Creative Writing News

Hi everyone! I'm finally posting about what the Creative Writing Club has been doing in the past weeks.

For starters, we've been trying to start up our service project. For the service project, we'd be going down to the daycare and try to put together a book for a few of the day care students. We were going to do it in October and have a Halloween theme, but we decided to push it back for around January or December. (I believe that's the time frame we chose, but I could be wrong). Anyway, for this project, any member who wants to join in would go down to the daycare maybe 3 times and help the little kids organize their thoughts into pictures. Then, we'd put all the pictures together and come up with a story and put the story into a book. Hopefully, we'd be able to have a reading for the little kids too. If you're a member and haven't already expressed your interest in volunteering for our service project, let one of the officers know! The more the merrier!

We are also happy to have a new treasurer, April! We're really happy that April stepped up and offered to take care of our budget! It's great that our club is gaining new officers and members almost every meeting. I believe we might still be looking for an events coordinator. If you are interested, let Sue, Kassie, Azalea, or me know. The events coordinator basically creates posters for events, talks to student life about the technical stuff we'd have to do for events, and gets word out about our events. That's the general idea. I can get more information for anyone who is interested.

We also have a few ideas floating around about other upcoming things we could get involved with. Britta mentioned a book drive that the Enivormental Action Society is having to encourage people to donate old books instead of throwing them away. I think that would be a good thing for us to get involved in! If you have any other ideas, let us know!

Just a reminder, if you want a story workshopped, please e-mail it to either Azalea or me. We haven't had one yet! Although free readings are just as fun and helpful, it would be nice for new members to get a general idea about what we do during workshops.

If you have any ideas for the club, want to do a work shop, or have any questions, you can e-mail me. I should see if I can put up a side bar that has e-mail addresses for our great advisors and hard-working officers. If you need e-mail addresses, you can e-mail me for now. Strandl00@my.saintpaul.edu

Happy writing and happy Halooween!

Your VP,
Lindsay Strand

A successful start to a new semester!

Hello fellow writers!

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing summer!  Azalea and I are glad to be back, but we have obviously been busy being the only officers for the Creative Writing Club. 

We had our first meeting on Monday, September 12.  We had some familiar faces at the meeting, but we also had some new people.  One of them, Britta, is now our new secretary!  We also voted on a how workshops are going to run and also the general format of a meeting.  We decided on splitting meetings up by allowing a certain amount of time for workshops and a certain amount of time for free reading.  If you would like to do a workshop, you are allowed a page and a half (I may be incorrect, so someone correct me if I am) or 2 poems.  You can e-mail your writing to Azalea or me in an attachment (for now), and one of us will put it up on the blog or e-mail it to other members, so they can review your writing before the meeting.  Then, when the meeting comes, we'll talk about it and give you our feedback!  Once Azalea and I figure out the password and user name for the administrator of the blog, we'll invite everyone.  This will allow you to post directly onto the blog.  (If you're not computer savvy, you can still send your writings to us, and we'll post it to you).  My e-mail is strandl00@my.saintpaul.edu.  E-mail me if you have any questions.

We'd like to post things on the blog for people who may have missed a meeting.  We're all busy; I definitely understand that! 

At our first meeting, we made a funny sentence story.  I started with a sentence, and then passed the paper around for everyone to put another sentence down to develop a story.  Here is what we came up with:

It was a bright and sunny day, and all of the birds were chirping happily.  Then, within seconds the chirping stopped.  A tornado dipped down out of the clouds, and spun a cow from Owatanna while the cow was having babies.  Also, a house appeared from the tornado while a girl and a dog were still in it.  The dog suddenly morphed into a two-headed dragon and torched the wooden house.  As the house burend down, a dragon egg appeared within the rumble, and a giant lizard came to grab the egg away.  The lizard's name was Lestor, and he was confused about the nature of the American holiday Valentines Day.  The day was no longer bright, nor was it sunny, but Lestor felt that the happy chirping from the birds was all that was missing, so he began a slow "hum-ribbit" to bring some normality back to the world.

Our next meeting will be Monday, September 26 at 6:15.  Hope to see you all there!

Your Loving VP,
Lindsay

To the Best Boyfriend in the Universe

I wrote this poem for our 5 year anniversary.  It's hard for me to write love poems, but I was pleased with this one.  He liked it to!

“To the Best Boyfriend in the Universe”

I love you, and that’s a proven fact.

I love you because I can sleep soundly and peacefully next to you

Even when you snore.

I love you because I can tolerate the noises you make

When you eat fast food.

I love you because, even after all these years, you kiss me

And I still get flustered.

I love you because you can predict what I will say or do

In any given circumstance – you know me all too well.

I love you because you can make my problems vanish

When you hold me while I cry.

I love you because you always know how to make my day

More than anyone else could.

I love you because when I’m not expecting anything from you

You give me more than I could ever want.

I love you because when I needed you the most

You were there by my side the whole way through.

I love you because you still think I’m drop dead gorgeous

When I don’t even try to be.

I love you because you support everything I do

Even if I don’t.

I love you because you’re the only one

Who can make me laugh obnoxiously.

I love you because we’ve been through so much together,

and I’ve had the best time of my life.

I love you so much

because it’s a proven fact.

May You Be Successful

Writers,

Welcome to May! Welcome to the end of the semester. As you know, some officers (including myself) are leaving Saint Paul College. I have really enjoyed my part of this Club, and I hope that you have too. There may be times when I can make a meeting or two in the next few months or years, but I would really like us all to utilize this blog as a good networking and workshopping resource. I also would like this blog to be a valuable place where we can all get together; it is available at any time of the day and accessible to everyone.

 As the President (who is transferring the position to Azalea in a week), the last thing I'd like to do is challenge everyone of us to challenge ourselves. I think it would be cool for us to post our aspirations (for the summer or whenever) and keep in touch with one another, creating accountability. For May, I want us all to think about what we can do if we want to further ourselves as writers. Then through June, July and so on we can monitor and update how we are doing... I am going to at least! Who will join me?

Create a post with details of your plans or goals, and periodically update using the comments feature. That is also where other people can communicate and work with you on it.

**Please keep this post and comments (or questions) on it related to the general activity**

Results Are In! Limerick Contest Winners

Hooray!

We had so many wonderful submissions of limericks in honor of Earth Day! Thank you all for the hard work you did. Judges chose from the list of anonmous poems and came to a consensus on three.

 Winners were revealed:

 1st place: James

There once was a flower surrounded by bees.
There once was a pristine grove of trees.
But now we’re in a slump,
Nature has become a dump,
Corporations can litter where they please.

 2nd place: Azalea

Some things on the Earth are going extinct,
For this poem I’ll try to be succint,
The air we take for granted,
Countless plants not yet planted.
And still you think that humans are not linked?

3rd place: Colleen

For sleeping in class you will pay,
So invest in a Carmel Latte`.
But don’t be a thug,
Use a refillable mug,
Enjoy drinking your way to an A.

Congratulations Winners! You will be contacted for your prizes!!

 

Celebrate and Honor the Earth ...with Limericks!

Kassie and James’ Limerick

There once was an earth day to anticipate,
That forced poets to write and celebrate,
To show off their skills,
To better the world's ills,
And to make sure our flowers proliferate.

What will you do, not just for Earth day, but for our dear Mother Earth?

Starlight

Have you ever wondered, 
what life would be like, 
if the stars were extinguished, 
and gave no more light.

The night sky would fail, 
to wonder and excite, 
my heart would pale, 
and sadness I'd fight.

With no more night wonder, 
to light up my life, 
my mind torn asunder, 
and mired in strife.

So thanks to the stars, 
that still burn so bright, 
their light has traveled so far, 
to brighten my night.

Valentines Update

 We successfully Shared the Love!

 Our Custom Cards Fundraiser was much more successful than we anticipated!! We sold over 150 cards. This is a really great accomplishment seeing as there were essentially 13 different designs to be paired with a possible 30 message inserts. That means there were 390 different options, and keep in mind that we hand made every single one! We are handing out the last of them today.

 You all should be proud. Thank you for your help! A lot of you put in some time at the tables, and I really appreciate that. Christina worked very closely with me doing the planning for this, and she did a ton on her own time as well.

Good Work!!

Presidentress ;)

A work by Lindsay Strand

The Pope announced last Friday that the Bible is now banned from the Catholic Church.  “It’s an absolute abomination to our faith!” the Pope stated to local reporters.  His first announcement of this new change was addressed to the Cardinals at the weekly Papal Fish Fry held at a local pub called Slippery Jay’s.  After his speech to the Cardinals, his assistant replied gingerly, “Mr. Pope, you have tartar sauce on your chin.”

            When responding to questioning of his decision, the Pope replied that the Bible “has too much violence and too many sexual situations.  Also,” he stated, “there’s a story towards the end of the Bible about a man who runs amuck with a posse of men who always seem to be kissing.  He even wears a dress and gladiator sandals!  The Catholic Church does not approve of such a blasphemous piece of literature!”

Many Catholics are not surprised by this decision, and many support the change.  “I can’t be exposing my young, vulnerable children to these obscenities!  There’s way too much violence and sexual acts in this so called book!”  a local Catholic mother of twenty stated to reporters.  “My kids don’t need any more pressure put on them!  It’s more obscene than that trollop Dora the Explorer and her exposed midriff!”

The Bible has been a guide of faith for the Catholic Church for quite some time.  Priests in the United States find it easy to adjust to preaching from other doctrines.  One priest from Kansas said “It’s not too big of a deal.  I mostly throw in a few Glenn Beck quotes and call it good.  I’m used to bs-ing my way through a mass.”  He also agreed strongly with the Pope saying that the story of creation in Genesis is “. . . obviously a sexual innuendo.”  The interview with the Kansas priest abruptly ended there.

Many local Catholic Churches are deciding to have book burnings in honor of the Pope’s new decision.  A local parishioner says they will be burning the Bible, Origin of Species, and all of the books in the Twilight saga.  “The Twilight books just really suck,” he added.     

After his interviews with reporters from the Vatican, the Pope leaned over and mumbled to his assistant, “I think Sheryl Crow wrote most of that damn book anyway.”

*DISCLAIMER: Do not take anything you see online seriously. I would never intentionally hurt another person outside of self-defense. (No matter how much I want to). I also over-exaggerate a lot. Hyperbole is my middle name. I also have a great appreciation for dark humor. Something that may seem violent could simply be a joke. If you have questions or concerns, e-mail me at lindsays1992@hotmail.com.

today on this island

*** I wrote this about a year ago as a note on facebook. It just came out of me; I ignored any punctuation or mechanics completely because of that. I do want to revise it, but I am not sure what I want to do with the format. I feel like this unrefined sort of draft suports the content, but that is just a little idea. It's a work in progress! I hope you enjoy it :)  ***

its saturday. i wake up to jase playing, running around in his diaper like he does all the time (its too warm for clothes). get up. make myself some oatmeal. brush my teeth. nothing extraordinary.
its is march the sixth. what do i put on?? bikini, sundress, sunscreen and sunglasses. it is march the sixth and i live on an island so the only thing to consider while dressing is the sun shining on me. i love that. wade and nikki get themselves and jase ready and we drive to carambola to begin our day. we are gonna hike to the tidepools.


wade straps jase on- rough ride ahead of us. three miles? am i going to make it? i dont know... not far into it my legs are burning, we climb through the rainforest. there is a beaten path we follow about 20 inches wide, and brushing our arms are vines and branches and thorns but any uncomfort is numbed by the surrounding beauty. thick trees and plants and vines- thats it. and thats how it should be. the shore is visible below us once in a while and it is gorgeous to see from so high the difference in color: near the beach it is an unbelievable aqua which then merges with a deep blue that extends out to forever. we keep putting one foot in front of the other, up the hill, down the slope, over the hurricane victim trees. we notice pigeons, tiny lizards and mongoose occassionally.
we come to some boulders and after those the edge of the mountain opens up with just tall grass. thick honey colored blades reach up to my shoulders and the path is narrower so we feel each one pass our legs. hm.. a fork? lets go straight.
bad idea... we are looking down at a sandy gravel slope that is extremely steep. wade has jase on his back, nikki has a backpack and i have my own bag. how do we do this? i think we went the wrong way. wade slips and gropes for a tree to catch his fall. jase is asleep. my legs are bare so i am a bit apprehensive of just sliding down. there are a few skinny trees along the edge of the trail and so i grab one and just go for it. nikki below me does the same. we are all laughing hysterically, jase is awake, yelling "mommy be careful!!" right as i simultaneously slip on my butt, swing around into nikki (who is holding onto a tree for dear life), and i do the splits around her. this might as well be a cliff, then i could get a footthold at least! jase's sleepy eyes open and  turn to look around wildly at whats going on. we keep swinging from tree to tree, flip flop surfing down this ... whatever it is. the three of us finaly hit level ground and try to stop laughing. we cant. we definitely went the right way.
so now we find ourselves in the bush. like, no path. we can hear the waves that have been building strength finaly crashing onto shore with a mighty resonance. that is our only sign that we are close. the sun shines down through the leaves in deformed spots on the ground. the breeze does not reach us here. the ground is leaves, sand, rocks, dirt and weird spotted clumpy somethings. are those mushrooms? nikki says no, theyre noni fruit. beige clumps with yellow dots, they are about the size of an orange. she tells me they are a superfruit- taste nasty but works wonders. we duck under and step over and shove out of our way branches and leaves. our ceiling is descending. all of a sudden, we are out.


the caribbean sea and all of its blue beauty stretches out endlessly in front of us. the bush we just popped out of is ridiculous to look at from the outside. we come from in there? seriously? hm. two feet next to us is a trail. well, we still went the right way in my opinion.
grey rocks and large peices of white and pink coral make the shore. this is a much easier walk. a break, yes, but a little boring compared to what we just experienced. fresh sea air now makes its way into our bodies in short gasps and the only other sounds are the ocean and a few people's faint voices in the tidepools. we are almost there.
before you get to relax in the water, you have to climb the cliffs. three points of contact, wade says. yeah, right. one foot on an algae encased rock if i am lucky. climb up this vertical part, dip down into a foot of water, make your way across these boulders. a few more steps.


holy crap.
this is gorgeous.
wow.
we made it!


there is a family of three in the tidepools, swimming and splashing. we climb down the last ridge and throw our bags down, get jase out finaly. we are soaked with sweat and dirt clings to our skin. a few scrapes on each of us from the hike. the sandwiches we packed this morning are in the dark of our stomachs within five minutes. off go the clothes onto the rocks and our bathing suited bodies into the cool of the tide pool.
its cold. rocky. shallow. relaxing. warmer after a bit. nikki points out little creatures that dissapear into themselves when you get close to them. ever see Avatar? yeah, like those but inch long little fans underwater portruding from the rock. when they think it is safe, they creep back out and we do it again. terrible fun. up and over another giant pile of jagged rock are tiny pools where the urchins live. little black weapons of creatures- violent red in the middle and dangerous spikes in every direction. dont feel like climbing back down into the pool- just jump. jump? from all the way up here? alright... !!
we dry off by sitting on the flattest rocks we can find, which arent flat at all, and let the sun soak up the drops of caribbean left on our skin. i take the shell i found near the urchins and put it in my bag, we strap jase onto wade again and say goodbye to others enjoying this strange pool of water amidst these treacherous cliffs. okay, here we go.
we take the path this time- you cant mountain surf back up the mountain, so ok, fine. we walk through the grass again, see the "right" way to have gone, and wade makes note of that. through the rainforest again. i dont even care to look at the ground anymore. if i trip, whatever. its too much to miss.
tree roots make steps, branches give us handles. this rainforest- it is... it just is. you notice the tiniest of lizards, the greenest of leaves, the sharpest of thorns. the ground knows when your calves cant take another step up so it slopes down to give them a break. it knows when you feel so sticky from sweat and so the trees let the breeze in to alleviate the heat for a minute. every single leaf lives and exhales what you need to inhale, and in turn you exhale for it's life.


this is what it is all about
beauty
life
adventure
i lived really hard today
on this island.

The Mire

Gently the effluence falls into puddles on the earth,
Cleansing, purifying, with monotonous wail,
Accumulate as it does, plentiful, not dearth,
Supplanting me, filling to the brim.

Sadness like thoughts enter into mind,
Of loss, of gain, of otherworldly djinns,
Troubles me as it troubles you in kind,
The time has passed to wallow in.

Beneath the mire only sadness does reign,
Locked up in idle obscurity,
Upon recognition of the dulling pain,
Sink I must, into insanity.

You'd cling to your pleasant hope,
In it's twisted fascination,
I'd face the obstacles into despair,
And we're praising death.

A delusion made me stronger,
Yet I am draped in withering flesh,
I sacrificed more than I had,
And left my woes beneath the mire.

A Poem

I find myself reaching for the hands to hold me tight,
To comfort, to care, in the dark of the night.
It makes the days easier to approach and bear,
It stops me looking for things not there.

Sometimes the hands, they let me slip and fall,
Bouncing between emotions like a tennis ball.
Consistency sought and rarely found,
Weighs heavier on me pound by pound.

But the hands that let me fall can also pick me up,
Arrest my fall and embrace me in their cup.
Bring me out of the darkness and into the light,
Help me to see the reasons to stand and fight.

In the end it may well be that I must leave them behind,
Walk forward without support and face the grind.
Find a place of strength and confidence,
Fling caution to the wind, damn the consequence.

Welcome!

Hey Everyone!


This is our new blog for the Saint Paul College Creative Writing Club.


Updates soon!


Amber Newman
President