Monsters In My Bedroom

Okay readers... great news!!!! It just so happened that a good friend of mine (and very talented musician) has taken it upon himself to write music to "A Collection Of Words"- the "words" featured at the end of my last post. The story goes, he woke up at 3am this morning feeling very inspired... He's talking about making an album out of my pieces- who would have ever thought, little ol' me releasing an album?? It's all very exciting!

Unfortunately I have not had a chance to attack my book yet... I will get to it... I promise! But seriously, I have no intention of neglecting this project- it's at the top of my priority list... There will be no more putting this off! Well, at least until tomorrow... ;)

I'm sure you're all very curious about what's so great and inspiring about this book. The idea came to me when I was in year 10 on a school excursion to an art gallery. The prospect of being "stalked" in an art gallery- of someone so intensely wanting to draw another. The idea blossomed as the day progressed, and within the week I had the entire story written in my mind.

Over the years the story has evolved and come to new places, and now I wish to include such Christian morals as chastity and modesty within the books' pages. Explicitly saying it or not, I have not yet decided. It's one of the challenges I will face this year as a writer... what path to take this character on?...


Anyway, we shall delve deeper into that later, but for now, a little something to enjoy...

This was written in February 2009. One of my best pieces to that date. It's called "Monsters In My Bedroom". [Takes deep breath] Here goes:

They're hiding under my bed.
In my closet.
Under my pillow.

The fluorescent makes thingsSafer.
Brighter.
Lighter.

But in the dark they have the upper advantage,
The element of surprise-
And surprise me they do.

The places you never go are the scariest.
Like the corner covered in cobwebs,
The back of the cupboard,
That long forgotten box...

You think you're safe.
You think that the monsters are leaving you.
You thought you had grown out of it.

And then there they go again...
Creeping up on you when you least expect it.
And you don't feel strong enough to face it,
Strong enough to get up and turn on the lights,
Strong enough to pull back the bed sheets and stand up for yourself.
...Not even strong enough to call for help.

How does one escape this bedtime nightmare
Especially when the monsters begin to follow you around at day?
When the light is no longer your hero, your Saviour.
Or perhaps you just don't let it be...

Perhaps if you could face those monsters,
The light would take them away,
And you would realise that they are just silhouettes-
And that pride is stopping you from admitting,
Admitting that you are scared of your own shadow...

Everything Begins With An Idea

I suppose the best place to start is always at the beginning... the worst thing is finding such a blog and not knowing exactly what it's all about.

The idea came to me whilst watching the recent movie "Julie & Julia"- about a woman who started a blog detailing her cooking adventures with Julia Child's first cooking book. I'm certain there would be hundreds, if not thousands of others who have taken up the challenge of writing a blog since the movies' release, however I am also sure that they would be of a vast array of topics.

Mine, I feel is slightly ironic. I will be writing a blog about writing. Now I know that I love to write... I knew that when I wrote my first short story in year 7. But I wish to supply a compilation of my shorter pieces of writing, or as I like to call them, "collections of words", hence the title.

I work within a few different fields of writing. Short stories are definitely not my forte, as I tend to be too descriptive (and editing is not my strong point- I'm very protective of what I write, even if it's not good!)... however I am very proud of the attempts I've made. Short film and theatre scripts, on the otherhand, I can get away with my descriptions and have a few in the stockpile in the cupboard. More recently I have delved into prose (or so I'm told that's what you would call what I'm writing- I'll let you be the judge of that).

But these are not where my true passion lies. My love of words began with stories, and continues with stories... one in particular has been on the go for around six years now. My goal for this coming year is to complete this story- and to find it published and in a bookstore near you. I dream of others being able to see what I see as I write- what a priviledge it would be to find one of my stories being viewed in Cinemas... joining some of my heroes, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.M. Barrie in the big league.

You shall hear of my triumphs and struggles here, as I grab hold of this challenge of finishing what I started. This book, this story, this thing that is to be my life for the next twelve months... and hopefully something that will find itself into others lives as they pick up a sleek hard-covered fantasy in the years to come.

And so, I wish to finish the first post with a taste of what I'm made of. A taste of the future of this blog. A taste of beauty... This was written in May, this year, as the Autumn leaves were beginning to fall.

A Collection Of Words

The leaf, as it fell, danced in the wind,

A perfect partnership;

One graceful, the other strong.

The leaf slips away as it nears the ground,

No longer willing to play the winds' game.

But the winds' pull is too powerful

And the leaf gets caught up again,

Dancing a dance it does not know.

It becomes a blur of beautiful colour,

As the leaf is spun in a forceful manner.

The wind has control and knows it,

Makes the most of it.

And so the leaf is carried away-

To a place it does not know.

The wind, getting confident,

Takes its eye off the leaf,

Loses track of what it was doing

And loses its seemingly perfect match.

The leaf escapes to the safety of the ground.

Although alone from its kind,

The leaf has a new partner.

The perfect fusion.

They make fertilizer together

And form the foundation

Of the beginning of a new cycle.

Its own beauty lost to give life to another.