Rainfall

She's an obedient girl.

Kills whoever he says to, looks at nothing he says not to.

It's not for him, though. It's for the book. She's looking for her last page.

He doesn't know why him, doesn't concern himself with it either. She's an obedient girl, who does everything he asks and more.

Pretty. Shame she's still a child. Shame she doesn't know how to smile.

He knows a pretty smile when he sees it. He knows a good smiler when they walk.

He likes to imagine she does too, when she looks at the corpses by her feet. When she looks at the holes she's made into their chests and the rain falling on her handiwork. He likes to imagine she knows things, even though she's with him precisely because she can't know things on her own, can't do them without a command.

Pretty dolly.

So he lets her go play house out in the streets, and sometimes she comes back with a page for her book or a fat wallet that keeps them fed for days. She doesn't grow but her clothes fall off anyway from use and he carries her around in his jacket until he finds something new in some dead man's house.

She makes him think of his daughter, the little one in the apartment he left behind.

Her confusion always makes him think of her, until she looks at the gun in his pocket.

She's always looking at it, that girl. She's always watching it with a wary sort of pleasure, if she is capable of feeling that sort of thing. If she's capable of thinking about much, it's always his little gun, the handgun that she sometimes caresses into her hand. It is never fired because she doesn't know how to kill herself. She knows how to kill anything else, just a touch seems to do the trick, but not herself.

She needs him to kill her and he won't.

He's already a monster anyway. Accidentally of course, but accidental is a word people also say about sexual assault and domestic violence so nobody takes it all that seriously anymore.

He thinks of his daughter's face, crestfallen at the window, every time he tries to kill her like she wants, and the gun lowers.

Maybe he just doesn't want that little girl ashamed of him.

But she's not here, and that kid is only his by semen transfer. So he shouldn't care.

But he does.

Another corpse drops, this with the thunk of flesh meeting dumpster. He wants to ask her if this is the last one, even as her eyes travel to the gun like they do after every fight. Are you me? He wants to ask her this every day. Is that why you want to die?

He never asks her, and instead takes her back to dry off because her killings always happen in the rain.

He doesn't understand why she stays, why she waits for him to do the deed, why she doesn't go find a criminal or something. A real criminal, not something like him. She never says a word, and never does a thing, even if he is thinking of choking her or leaving her in the apartment to waste away. She just holds her book and waits.

One night he simply leaves her there, leaves her there and wanders the streets she's been staining with blood for the past few months. He wanders through the cemetery he hasn't touched, has avoided the whole time, and then finds himself having to stop because the girl is right before his eyes. She is looking at a grave, and her book is resting on it, like it is sleeping there. He has never looked at the book cover once.

He doesn't want to, nor does he want to look at the girl. She never disobeys him. She is an obedient girl.

She also never speaks.

“Daddy,” she says then, and her voice is too high, too splintered.

“Daddy,” she says again, and his gun is suddenly in his hand. “You have the last page of my book.”

His hand doesn't shake.

“Daddy,” she says for a third time, and smiles the pretty smile he knew she had. “You killed me.”

He pulls the trigger, and kills her again.

The police find him lying there, soaked in rain, her bloody book in hand.

For my daughter, with love.

blah

Narrator: A known trait of humans is to travel in these... pack-like groups. They are a social race, the female set in particular. Sometimes there is a very specific screech from one group to another.

However, there is another trait of humans... this exclusion of one or more of their race.

(The screen flashes to a high school lunch table, where one one side is a great crowd, while on the other, a child sits alone.)

Narrator: Of course, some humans are adept at naturally breaking from the pack. Yet, in a manner most strange for such a social species, they encourage such separation. Admittedly, some appear to do it more roughly than others. For example, the screech that is typically a sign of acknowledgment from one group to another, sends a negative message towards the lone extra. Also, hoots and jeers are taken as common sport, and any attempts by higher-ranked members of the species are met with no adjustment whatsoever or even anything resembling remorse.

Scientists find this contradictory communication sequence illogical.

There have been many attempts to explain it, both by the creatures themselves and our own scientists. Yet, just like the circles the groups of humans tend to linger in, they keep coming to a very nonsensical answer.

It is just human nature, it seems.

Click

Click-Click

Rush by, rush by. Chilled by a ticking second hand. The minutes are a fast sort of sluggish. Tap goes the pencils clicking the lead, over and over.

It's them or its you. Fifty minutes, six, seven times. Each time is relaxed by a five minute lie-in and there's a thirty second (minute) break in between. And it rushes by with the voices of the friend and the foe and the smell of bad food.

Four more days after one passes. And then the weekends, hours upon hours of work that you may not need because you already know.

Sometimes it's a big project, one with many pages and hours and not enough sleep. Sometimes it's a theory.

All year, it's a test.

A test of your brains and your endurance and how well you can cope with these people and their inability to let you think. It's the test and you panic and you worry and it hurts very, very bad.

It should end when you get to walk on that line. Walk on it rain or shine to shake the hands of old men you don't even remember ever meeting. Old men and women who decided how your life was supposed to be tested before you even existed. Who were these people and why did you care? Everything was over.

It was supposed to be over.

Maybe for a couple people it was.

But if you were smart or scared, it never ended.

More time in a building, spaced out, the second hand ticking longer, later. Homework piles even higher, never sure you were doing it right, never sure this was what the teacher wanted. That was what you were taught to look for.

It wasn't necessary to think. Everyone says it is but you and I know it's not.

By the time you get that pretty little job, the thinking's gone, the rote is back. And everyone gets mad because people don't know how to think and expect to not have to teach them, but if there was no place to ever learn then what do you expect?

What do you expect from a zombie you asked to make?

It's like a forehead flick.

Annoying tic.

Blitzquik, is that what it was called? Batter running down my face and almost on my sweetly-ironed shirt. You bastard, it's your workload at the end of the day and am I okay, no because there's a red light and-

Road rage. Red is rage, red is stop and go ahead and a bitten tongue with spots of saliva that do not know where they become clear because they are-

Starwhite. Not starlight, star white, because that dwarf is dying, exploding like pleasure at the pit of the chest and a heart burning with intense pink love and why is there a

Rainbow. Pleasure rainbow, acceptance rainbow made of blue and lies and why do people claim to accept everything when they push the other group aside because their pain is more important. Like the blue, blue sky which is grey

Because the rain won't go away and neither will the bloody murder from a smirk of a blond-haired brother and a messy forehead flick.

Dearly Beloved

A song of mourning, meant for singing, drinking, dancing. Or is it really? Isn't it more of a peaceful song, a lullaby for a baby, a sweet thing like a light ice cream?

I wonder.

That brings me to my next idea. Do most people listen to music while they write? I do, I love it. I tend to use instrumentals when I'm actually writing and vocal pieces are better for when I'm editing. They each let the words flow out differently. Though sometimes it can't be helped when your iPod is on shuffle and certain things just happen.

I find instrumentals good for drafting a piece because they tend to be less distracting from what's already trying to be said. I'd rather just let the writing speak for itself. Vocal pieces influence how I'm typing (and sometimes WHAT I am typing) which is rather inconvenient.

Vocal pieces are good for editing, at least to me, because they influence it. They help to think of new words or turns of phrase and all of that. Thinking of it like that, I guess it would be more useful to listen to vocal music while revising, not editing. They are not the same thing.

Some people can't do either though. They need this incredible complete silence or they can't focus.

That does make me wonder... why do people think talking while someone is writing is good? Every writer I've talked to gets furious whenever someone is trying to hold a conversation. I agree with them there, it's infuriating. One or the other guys. Pick one.

Fantastical-Character muse

A red-rimmed eye, blackened sky.

I hate rhymes.

I hate old language spoken in rough voices. It sounds splintered, brittle. It's the rock that sinks instead of skips, the roughness of the raw carrot that takes your tooth.

Heavy tome, musty smells, the library has all that it could have but it doesn't. There is no more excited laughter, none of the giggling of slipping silkworms into book covers and making a book dance with a gust of wind. There's too much peace and quiet, barring the sound of clashing metal and wood below her ears. It's cold in the library, making the musk burn her nose.

The whine is louder now that she's turned the page.

"You don't like it when I read here, alone?"

Another whine, and she closes the book to stroke behind the creature's ears. "You're a sweet child, to worry. But we all need the peace."

He licks her palms, eager, loving, placing his head in her small lap like it's the only thing he has ever needed in his life.

She smiles. "You can be such a naughty child too."

The wolf merely snuffles, not even despondent, just seemingly content with the fact that her hands were on his head, and he had her attention. It was almost cute, in a solemn sort of way. She continues to stroke his fur, humming a nursery tune. There is a loud shout from below and she looks to see a broadsword soar to stick into the earth. Someone laughs, another panics, and her wolf sniffs.

"I can't take you seriously when you look like that."

Cain whines and she laughs a girlish laugh, tweaking his snout. "Behave and I'll read to you." He curls at her feet, and she lowers herself from the chair to rest against his fur. Like that, they sit until it's too dark to see and someone finds them sleeping with the light of a candle.

oops.

Forgive my possible lack of capital letters, issues with the shift key.

Anyway, I was working on my creative writing project and spaced on this. So here we go!

I probably misinterpreted the project prompt horribly. The images that came to mind for it were a hand on someone's head, a flower, and royalty. The world was fantasyesque and vague, and so I tried to play off of that as a style element and give the story a very odd visual approach, letting the reader piece it together themselves, if vaguely.

I wasn't sure of where this was going to go, or if it was going anywhere at all.

The main character is genderless, or at least they are right now. They won't tell me who they are either. I think I will know more after i edit. Or at least I hope I will.

Will we ever build a snowman?

I just read an interesting article courtesy of the NaNoWriMo facebook page on editing. I think I've seen it before but I clicked on it because it showed a rainbow of highlighters. I love random editing tips because I really dislike editing and revising.

Well, no I don't. But it never feels satisfactory. I usually miss something. And it's all very, very serious too. If you don't edit right, you might get a proper scolding. Not fun my friends. Not fun at all.

Who would scold you for it though? Your editor, probably. Or anybody who happens to read it. Nobody likes a sloppy editing job, funnily enough. Not sure how anyone could. It's like turning in the first draft of an essay and expecting full marks. wait, isn't that what happens for the ACT and SAT? No wonder we have poor essay scores. We're used to getting weeks of studying and research time. Not cool guys.

Anyway, I have been puzzling out a short post-apocalyptic story for a while. It focuses less on the apocalypse and more on the people.

Main characters: A half-human, half-android girl ferrying children across the wastes to the ships nearby.
The human child->woman who falls in love with her when she repairs her.

Ending: no idea. I seriously think it doesn't have one.

It's more emotional than what I'm used to writing. Well, no it's not, there are just less explosions. I just see deserts and dust, and a very pretty comb.

I need more than this brain. Give me more! Does it at least snow?

What do I say...?

There was originally a long rant here but I deleted it. Too whiny... I'm just going to rant again anyway...

I wouldn't say I'm bad at poetry. To be honest, I'm not sure what good poetry is. Is it lyrical? Is it vivid and clear? Or is it a grudge match with ink splotches everywhere? I don't know.

I don't like poetry very much.

It makes me feel like a clumsy fool. The more I read poetry, the more I think, "how much more am I lacking in grace? Each phrase is like somebody decided to preach a love ballad to themselves about whatever word sounds pretty enough. Or they have God's almighty thesaurus.

To a point, I appreciate complex phrasing. But there comes a point where things just get ridiculous. To be fair, I feel the same about old literature and even some newer literature. I feel like the klutz who just happened to be in the right room and I don't think I'm even doing this blog right.

I'm a little bad at blogs. I need direction. It's why I write stories. I need a point, a reason to do things. The reason could literally be "just because" and I would be cool. I just... I need a reason to do things because without that I am so lost. Stories need to have a point. They can dance around it like ballet if they want to but if there is no point to the events occurring then I am just bored. Yep, bored, bored, boredity bored. I am Sherlock Holmes. Nobody likes it when I have nothing to do. At least I haven't skinned your cat. Or whatever it is he did... oh he poisoned Watson's dog. Yeah...

See I just need a direction, a purpose. Poetry to me, even with the themes involved, lacks a purpose to me a lot of the time. I can do it, I can write a story in a poem but there are so many rules to poetry that I don't know how to loophole my way through. I wish I did because story loopholes are the best thing because writing stories is more like a bunch of loosely-tied knots rather than a particularly tight string ball.

... I have no idea what I just typed so I am just going to shut up now.

Introductional Flapping About

Hi, um... I'm Kaitlyn Hirsch... and I don't like to talk. I like to write. I'm slow at it, and most of the time, I fly on the seat of my pants on where it's going beyond flashes of ideas and flops on my face. It's a clumsy way of going into the world, gripping the walls and a parent's skirt, but I feel it's a lot of fun. It was why I chose this college, and specifically this program. I like the idea of being able to get my feet wet in many different ponds and seeing the color of the water or the way it ripples when it touches my toes or even the temperature it's at. Creative Writing, to me, has always seemed like the program to exploring new places with nothing but a pencil.

My writing style is considered by many to be very unusual, and to myself it's something that I don't know how to explain. It's a very personal style, reflecting the author as well as the character, voicing details and nuances that as a neutral narrator normally go ignored, or even not noticing little pieces of information or clues that would be noticed if the narrator was distanced from the character. It's meant to be immersive and human, imperfect and sometimes unfocused. I don't know if I like it, but I can't think of any other way to write. To be honest, I don't think too much on how I write as a whole, just the topic I'm writing about.

I write to invite people in. I want to walk with readers on their journey through the story, see what they see and how they see it, but while inviting them to look and see other elements of the story in new ways or as a different story altogether. It's a lot of fun.

My experience in the EMU writing program has been rather laid-back. I am encouraged to explore and test boundaries, as well, but not to think one way or another. I feel like I've just entered into this big discussion that doesn't really have an overall topic to discuss, but a lot of little ones I can walk in and out of and puzzle out. No one's shoving their ideals down my throat or letting me think I'm a fool if I'm different. I enjoy that I get to interpret things my own way.

Genre fiction, to me, is a type of story that is written with a specific box of tools. There are notable tropes and plots that are generally associated with a genre, such as science fiction. If you ask a random reader on the street what goes into an everyday science fiction story, it's usually something along the lines of "X years into the future" (haha, that used to be 2001. I still want my hoverboard.), something to do with super advanced technology, or we humans in our wisdom destroyed the earth. Obviously not all of sci-fi has this, but that's what everyone expects. Genre fiction has expectations. It has a box. Sure, it can break the box, but the genre you're writing in tends to at least start in a box and say: look, I belong in this box. If it doesn't, people get horribly confused. Everyone likes things in their boxes and uncomplicated. Not that twisting things around for fun and difference is bad or something.

I mostly write for YA fiction, if I have to put the genre label at all. I find I understand that area the best, emotional head games and troubling realities included. Plus lasers and magic because that's fun. I'm not a fan of straight-up romance most of the time, but if it tends to be mixed with other genres I really enjoy it a lot more. My problem with it would be that the formula rarely gets mixed up or taken in different directions, so I give the romance genre more flak than it may deserve. I feel like I usually write hybrid genre stories most of the time. When it comes to labeling my work, I admit to getting confused on where it stands. It's kind of sad but also fun. I never find enough tags to explain myself or even the right ones a lot of the time.

To be honest, these sort of intricate technicalities confuse me. I don't know how to explain writing or teach it to people. I can suggest ideas fairly easily but I don't really understand what it is I'm doing until I talk it out. The process of writing is something I know inside of me, but to bring an outsider into the backstage is uncomfortable and hard to get used to. I guess, to me, as long as it works, I don't have to understand everything that goes into the writing. I'd rather just leave myself open to guessing about it.

I think I should stop before I get more off-topic. Thanks for reading!