down the stairs taking them two at a time, I jump the last five. Downstairs I grab my bag and a pop tart, yell at my brother and get in the car.
Once he gets in the car we begin the music war. I put my ear buds in and start listening to some fast paced ska song while my brother listens to either Meatloaf, Phish or, the Beastie Boys shudder. He tries to drown out the faint hum that comes from my iPod completely, I just want to be able to hear more horn then bad rap, I usually loose.
i will continue this piece at a later date because it is becoming too long.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Snow
Well today I saw it was snowing out and it got me thinking so hear is my writing for the week.
The idea of snow has always fascinated and impressed me. The way snow flakes can drift down from the sky. You can never predict the way they will fall. The way the flakes whir and dance with immeasurable grace to the ground. Everyone says that every snow flake is unique, I find that fact very difficult to believe. If every snow flake is and individual, a one of a kind wouldn't it make sense for every snow bank to be one of a kind as well. Shouldn't the combination of so much apartness have its own feeling of individuality. But this isn't the case. If I walk down the street and look around every snow bank will look the same, just a huge singular, uniform blanket of snow. This makes me a little sad when I think of it, that in order to join the mass a flake must loose its individuality. They fall from the heavens with a burst of beauty but then they settle into a quite quilt of conformity, which is beautiful in its own way but comparatively unremarkable. Snow flakes fall by the trillions with their own unique size, shape, and path like dancers, in a way reminiscent of a masterpiece, but then their radiance is lost among the mass of former diamonds. True, not all of the snow flakes become part of the mass, some fall and come to rest on the sleeve of wool coat, the cheek of a laughing child, or the long eyelash of a kind face. All of these are beautiful as well, like decorative frames for the canvas which is the snow flake, but these are all short lived. The wool will break the form, the cheek will melt it, and the eyelash will blink sending the snow flake twirling the rest of the way to the ground where it will be lost, the individual swallowed by the whole.
I wonder, is this how us as humans might appear to some other unearthly power? We start off bright, cheerful, dancing from our mother's arms being ourselves because that is all we know how to be. But then we fall to the ground become the blanket that is our society and community. It has its good parts, it is safe and comforting, but with none of the splendor as the dancing creativity of the child. Still a few of us will find other ways to avoid the mass and land somewhere else by holding on to our total uniqueness. But like a snow flake this will inevitably fail. Those who try to stay different will be seen as beautiful, and then be burned, broken, or eventually fall in line with everyone else. Is this really the fate of an artist? To hold on to your identity as long as you can before the public scorns you, or futility makes you give in to the inevitable?
Though it looks hopeless many still strive to hold on to the freedom we radiate at birth, and pray that the eyelash will just decide that it doesn't need to blink right then, it can wait, and so preserve the beauty of the snow flake just a little longer.
Wow, that was a little depressing. If you have any comments, feedback, or a more cheerful view of snow please let me know. As always thank you all and keep on writing!
-Matt McFadden
The idea of snow has always fascinated and impressed me. The way snow flakes can drift down from the sky. You can never predict the way they will fall. The way the flakes whir and dance with immeasurable grace to the ground. Everyone says that every snow flake is unique, I find that fact very difficult to believe. If every snow flake is and individual, a one of a kind wouldn't it make sense for every snow bank to be one of a kind as well. Shouldn't the combination of so much apartness have its own feeling of individuality. But this isn't the case. If I walk down the street and look around every snow bank will look the same, just a huge singular, uniform blanket of snow. This makes me a little sad when I think of it, that in order to join the mass a flake must loose its individuality. They fall from the heavens with a burst of beauty but then they settle into a quite quilt of conformity, which is beautiful in its own way but comparatively unremarkable. Snow flakes fall by the trillions with their own unique size, shape, and path like dancers, in a way reminiscent of a masterpiece, but then their radiance is lost among the mass of former diamonds. True, not all of the snow flakes become part of the mass, some fall and come to rest on the sleeve of wool coat, the cheek of a laughing child, or the long eyelash of a kind face. All of these are beautiful as well, like decorative frames for the canvas which is the snow flake, but these are all short lived. The wool will break the form, the cheek will melt it, and the eyelash will blink sending the snow flake twirling the rest of the way to the ground where it will be lost, the individual swallowed by the whole.
I wonder, is this how us as humans might appear to some other unearthly power? We start off bright, cheerful, dancing from our mother's arms being ourselves because that is all we know how to be. But then we fall to the ground become the blanket that is our society and community. It has its good parts, it is safe and comforting, but with none of the splendor as the dancing creativity of the child. Still a few of us will find other ways to avoid the mass and land somewhere else by holding on to our total uniqueness. But like a snow flake this will inevitably fail. Those who try to stay different will be seen as beautiful, and then be burned, broken, or eventually fall in line with everyone else. Is this really the fate of an artist? To hold on to your identity as long as you can before the public scorns you, or futility makes you give in to the inevitable?
Though it looks hopeless many still strive to hold on to the freedom we radiate at birth, and pray that the eyelash will just decide that it doesn't need to blink right then, it can wait, and so preserve the beauty of the snow flake just a little longer.
Wow, that was a little depressing. If you have any comments, feedback, or a more cheerful view of snow please let me know. As always thank you all and keep on writing!
-Matt McFadden
Stupid Economic Crisis
Ok, no one has posted anything for a while and i intend to change that. Gabs' last post made it seem like this blog was disbanded which I for one will not except without a fight. We may not be meating and we may never publish but it doesn't cost anything to keep up a website. This site was not just made to announce meatings but as a place to put up our work and to easily comment on it. So I for one am going to try to put something up on this site every week, whether it be a poem, a short story, just some plot ideas, or my randum musings, and I need all of you to help keep me acountable. I hope that you might follow my example and post some of your own work or at the very least check up on the site and give me some feed back.
Thank you all, and keep on writing!
-Matt McFadden
Thank you all, and keep on writing!
-Matt McFadden
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Lit Mag No More
Greetings all.
It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you that the literary magazine has been cut from the school budget. These are very difficult financial times. Yesterday the faculty was also informed that 1.8 million dollars was going to need to be cut from our district budget. No one is sure yet how that will happen, but it is indeed going to be a difficult maneuver, most likely involving many other programs.
What this means to us as an organization is that we will no longer publish a magazine. We will no longer meet as a group.
Please continue to write. There are other ways and avenues for your voice to be heard. I am always here to bounce writing and reading ideas around. Perhaps next year we will be reinstated.
Write, read and think.
Veronica Gaboury
It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you that the literary magazine has been cut from the school budget. These are very difficult financial times. Yesterday the faculty was also informed that 1.8 million dollars was going to need to be cut from our district budget. No one is sure yet how that will happen, but it is indeed going to be a difficult maneuver, most likely involving many other programs.
What this means to us as an organization is that we will no longer publish a magazine. We will no longer meet as a group.
Please continue to write. There are other ways and avenues for your voice to be heard. I am always here to bounce writing and reading ideas around. Perhaps next year we will be reinstated.
Write, read and think.
Veronica Gaboury
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Riddle Me This
Ya know, I love a good riddle. Give me one that I can just think about for a while and I'll just think and think and think. I also like trivia. Thus, I present this list of 15 trivia/riddles. I would advise that you use the internet, especially google, to help you with these riddles. They're all original, so good luck.
If you want to know if your answer is right or not, then just send me an email. (fortyler2@gmail.com). Don't post them because that ruins it for others. I'll tell you if you are right or not, but I won't tell you the right answers. Good luck.
By the way, the spaces indicate numbers of letters in each word of the answer.
1. Related to rays and skates as well as lenders. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
2. Providing an infinitum of green upon switching sides. _ _ _ _ _
3. You know you are winning if you smell it in the morning. _ _ _ _ _ _
4. Big Spider + Predatory Bird = Wasp _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
5. Donkey. Catapult. _ _ _ _ _ _
6. All the world's a stage, And all the men merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
7. At first, it's white. The second time, it's blue. _ _ _ _
8. Greetings, precipitation. _ _ _ _
9. It's the thing to do when you're sad. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
10. A fascinating creature. Ferrum cancellarius. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
11. When you are here, you are always getting the boot. _ _ _ _ _
12. It's been here since the beginning and it will be here in the end. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
13. Money^2. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
14. Many modern stars have around them an atmosphere of alcohol. _ _ _ _ _ _
15. Oi, I've got a bone to pick with you. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
~Tyler
Testing
Hello. I am testing to see if I can set this up so everyone can receive notification each time someone posts to the blog. Post a comment to this post to let me know you received this.
Today we discussed:
~ bringing in a piece of writing next time (TBA) so we can read and share.
~ check out www.nanowritmo.org. Several of us are going to set a goal here. Matt (The Man) McFadden, Ashley Bloomfield, Olivia Downs, Stephanie Horton, Sara Seney, Holly Jansson, Jackie Swarczewski and Mrs. Gaboury are among the first wave of volunteers for this task. I am sure more of you will join in once you see how much we are having!
~ try to take time to read and write each day (I just added that).
I was wondering if you wanted to consider changing our focus--not just a magazine, but a literary club. We spoke last year about perhaps having a reading club component. So we could all read a book and get together to discuss it. We could perhaps go to an elemenatary school for a literacy event. We could have a 'Lit Night' which is almost were we have a poetry read. Any other ideas? Of course still publish a magazine . . . .
Let me know your thoughts. Post/comment here to share your thoughts and ideas with the group.
Enjoy!
V. Gaboury
Today we discussed:
~ bringing in a piece of writing next time (TBA) so we can read and share.
~ check out www.nanowritmo.org. Several of us are going to set a goal here. Matt (The Man) McFadden, Ashley Bloomfield, Olivia Downs, Stephanie Horton, Sara Seney, Holly Jansson, Jackie Swarczewski and Mrs. Gaboury are among the first wave of volunteers for this task. I am sure more of you will join in once you see how much we are having!
~ try to take time to read and write each day (I just added that).
I was wondering if you wanted to consider changing our focus--not just a magazine, but a literary club. We spoke last year about perhaps having a reading club component. So we could all read a book and get together to discuss it. We could perhaps go to an elemenatary school for a literacy event. We could have a 'Lit Night' which is almost were we have a poetry read. Any other ideas? Of course still publish a magazine . . . .
Let me know your thoughts. Post/comment here to share your thoughts and ideas with the group.
Enjoy!
V. Gaboury
Monday, October 20, 2008
A Sea Shanty
A sea shanty is basically a song, the rhythm of which sailors would work to while working. The song provided harmony in activities such as pulling ropes or lifting things in the absence of equiptment, where all of the crew would pull on a certain syllable. The song is usually song by a shantyman, and the crew would say in harmony repeated lines.
I suddenly had in me, recently, the urge to write a sea shanty. In memory of the gone age of sail, and for the adventure-seeker inside all of us, here is my sea shanty.
a sea shanty, by Tyler Hartke (regular text is the shantyman, italics is the rest of the crew)
I love life on the open sea;
To sail forever more!
Scarce food and rats and scurvy;
Get me to the shore!
Of grand adventure, salty breeze;
To sail forever more!
The women scarce and pesty;
Get me to the shore!
Grand treasure lay a waiting free;
To sail forever more!
The Kraken may yet chase thee;
Get me to the shore!
All the rum did you ever dream;
To sail forever more!
Though death appears quite stormy;
Get me to the shore!
The lovely sea did set me free;
To sail forever more!
Wish I could see my fam'ly;
Get me to the shore!
~Tyler
Friday, October 3, 2008
Poem(s?)
Hey there, it's me, Tyler. I decided to post a poem (2?) that I wrote a few weeks ago. I play with words a bit in it (them?) to make the poem(s?) mean two different things. Well, here we are.
Oh Shining Sun
by A Mortal Philosopher
Oh shining sun, how marvelous are you
Your glory shown through your rich rays
But sooner than yours, my death is due
Take care not to burn yourself out in case,
That my grandchildren shiver cold,
With your warmth and love, them shall you grace
When you are down, you so masquerade
As a moon, still bright but not warm
You need the skies, to fight your shade
Each time you beat gloom, you rise above all
'Tis because you are my shining sun,
In looks the norm, but in warmth so tall
So when you're older, and the clock strikes noon
And I am, in death, gone from this world
Know that in life, you were my bless't boon
Oh shining sun, how marvelous are you
Your glory shown through your rich rays
But sooner than yours, my death is due
Oh Shining Son
by A Loving Father
Oh shining son, how marvelous are you
Your glory shown through your rich raise
But sooner than yours, my death is due
Take care not to burn yourself out in case,
That my grandchildren shiver cold,
With your warmth and love, them shall you grace
When you are down, you so masquerade
As a man, still bright but not warm
You need this guise, to fight your shade
Each time you beat gloom, you rise above all
'Tis because you are my shining sun,
In looks the norm, but in warmth so tall
So when you're older, and the clock strikes noon
And I am, in death, gone from this world
Know that in life, you were my bless't boon
Oh shining son, how marvelous are you
Your glory shown through your rich raise
But sooner than yours, my death is due
----------------
~Tyler
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sorry! Change of plans!
Hello everyone!
I am sorry--I need to change our plans for meeting on Wed. I have two sick children and child care issues that day. If you would like--you may still meet and toss ideas around in the libe. Otherwise, how about the following Wed?
V. Gaboury
I am sorry--I need to change our plans for meeting on Wed. I have two sick children and child care issues that day. If you would like--you may still meet and toss ideas around in the libe. Otherwise, how about the following Wed?
V. Gaboury
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Welcome!
Hello everyone.
I am so glad you are interested in working on the magazine this year. I am really excited about it.
I would like to meet this upcoming Wed. so that we can regroup and see where we are at with certain topics/jobs and then after that I would like to meet as a group twice a month. So on Wed., let's meet in room 103 so we can work on our blogs and connecting them to the Undefined spot. Let's also work on dividing up jobs and interests.
A few jobs I would like to have help with right now are:
~poster makers -requesting submissions from the general public and informing others about us and our mission
~ mission writers --what is our goal/plan for the year??
~ announcement writers--write up announcements for the morning/afternoon announcements
~ decorate around my door to advertise what we are
~ t-shirts? cheers? Kit?? :-)
~ any other ideas?
I would love for us to use this site to connect to one another and to work on sharing/editing/reading one another's writing. A writer's community.
Hope all is good!
Enjoy!
V. Gaboury
Edited to say . . .once you accept your invite into the blog I will grant you admin powers and you can also post. I also suggest you subscribe so you will receive notification when someone posts. :-)
I am so glad you are interested in working on the magazine this year. I am really excited about it.
I would like to meet this upcoming Wed. so that we can regroup and see where we are at with certain topics/jobs and then after that I would like to meet as a group twice a month. So on Wed., let's meet in room 103 so we can work on our blogs and connecting them to the Undefined spot. Let's also work on dividing up jobs and interests.
A few jobs I would like to have help with right now are:
~poster makers -requesting submissions from the general public and informing others about us and our mission
~ mission writers --what is our goal/plan for the year??
~ announcement writers--write up announcements for the morning/afternoon announcements
~ decorate around my door to advertise what we are
~ t-shirts? cheers? Kit?? :-)
~ any other ideas?
I would love for us to use this site to connect to one another and to work on sharing/editing/reading one another's writing. A writer's community.
Hope all is good!
Enjoy!
V. Gaboury
Edited to say . . .once you accept your invite into the blog I will grant you admin powers and you can also post. I also suggest you subscribe so you will receive notification when someone posts. :-)
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