Where I Am

So, I should post to say where I am with my writing n' such. Since I started grad school last fall, I've taken fiction writing and creative non-fiction writing (preferring the latter, but thinking I had at least one moment in fiction that was valuable). I'd like to post some of the things I've already written here, for comment/critique, etc. These pieces are by no means "finished" (is writing ever finished, but rather arbitrarily concluded?). I am MOST interested in pursuing creative non-fiction, probably memoir writing, and I'll post bits from the memoir piece I started writing this past January-May.

I'm taking Poetry Writing right now (scary!!)--I've never done poetry AT ALL. Maybe I'll post some of my attempts here for your thoughts.

I'll kick it off with a piece of super short fiction, called "Riding Tandem." I meant it originally to be only 500 words, but it's grown a bit. Maybe I should try to reign it back in?

Feedback I need: I have had problems with: developing a balanced presentation of both protag and antag, as well as creating a clear climax. I also stray from concrete detail at some points.

What do you think of the second person narration?

Is the first line confusing? What's your understanding of the two characters?

Riding Tandem

When we were young, you thought I was the older sister because my birthday was in April and yours was in May.
Really you’re almost two years older, but age only mattered on our birthday cakes. “If you get all the candles, you get to make a wish.” I even got my ten-speed bicycle before my tenth birthday because you had yours. I fell in behind your dust-dulled pink and gray Huffy, and you taught me the neighborhood. You showed me how bikes could be rockets and we could blast to the moon.
When a motorcyclist wiped out on the gravel on the backside of our block we had to give up our rocket rides. They cleared the body that day, but it took two weeks for you to convince me to ride around the block again. I feared I’d see blood or a tuft of hair from his unhelmeted head gripping the black rocks. You laughed at me for worrying. “There’s nothing there, silly.” When we took the corner again, I fixed my eyes on your blowing brown hair.
We moved from that block and you let your bike get dusty. You were about to start high school. I still rode sometimes, until the day I steered my bike too close to a speeding car full of teenagers. “Watch out, you stupid kid!” At home, your bedroom door was closed.
“What do you want?” You stuck your head out. The collar of your t-shirt was wet.
“Some kids yelled at me for riding my bike.”
“What do you want me to do? It’s just a bike. It’s not like it matters.”
That evening, I leaned my bike against the broken lawnmower in the back of the garage. The next day, I joined the school debate team. A girl from the speeding car was the captain. She noticed my skill for argument and we became friends. I stopped knocking on your door, and you stopped coming out.
I went to college after graduating. You never planned to go, school wasn’t natural for you. When I came home for Christmas you were smiling again. “Tell me about college.” I tried to explain my love for Virginia Woolf and Dostoevsky and how I wrote for the campus newspaper. You wanted to talk about our childhood. “Remember when we pretended our bicycles were rockets?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“It was fun when we did that. We did things together, like real sisters. I wish it was like that again.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. It won’t be. It can’t be.”
We didn’t speak till New Year’s. And when I left again, you stayed in your room.
Then you discovered an Internet love and you left. You went all the way to Georgia to prove you meant it, and you got married. I got married too, but my marriage didn’t need to prove anything.
Today we are speaking on the telephone. You call to tell me about the swallow tattoo your husband bought you for your birthday. “Every time I look over my shoulder I can see it.” Even though I hate tattoos I listen to you explain how it represents your new, freer self. You say that you are ready to let go of the past. “I won’t go on about how we used to ride bikes and do stuff together. You can just be who you are, and I’ll be who I am.” She’s making a wish. I am too, but I sit silently and wait for the conversation to end.

GONZO NOVELISM <---not a word :-)

Have any of you ever had the cajones to try and write a novel? I was going through some of my old works last month and discovered/remembered that I have written four different novels that have a chapter or two completed, and then they just stop. (Terrible grammar in that last sentence. I think a participle is dangling? Helen?) I'm thinking it's because I just started writing, and never put together an outline. Sort of gonzo novelism; not really knowing where the story was going or even if where I began writing was the beginning. Needless to say, the moment fizzled and they were tossed by the wayside. Or rather, the hard drive. I was thinking about maybe posting one here and have The Guild toss some ideas around, and then I remembered I wrote a novella in high school with two other people in this gonzo vein. Each of us would write a chapter, and then pass it on to another author. They would read over what went on, and continue the plot, so it unfolded with each new entry. While the book was rather juvenile in content, the concept was and is still intriguing to me. Maybe we could write one of those? Just getting the ol' ball rollin', as Seth would say. Wouldn't he? THOUGHTS! NOW!

The Guild

This blog is for reconnecting with guild members from Concordia University in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This blog is open to people interested in writing short stories, poems, and any other type of post they wish.

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