The Hole by Kaitlin

In my Creative Writing class we have been working on writing short stories. Of course, along with that comes plot lines, how to get into conflict, how to be descriptive, how to resolve stories, and things like that. Anyways, we have been developing, writing, and editing our first ever short stories for a while and today was the day they came due. Every time our class has written assignments due, that class period we all read what we wrote for our class. At the end of the period, after everybody has gone, our teacher calls a vote to see what story was the class favorite. This time, only on my very first short story in this particular class, I felt like I had done really well writing and presenting. At the end of class, when it came time to vote, guess how many votes I got? Out of 40 submitted stories, 40 possible ways to vote, twenty-three people in my class voted for my story. Needless to say, I won. I think I might be good at this whole writing thing :)

This is the story I wrote. My mom say's its a little creepy, but whatever. All my stories always seem to have a certain theme... hmmph. I think my next short story will be about puppies or something. ;)

THE HOLE BY KAITLIN GRAY

All of the kids knew where it was. Last year, many of them had helped dig it. It was around 30 feet deep; an abyss that felt small and bottomless once you hit the ground. The blackness down there was almost tangible. It was creepy being in that hole.

We always kept a ladder near the famous tree that shadily covered our amazing hole with its long, leafy branches. Its crisp autumn leaves were helpful near this time of year, because we were able to hide the ladder underneath them. We kept it hidden so that no one helped to cheat out on a dare. At least two people a day would be dared to hop inside it, and we would all sneak outside our school, Westview High, at lunchtime to see it. Not that anyone did that anymore, though. Not since last month when a bullet zipped through the air and tried to kill my best friend.

And tried to kill me.

“You can do it, Drew! Fifteen more seconds and you will have beat the school's record by a full two minutes!” Andrew was my best friend. We'd known each other since the second grade and have lived next-door to each other almost our entire lives. He was tall and strong with the most gorgeous chocolate brown eyes I'd ever seen. His skin reflected his eyes and hair—which topped off his perfection. All the girls loved him… how could you resist?

“No. I can't do it, Sara. I can't! Just let me out already... I've had enough!” Drew was the quarterback on our high school's football team. As a jock, crying would have ruined his reputation. I could tell he was trying so hard to hold his emotions back, and finally I let him win.

“Okay, guys.” I said to the group around me, there to watch Drew suffer. “Let's let him out.” Another kid grabbed the ladder and lowered it down to him. Before I could even blink Drew had climbed up and was standing opposite me.

It was then that it came. A bullet, tearing through the air with one intention in mind: to kill.

It was a loud piercing sound that made the air ring with vibration. I fell flat on my back out of a sudden fear, and my heart began to race faster than a cheetah. That's when I realized I knew that sound. It was the sound of a single bullet, tearing through the seams of life.

The crowd stopped their mumbling, and the air turned to dead silence. I turned around as fast as I could and saw Drew on the ground cradling his arm. A small part of his shirt began to turn a deep red; and he looked startled and afraid. “They missed.” He said plainly.

Other kids began putting the usual saran wrap and leaves back over our hole, so that no one would find it. We all started back to the school, our thoughts heavy and distressed. It was no secret that someone had tried to shoot Drew... but why?

That night a familiar chime rang throughout my house that sent me racing to my bedroom to get my purse. The day's events had left me in a whirlwind of emotions, and I was looking to escape and go have some fun. Through the hall I heard my mother’s voice. “Come in, Drew.”

Driving to Talia's party, Drew seemed odd and shaken up. He had told me that the bullet barely missed him, although he had felt it rush by his arm. It had directed a flash of pain that had sent him flying backward; but he'd been lucky. Finally, we arrived at Talia's house in the blackest of nights. Drew and I stood ready to dance the night away. I felt happy and excited as I shut the door to our car, ready to leave the past behind me.

Loud music exuded from inside the walls of an expensive-looking house. Darkness faded as we approached the door and were showered with light. I could only ever wonder what the house looked like from the inside. A tall, thin man in all black grabbed me away from a crowd, and silenced my attempted screams. About ten minutes into the party was when Drew finally realized I was missing.

He began looking for me, and had no luck until he started outside and found me in an awkward corner of Talia's backyard. Faintly, a subtle crunch of autumn leaves gave him away. After that he cried, “SARA!” though his voice couldn't compete with the superfluous sounds that oozed from inside the house. Even if it had, no one would've saved me. They were all too drunk to care.

The man's attention diverted, but only for a moment. He wasn't about to let me go. My lungs felt crushed underneath him, and I felt as if I was going to pass out. Plump tears turned my vision blurry, and left small dark splotches on my clothing. I gasped for air as if I had been drowning, and attempted to mutter one final word: why?

The man laughed, and Drew began moving closer. “You see this scar?” He pointed to a long line of skin that stretched the length of his face. “Your parents did that. Two years ago, on the night of November 12^th. The night my wife died.” Now he was sobbing, and I felt his grip become tighter. I racked my memory. It wasn’t long until I realized that that was also the night my parents had gotten in a car crash… the night before they left me.

Puzzle pieces began fixing together in my head. Now it made sense. Two years ago my parents had caused a wreck on I-80, killing and injuring a Taylor and Wilson Stewart. They hadn’t meant for it to happen, and soon after the crash they had mysteriously disappeared. A phone call from a payphone had been sent to a babysitter that night that had left me in the precious care of my aunt and uncle.

“You… must… pay, Sara Lewis!”

“Wait!” Drew interrupted, and began inching closer to the man called Wilson. “This chick just broke up with me.” He spat in my direction, but didn’t actually hit me. “I’ll help you.” Drew smiled one of his million-dollar smiles, and if I hadn’t known him for so long I would’ve believed his feigned hatred.

“But we can’t do it here.” Drew said. “It’s too obvious… you’ll get caught. I know just the place.” Wilson smiled, going along with the plan.

I felt deserted and alone sitting in the trunk of Wilson’s car. It was as if an icy shadow dispersed throughout my entire field of sight; and I felt helpless and distraught. It was an eerie, tangible sort of darkness which gave me a feeling of absolute terror. My eyes were closed tight, unable to face reality. My hands and feet began feeling numb underneath the binding rope. My mouth tasted nothing but dryness and the salt of my tears.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the school, and I was flung out of the trunk. I felt my bones crush underneath me. It was then that I decided I was going to die. Drew picked me up with a gentle force, and motioned for Wilson to follow him. We began to wind around a path I knew all too well.

“The twine around Sara’s mouth is coming loose.” Drew began. “Can you hand me your knife so I can cut some more?” He mouthed the word ‘sorry’ before throwing me hard onto the ground. My entire body ached in pain.

“No.” Wilson said, firmly. “I’ll do it.” Apparently he wasn’t as dumb as Drew had thought. He grabbed his bundle of cord and held out a piece for Wilson to cut. Just as he began to saw, Drew threw Wilson to the ground and seized his knife. At least playing football is good for something, I thought. Wilson quickly regained his balance, but Drew was already ahead of him. He pointed the knife at his neck, and began inching toward him ever so slowly. Wilson inched backward, and within three steps he was gone. Shrieks had become all too familiar to me; and Wilson’s were hideous and coarse. He stopped when he hit the bottom, and fell silent soon thereafter.

“He might’ve hit his head on the rock.” Drew said, running toward me. “He’ll only be out for a few minutes, which means we have to hurry.” He cut my ropes with his knife, and left me heaving air in and out of my lungs. I was too lightheaded to speak or move, but I signaled for Drew to call 911. The round moon began slowly turning to a crescent, until all light had ceased in existence. My eyes began to feel increasingly heavy, and before I knew it the world only existed in my dreams.

My life soon returned back to normal. Drew and I returned to school, my popularity levels skyrocketed, and I had begun to actually put an effort I had previously been lacking into school. In fact, I ended that year having made Honor Roll. But ever since that day I have pondered one question that will guide my life forever: what if I died tomorrow? 

What if we all died tomorrow, knowing only in our heads a life which we so unadventurously lived? What would happen when that bullet, so unforgiving, took our very last breath as his own? And when that happened we’d lay motionless as our life ended; endless images running through our minds of time we so unappreciatively wasted. Time is precious, you see, and without adventure treasurable time is lost. We should make mistakes, live life. Without doing so we are merely a ghost; undead, yet lifeless. There is no point to live if your life is filled with nothing out of the ordinary. Life isn’t life without mistakes. Always remember, mistakes are adventure, and adventure is life. Without adventure you would be dead.

You would die tomorrow.

I have since lived by that philosophy, and it has guided me down paths I had never imagined possible. In the end the cops arrested Wilson, who is now serving a lifetime sentence. Who would’ve thought that a measly hole would end up saving my life in the end? Well, that and the help of a good friend. 

Inspiration

"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer

Maybe this will give you guys some inspiration. You can apply this to writing, work, and even life in general. For the prompt this week, maybe write something about being successful....

Possibilities

“When she was just a girl, she expected the world. But it flew away from her reach, so she ran away in her sleep… and dreamed of Paradise.” –Coldplay

 Written by Kaitlin Gray

                Sometimes it led me to wonder. Why things weren’t different, why the world was in chaos, why nobody did anything about it.

                In those days, I was always sad. Too busy being sorry for myself to realize anything outside of my own pity party. I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted things to be used, and people to be loved… not vice-versa. I wanted my parents to live happily ever after, just like they always dreamed they would. I wanted to dream, and I wanted my dreams to come true. But they weren’t.

                I wanted to be a professional soccer player. They were successful, made a lot of money. But I also wanted to be a fashion designer, and that wasn’t going to happen. And they certainly weren’t both going to come true. Nothing seemed hopeful anymore, and I got stuck in that. Trapped in that awful rut of carelessness. I didn’t care; nothing was going my way anyway. What was the point?

                Sometimes, I would take out a sketch pad and pencil and just draw. I drew my very own line of clothes, and to me they were fabulous. I thought I was a genius… But then I cut myself off. “Who am I?” I said. It’s better to just stop dreaming and focus on reality, isn’t it?

                I wanted everything to be picture-perfect. And reality wasn’t faultless.

                In bed, I laid down in ponderous thought. On few occasions I would look out at the stars, and lose myself in wonder. They were so large, so powerful lighting up the night sky. And yet to me, so many lightyears away, they seemed small… one was as unimportant as the other. If one were to disappear tomorrow, I would’ve never known. For, you see, there were trillions more. I felt quite the same.

                My dreams were the only thing in my life I looked forward to. In them I could escape. My mind could travel in ways I never imagined. Once, I even dreamed I could fly… and through my sleep I could feel myself grin silently.

                In dreams, anything is possible. Sometimes I even dared to think that things were in fact perfect. My parents had their fairytale ending, and I had mine. I was double… both a fashionista and a soccer player. I led a double life, and nothing was wrong with that. In truth, everything was fine and dandy.

                What really made an impact, however, was one specific night, when my dreams were all of the above. They gave me a false hope, which I couldn’t easily let go. Things were being used, people loved, and there wasn’t a care in the world. Everything was peaceful, and everything generating bliss. It was the perfect heaven, where my life was suddenly transformed into everything I ever wanted, and more.

                What I woke up to that same morning was, in all truth, reality. The same reality I woke up to every morning, but this time it was different.

                I used to think, “there are so many problems in the world, why doesn’t someone do something about it?”

                And then I realized… I am someone.

                And that changed everything.  

Kaitand Xander and Hanna time ti write....what about the sounds and smells and feelings of summer? Do you like the heat, the feel of the sun on your skin? I know that I still love the smell of suntan lotion and I like to use coconut smelling shampoo because back in my day or "the" day we used coconut oil for tanning lotion and we would spread it all over our bodies and they would glisten with oil and grains of sand would stick to the oil we'd lathered all over ourselves...I love, love, loved the feel of the sun, the warmth of the sand, the breezes that kicked up just enough to evaporate the sweat on our skins. I loved the sound of the ocean and the rolling, back and forth motion of the waves.and,of course, I'll Ed walking along the shore on the hard wet sand next to the water's edge;picking up the broken shel sand rinsing the sand from them to discover what colors and beauty might be hidden. I loved tossing a frisbie, watching it spin on the air and glide to a friend or flop mercilessly on a sun tanner's head or neck or bottom and I loved the laughing and giggling as someone was sent to rescue the offensive frisbee from the irate sunbather...I loved beach volleyball. I loved diving into the sand to save a ball or leaping high to smash it across the net....I really loved the sound of transistor radios pounding out the sounds of Neal "forever in bluejeans" or Paul and john wanting to "let it be" Sotellmeyou writer club members "what do you love about summer?"

Check it out!

If you haven't ever been to this website, go now. Right now.
It is a website for amature writers, giving them tips and ideas on how to improve their skills and be better at what they do. The website helps you in getting you ready and prepared to effectively write, edit, and eventually lead up to every writers dream... to publish.
Go now to http://www.writersdigest.com/

On this website I found some really cool tips for creative writing: (My favorite kind:))

"1. Watch out for subtle wordiness. We’ve all been taught to eliminate redundancies in our writing, but it takes constant vigilance to catch the most elusive culprits—those that go beyond redundancy into pleonasm.
Pleonasm is the use of words unnecessary for clear expression. Here are some other common offenders to watch for:

• advanced warning
• basic fundamentals
• circulated around
• close proximity
•close scrutiny
• constant nagging
• downward descent
• exact replica
• exact same
• new discovery
• top priority

Isn’t that a great list for more concise writing?

"2. Don’t use a long (read: complicated) word where a short (read: simple) word will do. Here’s an interesting analysis of why less really is more when it comes to your writing:

In 10 novels I studied, I found bestselling novelists consistently use shorter words than non-bestsellers. It’s one of the reasons their writing reads at a faster pace. The samples from the bestsellers I studied averaged 4.21 characters a word. Other samples I analyzed for comparison averaged about a full character more. In the worst corporate writing samples I studied, it’s common for samples to average more than 6 characters per word. In academic journals, writing is so dense as to be unreadable at more than 7 letters per word.

"3. Redefine how you think of writer’s block. I’ve never heard anyone define it in quite this way before:

“Writer’s block is real but intangible. It is a momentary lack of anything to say that gives rise to the fear that you have nothing more to say—ever. … Coming to the end of speech can be a moment of blessed silence, and ought to be welcomed when it comes rather than featured. It isn’t the lack of something to say or write at the moment that is the problem, but the fear generated by the story that this present quiet will extend through the rest of your life.”

Sort of makes it sound easy to eliminate that anxiety, doesn’t it?

"4. Write more by setting a smaller daily goal. If you’re one of those writers who struggles with finding time to write, here are some convincing reasons why this approach might work for you:

• It’s easier to find smaller bites of time than long, uninterrupted periods.
• Repetition strengthens habits.
• Repetition also builds momentum.
• If it’s only for 15 minutes, you can justifiably postpone other tasks. You can reverse procrastination—instead of procrastinating the start of your writing, you procrastinate following the distractions that used to keep you from writing.
• You can envision letting go of all the other things competing for your attention and allow yourself to really focus, because it’s for only 15 minutes. This kind of focus, where we get lost in the writing, is one of the biggest joys of writing.

"5. Don’t abandon your other passions to focus on writing. I love the way Austin Kleon puts this in Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (Workman):

“Don’t throw any of yourself away. If you have two or three real passions, don’t feel like you have to pick and choose between them. Don’t discard. Keep all your passions in your life. This is something I learned from playwright Steven Tomlinson. Tomlinson suggests that if you love different things, you just keep spending time with them. ‘Let them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen.’ The thing is, you can."

So there you go... a few writing tips from a great website... just to get you started off on the right foot:)

Next Writing Prompt

You’ve just moved into a new house, and your family is still unpacking. In the process of moving furniture and decorating your own bedroom, you find an odd crack in the wall. As you explore further, you find out it’s a secret passageway—and you have no idea where it leads. You decide to grab a flashlight and go exploring.


Remember... anyone is welcome to post something they've written! Also, don't forget to check back often to see new stories posted and get inspiration for your own writing. I'll post my story on this prompt later this week... hope you guys will too!

The Dead King by Xander Grow

The Dead King
 by Xander Grow



It was just a normal day, nice weather, playing at the beach, except for the giant crab-squid trying to kill me. I was running for my life going 90 miles per hour across the sand. I was TERRIFIED when it came out of the water and almost killed everyone. I hid behind a building as it ran past me. It was headed towards the city museum. It pulled off the roof and picked up a small corpse. “What does it want, a dead guy?” I thought as the people inside the museum started to scream very loudly. Then the corpse did something: it got up jumped off the monsters claw and landed somehow straight in front of me. I ran for it, I needed something to get away with. I found a motorbike and tried to drive it. One fact is that a kid with no practice can’t ride a motorcycle while being chased by a 300-year-old corpse and a giant piece of seafood, but I made it out safely. (Well I did crash a couple of times but...) My name is Caden, I’m twelve years old and in sixth grade. I live in Florida, which would explain the beach to whoever is reading this. As I drove away I hid in the cemetery, not a good idea as I later found out. As the monster got closer its eyes started to glow tan witch was pretty weird, like skin growing at a rapid rate. The zombie must have seen me hiding behind the gravestone because it pointed straight at me. The monster shot tan lasers at the graves and green, rotting hands puled me under. That’s when I got here, the chasm. It is a big trench filled with red and purple streaked with blue that at first I thought was blood. The dead were on the other side of the huge pit, rotting away and staring at me. I was safe at last. I walked to the side for a while and noticed a camp. I ran towards it, maybe there were people there. I couldn’t see any people anywhere just a tiny, white, rhino with a nametag saying: Hi my name is Rine.
2                               I’m a rock master 
 It ran up to me like it knew who I was. He started biting at my pant leg trying to lead me somewhere. I followed him to a tent no larger than the other tents. Inside I found a girl kneeling in front of a statue of a crab-squid like the one I saw before. Who are you? I asked. She turned to see me. Your back! She yelled. “I am?” I said, surprised. “Wait no your not him, do you know someone named spencer hill?” “Sounds like my uncle” I said “stop, I’m serious,” she said louder than before. “No really, that is his name.” “Well that would explain why Rine recognized you and why you look so similar.” “What’s your name?” I asked “its Xena” she said. “Mine is Caden”. I said “Caden” lamely. “How did you know my uncle?” I asked. She looked like she was going to die of laughter. “He was one of the camp leaders here. He left on a quest about five years ago to find a way out of the chasm… he never returned.” “Four years ago he returned from the army, He must have found the way out and never been able to come back.” I said. “He was one of the only people we ever found that was a descendant of the ancients.” “The ancients?” I asked. “Yes, they were humans that had elemental powers. They each represented one thing: either life, earth, air, wood, water, rope, or death.” “Rope?” people had control of ropes? “Yes” she said solemnly “oh…that serious… wow… um, sorry?” “I was just kidding about that, there were no rope-people,” she laughed “oh…” I felt like an idiot. “Wait, if my uncle was one of these ancients then what about me, wouldn’t I be one to?” now that I thought about it I remembered some times it seemed I had bent the will of the earth, one time when I was rock climbing on one of the steep canyons near my home about five years ago I slipped and fell. as I was falling there was a big earthquake and a patch of grass came out of the ground and I landed on it. After that I was scared of rock climbing. Then I thought about when the zombies came I didn’t feel their hands the ground just seemed to pull me inside. “Earth” I said, “I have the power of earth.” Demon reunion 3 When Rine brought him in I was shocked, I wanted to go hug him, I seriously thought he was spencer, and then I started to think, “He’s gotten younger?” man I was dumb. We left the tent and I showed him around. I brought him into the big tent to talk to the masters. We walked inside and I was shocked. The golden Skulimp statue had been consumed by darkness and was now alive and crawling up the tent. Skulimp’s are not good, especially when they are made of black slime and are raving mad. I instantly pulled out the seratir and shot it at him. It missed by a long shot but scarred the altar behind it. To my surprise it never attacked, it just jumped around like a monkey that had too much soda. After a while we just ran past him. Something must be really wrong for it not to fight. I immediately shoved him into the center of the tall wooden column. He was carried away into the whatever-dimension, leaving me to battle the creature one on one. It was fairly easy…until it called on another, and another, and another. Soon about twenty Skulimp’s surrounded me. My Secratir was out of ammo and my sword was in my tent. The one thing that saved me was a big huge vine, encircling the tent and stealing the demons one by one. After, Rine came in looking exhausted. His horn transformed into a short spiky plant, explaining how I had been saved. When we entered the tent this creepy little monster thing with feathers and purple tentacles started jumping up and down, so of course I thought it was one of Xena’s friends and that it was excited to see her, big mistake. Until she pulled out some kind of crossbow and tried to shoot it I still believed it was a creepy companion of hers. And then she shoved me into a giant wooden pillar for like, no reason. I thought AAAAA! And then I was in a whole different world and I was like AAAA!!!!! And my last thought was “man, she’s a mean girl.”
  3 Rabbit of power
 The space I got shoved into only got weirder. A giant yak, a blue bed, and a magic guru bunny were all floating around with me. I started floating towards the bunny as slow as possible thinking NO, NOT THE RABBIT! When I bumped into it nasty red eyelids fluttered open, revealing something I did not want to see. He had a swirly black and white eye like someone who had been hypnotized, and his other was a snake’s eye with two different pupils. The last thing I remembered was a big dragon that seemed like it had been drawn and still had marks where it looked like it had been erased and redrawn before I woke up. Wow, that was disorienting. A giant vine just came out of my horn I don’t know how I did it and I don’t want to know. Just so you know this is Rine. Just so you know these thoughts are not from a rhino, but a man trapped in a rhino’s form. It all started when I was working in the military as Sargent hill. One day I was wandering around the camp. A big tough guy, “Ima idiot” as we called him, was picking on some other young man just trying to walk past him. “You trying to get killed kid! No one gets past me!” he screamed. “well,… um well I just wanted-“ he ran away before he could finish.