I Could Write an Art Book

Well, that's being a little... snobbish. But I could probably pull something like that off. ;)

I did a little art critique for EAL, and I promised her a little sketch on faces. Well, here it is. With commentary, too! (Click to see the full-sized image).

Huh. She has really thick eyebrows. Kinda like me.

It's (not) a self-portrait!

Shhh...

This is top secret. You can't tell my dad I wrote this.

I'm supposed to be writing for contests this summer (according to me padre), but I couldn't resist a little "splurge" on a story prompted by Myself of Through My Eyes. My prompt was (the image is backwards due to Myself's webcam):

If you don't have a mirror on hand, it says a library, a creature from another planet, and  a character finds a treasure.

Huh. Well apparently I should have used a mirror, because I thought my plot was "a character solves a problem." ...I'll just pull a Spielberg: the treasure is knowledge. (Anyone? Anyone? Movie line game?)

That's okay. Myself, you don't hate me, do you?

P.S. It has no title, so I'm calling it Lipgloss. (That's a bit of an inside joke that no one here will ever understand. Hahayou.)

“So your assignment over the weekend is to research the inhabitants of another planet,” the teacher finally concluded after a 3-hours-long lecture on intergalactic relations. “Your reports will be due on Munsdie.”

                Xxy%ten gathered his various writing tablets covered with doodles of aliens, then fell into line behind Ybegr#n as he marched out the door.

                “Hey, Ybegr#n,” Xxy%ten said, tapping the taller P’kenfris. “Where are you going for your study?”

                “My grandma’s house,” replied the other without looking. “She’s so old, she’s practically from another planet.”

                “Oh…” Xxy%ten wished he’d thought of that, but since someone else was doing that he didn’t want to copy them. “Well, I was thinking I’d fly around and stop at any planet that catches my eye.”

                “Well, have fun with that,” said Ybegr#n as he climbed into his cruiser and flew out of the schooling-port. Xxy%ten did the same.

                “Computer!” The little P’kenfris cried, smacking the touch panel of his vehicle.

                “What?” The computer voice whined.

                “Examine inhabited planets within 20 lightyears of here.”

                The computer proceeded to flash various planets on the screen: large, small, flaming, and even a planet no larger than a dust speck, found on the surface of another, larger planet. The latter piqued Xxy%ten’s interest, so he set coordinates for the larger of the two: a blue-green planet called “Earth.”

                When he arrived, the first place he examined was something his computer told him was called a “Library.” At the schooling-port they called “libraries” information download ports, but, after all, this was an alien planet.

                “How can I help you?” The controlling alien asked when Xxy%ten approached it. It did not look up at him as he approached, but that was something the P’kenfris was accustomed to. He was so impossibly short, as his parents had described it, that he was always looked over.

                “I’m looking for a planet that I’ve been told exists somewhere on the surface of this world. If I remember correctly, it is called… Hoovil.”

                The controlling alien sniffed and shuffled some papers. “Hmph. Well, I would check the children’s section.”

                Xxy%ten nodded and thanked the alien before turning to locate the children’s books. The first book he examined, however, attacked him most viciously, causing his finger to bleed and throb.

                “Excuse me,” the P’kenfris said to the controlling alien. “Your information log sliced my finger. Is there perhaps another method of knowledge transfer?”

                The controlling alien sighed and cleared its throat hoarsely. “Try an eBook, then.”

                “Brilliant!” Xxy%ten cried. “Can it be accessed with POL?” (POL as in P’kenfri On Line).

                “Yeah, sure, whatever,” the controlling alien muttered.

                Nursing his injured finger, the P’kenfris darted happily out of the information download port and into his ship. When he logged onto POL and accessed the Earth networks, he discovered that Hoovil was not an actual planet, but a fictional destination dreamed up by an alien Earth-dweller who went by the name of Dr. Seuss.

                With that report, Xxy%ten passed intergalactic relations with full marks. Ybegr#n did, too, in case you were wondering.

I Have a Confession to Make (Don't Worry, It's Not a Bad One).

I Write Poetry, Not Prose

I write poetry, not prose.
These days people think only “emos” write poems
About the sadness in their hearts and their slit wrists.
Well, I don’t wear dark makeup or black clothes,
I just write poetry,
Not prose.

I used to think that novel-writing was the thing for me,
But as the years passed I found solace in the arms of poetry.
I’ll leave trilogies and chapters to the Talbots, Monsons, and Angerhofers,
Whose names will invariably been seen on the first of 400 pages,
Spelled out in gold letters and given national acclaim.
But for me, I’d rather make audiences weep as I perform on the stage,
Spewing forth sad-girl-poetry and other things written in my fits of rage.

You ought to see the surprise when I perform with wild eyes,
Spewing lines about insanity, death, murder, and lies.
Most don’t expect such a sweet exterior to have such “rotten” insides.
I haven’t been locked up in the basement all my life,
And sometimes I, at the beginning of it, feel I’ve lived more than those at the end.
Through the words I’ve penned I’ve learned far more than most,
Because I write poetry,
Not prose.

Of course, this is not a full-truth. I wrote this as a shout-out to one of my friends from my creative writing class, who usually writes prose but is also a brilliant poet. His poem was titled "I Write Prose, Not Poetry."

Sorry for the less-than-wordy explanation. I'm a little frazzled, but I wanted to post something today. I had to watch my cousins, and they're kinda high-maintenance.

But I have a question to ask of you, my readers. What do you write? I was reminded by my English teacher that all writing is creative; even writing a car owner's manual is creative. So where do you fall? Are you a poet, a novel-writer, a blogger, an essayer, or a manual-writer?

Guest Writer: Evelyn L. (AKA EAL) and Her Odd Ramblings

Welcome once again to Illiterations' guest writer series! (I got a clap track after the last episode. If you listen really hard, you can hear it playing from where I live).

Today's feature is the ever-lovely, young, brilliant, amazing--ahem. Sorry. I could go on for ages about her, and I certainly don't want to bore anyone while I go on about this lovely lady. Of Assembling Imaginations, this is Evelyn L. (also known as EAL).

Not only does Evelyn write poetry; she also draws! (It's freaky. We're, like, twins or something...) I am an avid follower of her blog, not only because of her poetry, but also because I keep hoping to catch a glimpse of her mysterious Utopia Project. All I know (so far) is that it involves Europe, fighting, magic, and three years' worth of writing. Naturally, I'm a little curious.

I was also amazed to discover that she's even younger than I am! Just goes to show that talent and good writing can come from anywhere. c:

About herself, Evelyn says:

EAL, who was born in Illinois but raised in Norcal, will no longer be speaking about herself in third person.  I draw and play instruments, but writing is my main method of being creative.  Currently, I’m fighting my way through revisions of my finished story Utopia Project, with some short stories, poems, and possible longer works on the side.  I’m inspired by a lot of things: namely, books, landscapes, architecture, the ocean, and the odd ramblings of my brain.

So, without further ado, here is an odd rambling from the brain of Evelyn L.!

Blue-Eyes
Your eyes are stars, supernovae
But like black holes they pull me in

And implosions happen when I see you
Which is good because explosions

Are messy like finger-paint
And if I were five

I would choose my bluest crayon
To draw your eyes

Except they would be too round
And I would think of Neptune

Discovered by calculations
Existing as speculation before being found

A Roman god, a knockoff Poseidon
But that just isn’t you

Tell me what you mean
Tell me who you are

And, actually, I don’t even know
What kind of blue your eyes are

Blue like ocean under sun or
Blue like blood under skin

Because I keep forgetting
Even when I remember to look

For the black hole swallows even light
And under those bright supernovae

Color doesn’t really matter
Does it, blue-eyes?

This is Renee Montero from my plotless story which currently has the working title GW.  She's a little bit evil.

Like what you've seen? Read more at assemblingimaginations.blogspot.com!

Do you compose poetry, write prose, make art, or take photographs? Then you deserve to be recognized! Find out how!

The Man of My Dreams Is a Tree?!

In other news: I'm feeling a little better, all. Inspiration has once again sprung forth, and I also couldn't wait to share what I've been working on the past few days.

I realized that the reason I was feeling so yucky about blogging was that I had a set schedule that was putting way too much on my plate. Hence I have decided to throw out the whole posting schedule, and am now going to post once or twice a week.

Now that I've got my head back together, here are some things to look forward to:

• More poetry: Poems on internet love (I'm making fun of people who have asked to date me on the internet and stuff like that), fish, and my soulful aversion to prose.
• Stories: Chapter-by-chapter postings of unfinished novellas, including a story about a puddle and another about a society of maneaters.
• Short Stories: Including a seven-year-old comatose mother of two, a blank-slate-child, and today's story of my dream-boy (he's also a tree).
• More Features: As promised, EAL's feature will be posted tomorrow! Also remember that I am always looking for other poets, prosets, and artists. :)
• More Art: Including a tree-man (for today) and a tree-woman (for later), broken eyes, birds and bird-people, and watercolors.

For today, I have a piece I wrote based off a dream I had two nights ago.

Have you ever had a dream in which you meet someone of the... opposite gender... and somehow yo know that you're completely in love and you'll never find anyone else like them in real life? That's the kind of dream I had last night, except the man of my dreams was part tree.

Can I say, WUT.

But it's true, and now I find myself condemned to search my entire life for a man who's also a tree so we can get married and have little tree-babies.

Crap.

Anyways, I couldn't help but use this as a bit of inspiration leverage. I assume you'd like to see what this dreamboy looks like? Well, here he is:

He's still a bit of a work in progress. Those are the flat colors, and later on I'll add  shade and dimension and probably a background. He has bark for skin, his eyes are ice-blue, and his hair shines pale-green in the sunlight. Do I know too much about this non-existent man? Um... Yes. Yes I do.

So there he is. One big hunk of woody hotness. He was really fun to draw, especially since I almost never draw men. When I started putting bark on his face, my sister was like "Why are you giving him a freaky skin disease?" I've learned that to avoid earning snarky comments from my family, I need to draw (and write) in privacy.

So aside from the characters in my dream (him, me, and some other dude (I think he was part bird, and he might have been funny, also)), the plot went something like this: I fell in love with a tree-man, and then some army marched by and I told him to hide and pretend he was a tree.

Goodness, I'm original, telling a tree-man to pretend to be a tree. I promise the story I'm writing is a little less obvious. Here, I'll even prove it. I've only written one little bit of a scene because writing in chronological order depresses, bores, and bores me. It's boring. So here's a little excerpt from my dream-turned-novella:

Something caught my eye—a movement apart from the rhythmic motion of the tree limbs swaying overhead and the wind swirling below. It was a seedling, and I would never have picked it out from the undergrowth were it not for the alarming rate at which it was growing. Such things were normal occurrences due to the State-of-Things, but even this was a bit of an oddity. Within seconds as I watched, the tiny sprout of green became a sapling, and the sapling a tree, with innumerable branches and leaves as green as emerald. And while certainly I was surprised to see a tree do such a thing, I was not prepared for what it did then.

As the rate of its growth slowed (by then the trunk was probably too large for me to wrap my arms around), the rough bark just above my eye level shifted, swirling to form some shape, a pattern. As I stepped closer, the image came into focus: it was a face, round and soft like a baby, but hewn out of wood. I staggered backwards, startled.  As I did the face shifted again, its features becoming harder, more refined. I stared, unable to tear my eyes away from this spectacle, as the face in the tree grew quickly older, the lips becoming thinner, the cheekbones more pronounced. Its eyes remained closed through all of this, as though the being were asleep, or perhaps dead.

Despite my fear and shock, somehow I was drawn to this strange creature, as though someone had tied a string to my heart and was slowly pulling me in. Without any thought I reached out my arm and gently ran my fingers across the surface of the bark, tracing the outline of the jaw, the brow. As I passed my fingers over those closed eyes, they opened, and suddenly I was staring into ice-blue eyes as real as any human’s.

I shrieked, jerking my hand back, yet those piercing eyes never left mine. I stood frozen, waiting for the apparition to pass, or for me to wake up from whatever dream this was. When neither happened, I again cautiously reached out my hand.

Suddenly, the rushing stopped. The face closed its eyes, and I could swear I felt the tree take a single sighing breath.

“Lisbeth?” he said, as it was apparent that the voice belonged to a man. My name was spoken accompanied by whistling leaves and water, as though the entirety of nature was saying it in unison.

“Yes?” I answered, finding my tongue able to speak.

“Help us?” He made it sound like a question, but I knew it was a command more than anything else.

His eyes opened again, shining so brightly it felt as though I was staring into the sun. I staggered back, released from my paralysis, shielding my eyes. The rush of the wind again filled my ears, a shrill cacophony of rustling leaves and shrieking voices, desperate and, it seemed, in pain.

I squinted through the light, trying to discern what was happening. To my amazement, the tree was not growing as it had before; rather, it was returning to a smaller state, the immense trunk growing steadily smaller and strangely misshapen. The towering branches fell, landing on the ground around me, as though sheared off; the roots tore themselves up and shrank back. And the face… I would have expected him to be in pain, but he was… smiling.

At last the transformation was complete, and before me stood a man, his skin gnarly and wooden like the bark of a tree. Leaves sprouted from his face, parting his wind-blown hair away from those mesmerizing eyes. Like snake’s eyes, I realized. You can’t look away.

He reached out a hand for me, his fingers thin and decorated by budding leaves. Every movement was filled with grace, yet there was a sinewy power behind those bark-covered limbs. Before he could take hold of me, though, he was on the ground, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

All I could think was, What in I’Soul’s name just happened?

Suggestions? Confusion? Constructive criticism? Let me know. c:

Apologies

I've caught the "Blogger Blues." :P

I made that word up, by the way. When you have stuff to blog about but just don't want to blog about them, and when you don't reply to comments, that's when you know you've hit a bit of a lull.

So I've decided I'm going on a little hiatus (not like I haven't been on one already). I need more time to write and blogging has kind of sapped a lot of my time away.

So in case you've been wondering, no, I'm not dead, nor have I stopped writing, and I'm not leaving teh internetz 4evrz. I'll be back in two weeks or so with lots of poetry and, with luck, two or three short stories. ;)

Oh, and also, the first thing I will be posting is Miss Evelyn Li's (EAL) feature, as I have been so unkind to leave her hanging like that.

So that's the end. Ta for now!

Oh Lookhence, an Update!

Sorry for such a boring week, you guys. :P I had the best of intentions, but those often fail in the face of DUNDUNDUNAPATHY.

Here's what happened. Yes, this is IN OTHER NEWSSSS!!!

Tuesday: I went to my great-grandpa's funeral. I didn't cry until the military honor guard played taps. My grandpa served in the infantry reconstructing Japan in WWII, so he got a military funeral, which was incredibly moving and utterly AWESOME. Yes, I cried a single glistening tear at the sound of the trump (the guy was a pretty good trumpet player). Then we had our family luncheon at Wendy's and went home, because we were all wearing black and it was 94 degrees outside.

As we were getting in the car to leave the graveside service, my dad came up with a poem:

My grandpa died.
I cried a single glistening tear. 

He likes to take my poetry and turn it into a two-line poem that says basically the same thing as the full-length poem. Show-off...
So I decided to one-up him:

My grandpa died.
I cried. 

Wednesday: I had my job interview for that paid graphic design internship. I was pretty stressed out, I must admit, but I think my chances are pretty good. I'm being optimistic.

Thursday: My aunt is moving, so my sister and I drove out to help her pack boxes and such. Fun fun fun...

Friday: First, the library, then a 3-hour pool party where I let a bunch of 9-year-old boys beat me up. My shoulders are so sunburned it's not even funny, but I'm not complaining. It was a fun party!

So today, since I have so much less going on, I am finally going to put up a poem.

ALSO: For those of you who are wondering about the poetry contest, I'm going to hold off until I have more interested people. So... if you want a poetry contest, direct your poetic friends to my blog! (Yes indeed, that was indeed a shameless plug for followers).

When I end up having a poetry contest, the theme will be "Personal Histories: Your Life in Poetry." That is, unless I change it.

Today's poem is a reworked piece that EAL suggested I write. The original piece can be found here, and the style is inspired by Kevin Routh's poetry. I thought I might try writing a poem that's a little bit more... well, streamlined, I guess you could say. Less wordy.
 

Lifeblood

This
Is
My
Life
Blood
You’ve splashed ‘cross the floor,
It pools there in droplets
For us to adore.

This
Is
My
Life
Blood
I’ve splashed ‘round in ink,
I leave it to tell you
What it is I think.