Creative Writing and Colored Pencils

So in Creative Writing class we were put in groups and given colored pencils and paper. The first thing we had to do was picture a person who intrigued us. Then we had to DRAW their biggest fear. (And no, im not telling you what I drew). Then we had to think of that person's best friend. Then we had to pretend we had asked that best friend to pick one animal that reminded them of the person we picked. Then we drew the animal.
Next we had to draw one "prop" the person was never without. Lastly we had to draw the "craziest day of that persons life." I know, wierd right?
Best part: Then we had to switch drawings with someone and write a story based on their drawings. Aqui esta:


Caleb sat in front of the glass aquarium that had once been full of water and angel fish that had been interesting to watch swim back and forth. Their tails had made interesting shapes in the water. Now it held a gecko who sat on a plastic rock under a heating lamp all day and warmed himself.
Caleb tapped on the glass, trying to get the lizard to move, but his stepfathers pet just opened one eye and then closed it again. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, and even when they were open weren’t very interesting to look at, so Caleb sat back and watched the cartoons on TV instead. When he heard the boots stomp up the front steps and the key click the lock open he turned it off and looked at the gecko again, his eyes avoiding the hallway where he knew Ron would walk by.
Caleb didn’t like boots. He liked dress shoes. He wore them everyday, along with jeans and a striped shirt. The boots stomped up the steps, dragged through the hallway and then eventually thudded quietly as Ron sat in his recliner and turned the T.V. on to watch pro wrestling while he kicked off his shoes.
Caleb didn’t like Ron. He didn’t like the sound of his boots or the smell of his shaving cream or the way he brushed his hair. He hated the way he never burped at meals and his habit of eating two mints every day after dinner.
“How was school today Caleb?” Ron asked. Caleb shrugged, staring at the gecko. “Have you come up with a name for him yet?” Ron tried speaking again, “Remember you can name him anything you want.”
Caleb shook his head. “No” he said. He didn’t want to name the lizard.
That was all they spoke until Caleb’s mother and Ron’s wife got home from work. Her heels clicked on the linoleum of the hallway and the plastic shopping bags crinkled in her arms as she first went to set the bags down on the kitchen floor and then came in and bent down to kiss Caleb and then her husband.
Caleb liked his mother. He liked the way her hair was always pulled back away from her face with the gold barrette he had picked out for her, liked the way her skirts matched her shoes, liked the way her breath always smelled like apple cinnamon tea. He didn’t like the new perfume she wore, though. Ron had picked it out for her and it smelled like a flower.
She used to wear perfume on her wrists that was called “summer day.” Caleb didn’t think it smelled like summer, he didn’t think that summer had a smell at all, but he had liked it better than this new stuff.
His mother sat on the edge of the couch between him and Ron for a few minutes and then stood up and walked into the kitchen to make dinner.
“Want some help, dear?” Ron asked, and stood up from the recliner. He always asked this, and Caleb’s mother always said “No thanks, honey.” Ron then would move his shoes from the chair into the mudroom off the entrance and then sit go into the kitchen and pull the chair away from the table. It made a weird sliding noise against the linoleum as he sat down.
Caleb stayed in the living room and watched cartoons and the gecko. The lizard smelled like a turtle. Caleb didn’t like turtles.
For dinner Ron and Caleb’s mother had chicken parmesan with wheat spaghetti and red chardonnay wine. Caleb had white macaroni noodles with mozzarella cheese sauce, mashed cauliflower and milk. Ever since he turned seven he had refused to eat anything that wasn’t white. For awhile he wouldn’t even eat around foods that were other colors. The first time she had bought corn on the cob to make for herself for dinner Caleb had thrown it off her plate and across the room. Sometimes Caleb’s mother wished that he had picked some other color, because food could always be dyed. It was nearly impossible to get all white food, and bleaching stuff added way too many chemicals and took out way too many vitamins. At least Caleb wasn’t picky, so he would usually eat what she gave him as long as it didn’t have any color to it.
The only white thing that Caleb had ever outright refused were Ron’s mints, but Caleb’s mother figured that one can’t be too picky. You take what you can get.

Creative Writing Story 2

So I guess my blog posts are all going to be either about my newfound love for Oatmeal or a story for Creative Writing...haha.
Anyways, here is the second story I had to write. Our goal with this story was to encorperate the idiosynchratic detail (see a couple posts ago) along with scene and summary. What is the difference between the two, you might ask? Glad you did.
Scene is SPECIFIC. A specific thing happening to a specific character at a specific time in a specific place...you get the idea. Summary is like the backstory. Which is better? Neither. Both. Whichever way you want to look at it. Both are effective, and both add to the story. Enjoy!

Here it is:

Gretchen found her liberation at lunchtime. She put her feet up on her desk, pulled Elizabeth Kostova’s newest novel out of her bag along with her lunch and watched through the slit window in her door as her coworkers scrambled around the office while she ate food and read.
The first time she had chosen to bring her food and eat at her desk instead of going out with the rest of her coworkers she had felt awkward, like she was drawing a line between herself and them, but now she relished in that line. She relished in the fact that she was eating proper portions of the right number of whole grains and fresh fruits while they laughed over the appetizer special at Applebee’s and had no idea that it bloated them with more salt in one pre-meal snack than they should eat in two days. She relished in the fact that while they gossiped she read best-sellers.
She couldn‘t say when she had adjusted to office life. Somewhere after her senior year in college the summer job that had meant to give her something to do before joining the peace core had turned into her life, draining away 30 years before she even knew that they had disappeared.
Her father had died that summer, and his passing had destroyed her mother and her future in one fell swoop. At the same time her friends took off in the plane headed for rural Indonesia to build schools she had stood in a cemetery next to her mother, wearing the obligatory black dress with shoes that looked nice enough for calling hours but had heels that didn’t sink into the moistened ground around the grave.
At that point in time, she had still wanted to change the world. Her enthusiasm for life still was focused on doing something that would improve the lives of people everywhere, that would give little kids drinking water and a chance at an education. Living at home for another year was just a minor setback, a chance to earn some extra money while she stared at the plane ticket taped to the bathroom mirror next to pictures from graduation and bought clothes that would last in places where you wore the same thing for two weeks straight and no one looked at you strangely.
Then one day Gretchen got up from her mother’s kitchen table to rinse out her oatmeal bowl and head to work, finishing her rant on how corrupt the office was and how she couldn’t wait to “change the world” when her mother told her that while changing the world was a wonderful thing to do, sometimes simply surviving in it was enough.
That was what she was doing now, sitting in her swivel chair watching her boss and other workers pass by the door. She was surviving.
After that day her enthusiasm for life became focused on smaller and smaller things. First it was on her husband and her wedding, then on her pregnancy and then on her kids. Now it was on her lunch.

Purple Oatmeal

In case you can't see it clearly (my webcam isnt top notch) That is my purple oatmeal, complete with blueberries.

Yes, I do have an archaeology quiz to study for, but taking pictures of my oatmeal is so much more fun.