Creating something from something already created

Yeah, read that title 5 times fast. Or even just two times fast.

I was thinking about writing a piece from the aspect of another piece- you know, putting the two together, using one as my muse and the other as my work. Thus, I've decided on Dickinson. I absolutely adore this woman and wish I could know everything about her and who she really was.

This is the poem I'm using for my muse:

It's All I have to bring to-day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, --
Some one the sum could tell, --
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

Yum. More posted on that later!

Hmmmmm

I wonder what the rest of the day will bring. I mean, I wonder what the far future will bring as well, but I wonder all the more about the rest of the day. What will I do? Where will I go? Who will I come in contact with?
Today I want to have one interaction with someone that I could write a story about. The plan is to go to Sioux Falls, SD for tonight and hang out with some lovely friends that are here from Oregon. That could make for a good story, or perhaps the ride down.
You see, God's put a lot of amazing people in my life. People that I don't necessarily deserve in my life God has put there, and two of them will hopefully be joining me. When we get together we can't help but talk about Him and what He's doing in our lives. To me, this is so exciting. Our conversations mean more, we grow into a better friendship with each other as well as with him.
For example, I know this amazing girl named Abi. She's a transfer student this year and I met her only a week ago. It feels like I've known her for at least a year. The first time I met her was at our women's Bible study. Then last weekend she came to Onething with us. Everyone that was there came so much closer together, and we all definitely got closer to Abi. She just has that type of personality that you don't ever want to miss out on.
Since then I've hung out with her quite a few times, and God just continues to challenge me through her. The things she struggles with are exactly what I'm struggling with and have been for a while. I personally think the devil wants people to feel alone so they can't fight against the temptation or depression their problem brings when the truth is quite the opposite. You're never fully alone. God is always with you and there's always someone on this earth who has dealt or is dealing with the same thing you are. Sure, it may be in a slightly different way, but the fact is that God places people in our lives to help us conquer our struggles through Him. I firmly believe that's why He's put Abi in my life and that's why she's coming with me tonight.
So perhaps I'll write a story about our adventures in my little white car or perhaps I'll just write


So I'm back, it's almost 5 a.m. and I still have to work on some homework for tomorrow. So much fun was had tonight, I can't even begin to describe it. I could have a million stories out of this one night, it's nuts.

I love this life.

The Gideons

Today is Gideon's day. I was thinking about this a lot the past few days and wondering when they would be here. I guess I should explain myself a little bit. As I was walking back from a great morning prayer this morning and great time with God, I saw Chancellor Johnson walking toward her office. The whole time I was thinking, "Man, if I run into her on the sidewalk and am forced to be excited to see her, I'm gonna flip a lid." Luckily, she reached her destination before I was close to intersecting with her, but not before a saw an older gentleman show her some green thing he had in his hand. I smiled. This man was one of those cute old men that you could just see being your grandfather. I saw her walk away from him quickly, her own agenda and pressing matters at hand. The man, with the green thing still in his hand, could not have his smile wiped off his face even though she hadn't take whatever he held out to her.
As I approached the man, I realized he was from The Gideon's International. I walked up to him with the biggest smile I could muster at that early hour and took the Bible from him. I smiled into the face of a man who had the joy of the Lord. "I was wondering when you guys were going to be here. I've been thinking of you a lot lately," I stated in all honesty.
"Yeah, we waited for the rain to pass."
We said a few more words which I don't even remember, and I walked back to my room to crack open this Bible. Hopefully I won't have it for very long, hopefully a day coming up soon I will need to give it away. But the first chapter I opened it to was Acts 4. This chapter is about how the "teachers of the law," the Saducees and Pharisees, see God's work being done in healing and even though they're upset that the apostles and disciples (and more specifically, Peter) are preaching in the name of Jesus and preaching about the resurrection of the dead (and thousands are hearing the Word and believing it). Even though these teachers threaten the apostles in order that they may hinder them from preaching something contrary to what they are teaching, the Word of God cannot be stopped and even they began to see that it was undeniably the truth that the apostles were preaching.
Reflecting on the Gideon's, I think this has everything to do with them and every other Christian on earth. Acts 4:20: "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
I pray that today God would give us the boldness and the Holy Spirit like he did with Peter and the other believers gathered in Acts 4 (check out verse 31) so that we may proclaim those things that we have seen and heard.

Band Boy vs. Another Man.

Today in class we had a diagram on the board of a man and a woman walking into a concert at which the woman’s ex-boyfriend was playing. I looked at this diagram and realized this exact thing had happened to me and this would probably make a very funny story.
It was a few months after I had broken up with, shall we call him, Band Boy. Band Boy was a great man, caring, understanding, but intensely clingy. His problems became too much for me to handle, and his constant complaining was downright depressing. He always said he didn’t want to be like that, but when he would do nothing about it, it ticked me off. I could not handle him.
So after telling him I needed a break (and never really breaking up with him), I found another man. I informed Band Boy about Another Man and told him that we started dating. Naturally, he was devastated. While he knew that day would come, he didn’t think it would come so quickly. So one day, I wanted to go to a show. I had been celebrating my boyfriend’s birthday with him for the entire day and he graciously accompanied me to my friend’s show that night. Only I had forgotten that Band Boy’s band was opening for them. The night was spent trying to avoid contact with Band Boy, and Another Man could not figure out why. Finally, I had to tell Another Man... and he was NOT happy with the situation. Since then I have broken up with him as well. Life goes on, I guess. And awkward moments get left behind for us to merely laugh at.

Ten years.

It’s always interesting looking at where you could be in ten years. I sat in my speech class today and contemplated that. Ten years is definitely a long time and I don’t even know what I’ll be doing next year. But I think of the possibilities, and the different people I would be if I chose different options. For example, let’s say I join a band this summer and the band does well. I choose to stay with it, maybe never gaining a very high popularity, but I wonder what I would be like then.
Or perhaps another character. For example, if I joined the Air Force. Now, this is not really plausible for me personally but nothing is impossible, persay. If I joined the Air Force, I would be different in, well, I believe it would be a negative way. I mean, I would probably be bossy, controlling, always feeling like I’m in the right and never acknowledging truth in anyone else. I wonder if my outlook on life would be narrow because of the small tube of vision I would have while in the Air Force.
Perhaps I wouldn’t do either extreme, but stay in the middle of the road. Go into my career, maybe do the typical American thing and find a husband and have my 2.5 children. I’m still wondering how a half a child works. But if I were to be this character, I would be patient, kind, loving... everything a good housewife would be. Throw in a love of music and you got yourself a me in ten years.
It would be interesting to write a character like this- incredibly introspective. It makes me think of something in the second person, like a “pick your own adventure” deal. It could be interesting to delve into this.

Imaginative and bad sci-fi

I am constantly thinking of weird ideas to write about. Most of them sound like some really awful B-rated movie or some poorly written sci-fi novel. But some of them I can entertain for a few moments and get a random plot line out of. For example:
A little girl is scared of the dark, but for a good reason. Everytime she goes to bed at night the toy monkeys she loves and adores during the day come back out to haunt her at night. She believes that the more attention she gives them during the day will make them nicer to her at night. But every night, without fail, her monkeys threaten her life. One day, she decides to tell her parents. Her parents, of course, tell her it’s all her imagination. That night the monkeys come back in full armor and ready for battle against the little girl. She defeats them easily, with just the belief that they’re not real.
Imaginations are great, aren’t they?

Dying wishes?

I have personally never been in a car accident before or spun off the road. I just had a friend text message me saying that he spun into a ditch... with his donut truck. After much rationalization and a confirmation that he was in fact physically fine, I started to wonder what would go through a person’s head as they begin to lose control of a car, or while a car is spinning. Maybe a short little story about this would be awesome and jam packed full of character description and such. But I think before I or anyone else even attempted something like this, investigation into the human brain and psychological aspects would need to be done. Maybe someday when I feel really motivated I’ll write this piece.

Inspired music

Listening to music is a release. Do you ever have those days when you just need to unwind, get anger out, or just have something to fill your ears? Music does all those things for me. I’m pretty open to all types of genres, minus rap and country. When I listen to songs, I wonder where those songs stemmed from. Some are pretty hard to figure out what the inspiration for being written was, but others have it explicitly stated. For example, a song about a girl who broke a guy’s heart. Pretty easy to figure out- the lyricist probably had something like this happen to him. But I like to expound on this general situation. Really listening to the music, figuring out what a person is thinking in writing these, and going from there. For example, perhaps the woman left the man because she had to move to a different city far away from him and could not handle a long distance relationship. Or maybe it’s a tangled love decagon with lovers hooking up all over the place and hearts broken and repaired by another within a few paragraphs. That could almost end up as a comedy. Whatever it is, something has inspired this singer/songwriter to write about the subject they did. Lending an ear and an open mind to it is always fun.

The pretty girl

I saw her sitting there, the pretty girl. Her short blonde hair looking professionally colored and styled, her small figure in need of a man to hold her. Well, she did have a man to hold her. It was my man, my man who had been my man only a month prior to today. I’m a very independent person, I always gave him his space. I let him do what he wanted when he wanted, I came and supported him at his concerts and helped him when he needed help with the band and other things. I let him pick times and things that we were doing, never once being a burden to him. I was the best girlfriend I could possibly be. I knew at shows I had to let him work, do his job, and get to know fans. I understood that girls would be flocking over him, but did not want to be the type of girlfriend who would step in and make him kiss me at that moment.
But she was. She was needy, jealous, and always had to keep her eye on him. She hated me from the moment she saw me, and now seeing her, I realize that perhaps he always had his eye on her. When she ignored him for one time too many, he invested in me instead. Then, she got jealous and took him away. Figures.

Cults

Cults have always fascinated me. I say that meaning that cults are something I would like to know more about, not believe in. My faith in God as my Savior is strong enough to survive researching cults and finding out more about what they believe in. I would do this to not only learn more about the world around me, but to see what I could do to show the people in these cults the Truth.
It would be really neat to write a story about one of these cults, possibly someone having initiation into one for the first time. This would take some psychological study as well, looking into what would cause a person to enter a cult in the first place. But just to see that mindset would give me a whole new aspect on a person and what they believe and see as truth.

Faith statement

My faith is a huge part of my life, in fact, it’s probably the biggest part of my life. I absolutely love trying to wrap my thoughts around this huge and magnificent God and never fully understanding it. I love thinking about His love and how it’s had an impact on my life. Then I also begin to look at my friends and think about their own faith stories. Some of them found God when they were at the lowest point in their life while others have been Christians their whole life. I would love to write a story about faith and how faith can truly change a person, and maybe even base it off of a person or two. I could perhaps even do a short story series on it, looking at people from different walks of life and different faith backgrounds.

To stand still in time

Ever have those days when you're super reflective on just about anything and everything? For once, it would be really neat to be reflective like that and have time stop around you. Not to say that reflecting in and of itself is not cool... it is. But it would be really cool if you could suddenly stop and see everything around you for what it is.
I'm thinking this would be a really cool either short story series or a short play (like a one act or something). Maybe a series of short plays. I would like to see my character in several different scenes where their life has stopped around them. One where they completely stop in the midst of being incredibly blessed, one during a typical day, another during an awful day.

Just some slim pickin's

So I realized today that I haven't been journaling for my creative writing class. A big oops on my part. But I have done a few journals in my time, and want to expand on them, here with you of course. I didn't realize people actually looked at my various blog spots, and decided that I need to start one central blog (after good advice from a smart businessman).
Thus, the next few blogs will be excerpts from the dark side, or, rather, the makings of an incredible work of art. I wish.