January 16, 2012

When I spent a week at Goddard, I was fully aware of this feeling of transcending my life here in Hartville, Ohio. I was living in this alter-universe...which essencially was the "real world." I realized that I have lived 35 years in a shell of sorts, adhering to all the "rules" that I felt were placed upon me, though they were invisible rules: get good grades, go to college, work full time, get married, have a child, be a good mother, be a good friend, pay my bills...and so on. But until this past week, I had never really stepped outside of my own element to see what was out there...out there, being outside my bubble of reality. Wow. What an eye-opening and amazing experience. I believe this is having a real effect on my writing. Writing, as they taught us, should be authentic. Well, duh...but yet until now I do not know that I could have written anything authentic unless I was writing a novel about a straight-laced girl who did everything expected of her. Now, however, I am writing as the person I started to become last week. A person I am learning about, and coming into more and more each day. So my writing is more authentic, I think. This means that if someone says a word I would consider inappropriate, I have to sit back and decide if it is authentic, not if I would approve. My example is below, my favorite line for today (well, it more like a few lines...) Enjoy...


Disease- that is what the doctors called it. A disease, not a choice. Though she knew
that most people considered that false. Like a lie that its victims conspired to avoid personal
responsibility. Fuck them, she thought. Who would ever choose this?