Day Twenty~Write a Narrative Paragraph

Wow, it has been a while. I guess I just got busy, and...stuff. I am sure you were all chomping at the bit. If I had really wanted to, I could have found the time to post, I simply kept forgetting about it.

Alexa pushed aside her bangs, blinking in the fierce wind that kept blowing her bangs into her eyes. She ducked her head down, hunching her shoulders, trying to protect her face from the girt that snapped around in the wind. She hugged herself, trying to pull herself as small as possible.

Like that, she walked, watching her feet flash back and forth as she walked in rapid motions to her car. When she neared her vehicle, she jammed one of her gloved hands deep into her purse, digging around for her keys. When she found them, she pressed the fob and the locks in the car popped open with a snap.

Alexa jerked at the handle and opened the door on the driver's side. She stepped in awkwardly. She sorted through her keys till she found the one that turned the ignition. She stuck it in the ignition, and twisted it. She prayed desperately, and the engine turned over several times, sounding like a sick dog. Finally the engine started, and Alexa let out a sigh of relief.

Day Ninteen~Write a Story Based on a Real Event from Your Life.

The Sky was over cast and the dry ground was brown and dusty. The Journey 24/7 group was at the Moss's house, which had quite a bit of land.  We were all outside and had picked out a random slip of paper with a pick of several different vehicles on them from Mr. Moss's hat. I got the '64 Subaru.

I got into the car when my turn came, may hands only slightly sweaty. It wasn't just the fact that this was the first time I would be driving a real vehicles , I had a fear of driving. It was one of the activities for the Journey Spring Break party. Everyone picked a random vehicles  and got to drive it through an obstacle course. Some of the vehicles were a tractor, four wheeler, and truck, and a '64 Subaru. I got the Subaru which stalled easily and made that BANG noise every once in a while.

Did I mention I have a fear of driving?

I tapped the driving wheel as Mr. Moss explained again how to work the clutch. He gave me one final thumbs up. Take a deep breath, I lifted my foot off the clutch and onto the gas.

For never having driven before, I started off with smoothly, better than anyone else yet actually. Immediately I began to relax. I can do this, I kept saying to myself. Besides, the fact that I couldn't see what seemed like the first eight feet in front of me, it was easier than I had thought it would be.....

Suddenly I passed the first stake that marked the slalom. Only problem was that it was on my Right, and it would have been on my left. I yanked at he wheel, flying to the right. Too far, too far. I jerked at the wheel again. It suddenly seemed to be twisting right and left without my telling it to. Next thing I know, I was headed straight for one of the metal stakes. Mr. Moss wildly waved his hands because for some reason he was standing directly behind the metal stake. There was no time nor room to dodge. I frantically tried to remember how to stop. I lifted my foot off the gas and pressed down into the clutch and brake simultaneously, stopping with a  jerk, a split second after I had ran over the metal stake.

I started the car back up again, and managed to finish the course with no further harm to myself, the car, or any person/object around me.

Day Eighteen~Write an Expository Paragraph

Hello world. No, I am not dead. Shocking, I know. I guess it has only been a week since I posted last, and I have gone longer dry stretches than that. I think it only feels so long since I have twelve days worth of challenges already written out in my journal, which I had promised to resume the day after the Spring Gala ended. Well, obviously I did not make good on my promise. It has been nearly a week if you start counting from when I posted the last day, and over a week if you start counting from the official end date.

Either way, here is day Eighteen.

How to Gum wrapper Leaf

Gum wrapper leafing, though some consider it tacky, is both fun and easy. It is a great way to add personality and pizazz to notebooks, pencils, shelves, or whatever else you can think of.

First things first, you need to acquire the correct kind of gum wrappers. The most common kind is employed. The type with foil like metal on the outside and lined with paper which you find on long flat pieces of gum.

Get as many wrappers as you want, and soak them in water for about five minutes. While this step is not "needed" it will make the process much easier.

After soaking the gum wrappers, peel off the paper lining. The best way to do this is to gently scratch at the paper lining until it till it comes off, then peel off strips off from there, being careful not to tear the foil.

Once the paper has been removed, press the wrapper against eh surface of your choosing. Any porous material will work nicely. Be sure the side you press onto the surface is the side the paper used to be on. Now rub the wrapper. Your finger tip or the blunt end of a paint brush or pen will also work.

If you want to have your gum wrappers in awesome shapes, like a star or heart, cut the shape out before you soak the wrappers. This is easiest time to cut the wrappers and less likely to tear.

There! You're all done Now all there is left to do is enjoy your jazzy gum wrapper artwork.

Spring Writing Gala~Day 9

I was doing so well for a while. Now i am late again, and for the last day to boot. Mmmm, never mind, I did this on purpose, for I much prefer days that end with 5 or 0 so as to be divisable by 5. (I do not know why, but I have always loved 5's. In fact, 25, which is the square number of 5.) Therefore, I decided to end on a day which was divisable by 5, since that makes it feel better somehow. It gives this so much more closer then ending on the 11th. And while I also find prime numbers interesting, they irritate me as well, so I would have felt disatified ending there. (No offence to you Megan. You may very well find prime numbers relaxing...or you are not as crazy as I am and the number of the day you end on would have no effect onnyou whatsoever.)

Anyhoooooo.....

Back to the post! Day 9 is an easy one, simply write. (Mmmm, not sure if I can do that.....)

This is an excerpt from the novel I am working on right now, called Beyond Happily Ever After.


"Oh," Marian said, for some reason feeling a deep sense of disappointment, "I will try to remember."


Derek smiled at Marian. "There you go, better alre dy wi d "

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Wait, what's, what's happening? Ow, it was going so well, I wasn't even really trying. The story was just coming. Ow, why does my head hurt so muc?. Ugh, my fingers are suddenly stiff. Good thing I can go back and correct my mistakes, otherwise this paragraf would be full of misstaks. Still, it is so odd, I can't explain it.


Ow.


I should just stop. There really is no need for going on. I will just be submitting the fairytale anyway, no need to finish it. Besides, already I have fallen into a fairytale cliché. But…then again. It did just seem to flow out of me. Honestly, I'm really interested in it now. But I have such a huge metal block right now. Before it was like a saw it all so clearly, but now it is almost unnatural how hard it is to write anything. Wait, I'll be back in a moment.


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Okay, I'm back. I grabbed myself some chai tea and some and a grilled peanut and jelly sandwich made with Killer bread. (Really, the band name is Dave's Killer Bread. It is the best bread in the UNIVRSE. Seriously. Get on your computer, go to www.daveskillerbread.com find a store that sells it, [or if there are no stores which carry Dave's Killer Bread near you, you can order it.] This snack should help me fight against writer's block.)


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Aaaaaaaand…nothing. I have a vague impression of a lot of old people sitting in a room…..

"Old? We are not old!"

What was that? Oh, heeelllllllo what is this? Wow, it's not every day images I make up are so clear. Seriously. It feels like I can almost touch this scene inside my head, and it came from nowhere. It is an old battered room, there is just enough room for a table and for nine people to sit at it. It's a triangle , and there are three people at each edge. The walls have some sort of weird wall paper, or they're molding. No, wait, they are bookshelves. The whole walls from top to bottom are made of book shelves. There are no doors. Only book shelves and the ceiling. Oh! There is no ceiling. The books shelves just go up forever and ever.


The lady I think I thought actually talked, (but that's crazy) looks in her thirties from far away, but close up she is at least sixty. The makeup is literally layered on her face, filling up her wrinkles, cracking in spots and shifting around her eyes. Her hair is obviously died, considering natural hair does not come in that shade of…of lavender.


Now she seems to be giving me the stink eye. Ignoring her now. I need to look at the others sitting around the table. After all, the image is remarkably clear and it would be a shame to waste it. I can keep this scene in la-la land until I find a suitable story to find it in.

"You will do no such thing."

That was a man. Younger, than the lady, perhaps forties? No older than forty-eight, yet he is bald. Shiny head. And, oddly reminiscent of the sixties. Are those bell bottoms? And they're kaki.

"You shouldn't even be here."

I'm confused. It's almost like I don't have any control to what happens.

"This is because you don't," the sixties man says, sitting back down in his chair with a sigh. "And would you stop narrating everything I do. It's annoying."

Spring Writing Gala~Day 8

Well, here I am, and only one day late with Day 8. Below is a  list of some of the books I would like to read. It probably is not an exhaustive list, but just the ones that came to my mind. Even so, this list is a little overly ambitious it seems.

Philip Reeve:

1.Fever Crumb

2.A Web of Air
3.Scrivener's Moon
4.Horatio Nelson and His Victory
5.Here Lies Arthur
6.No Such Thing As Dragons
7.Isaac Newton and His Apple

Anne McCaffrey:
8.Dragonflight
9.Dragonquest
10.The White Dragon.

Frank Herbert:
11.Dune
12.Dune Messiah
13.Children of Dune
14.God Emperor of Dune
15.Heretics of Dune
16.Chapterhouse: Dune

Charles Dickens:
17.The Pickwick Papers
18.Nicholas Nickleby
19.The Old Curiosity Shop
20.Barnaby Rudge
21.Martin Chuzzlewit
22.Dombey and Son
23.Bleak House
24.Hard Times
25.Little Dorrit
26.Our Mutual Friend
27.The Mystery of Edwin Drood
(And in case you think the selection of Dickens's books I have put on this list is odd, you should know I have already read some of his more popular works.)

Elizabeth Gaskell:
28.Mary Barton

29.Cranford
30.Ruth
31.North and South
32.Sylvia's Lovers
33.Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story

Daphne du Maurier:
34.Rebecca
 
Sylvia Plath:
35.The Bell Jar
 

And like I said, not an exhaustive list. Even now I can think of some others, but this list should give you a taste of what I like to read. Yep, I know. It is pretty much scifi/fantasy and then classics. Weird.