Some of My Writing

As many of you know, College is a great experience, and part of that experience is meeting new people.  I made a friend when I very first started in one of my general classes.  As with most college friendships, I wasn't sure how long it would last, but we found that we both loved writing, and that love seems to have been one of many things that has kept us in contact over these three or four years.

A couple of months ago, he asked me to do a character sketch for him.  It was for a book he's been working on for a while, and he was trying to make one for his heroin in the story, but was finding it difficult because he was basing her on a person he actually knows really well, and as us writers know, it can sometimes be difficult describing someone for the first time when we've known them for years.

At first, I didn't know where to start.  I have a hard time doing the cut and dry character sketches, and I knew he wanted more than a sheet with that said, Eyes: Brown, Hair: Brown, Complexion: Exotic, blah blah blah... so I left it on the back burner until I got an idea for describing her yesterday.

My real issue is that I needed her in some kind of setting.  I needed her to be doing something.  I finally figured out that writing stories, is kind of like making movies.  In a movie, they show you a picture to evoke an emotion, in books, we have to make you think of a picture that evokes an emotion (a pretty difficult task).  I had to do more than describe her dimensions and hair color, I had to help you know what it's like to first have her walk into your life.  I need for you to feel what that's like.  I have a feeling that I wrote her stronger than my friend wanted, but I think it was a good exercise anyway.

Anyway, this is me, taking that real big leap that many of us bloggers often want to take, but are very afraid to:  I'm going to show you some of my writing.  I'll add the caveat that many of us do, I only worked on it for like, two hours, and if I had cleaned it more it would be better, and blah blah blah.... tell me what you think, but don't be too crushing. :)

She was late.  Not by much, but enough for me to notice the dim, 1950’s hotel lights lining the walls.  The place was packed with high rollers in Italian originals, playmates flaunting their little black numbers, and the department store two piecers feeling up the high rollers.  The room itself was thin, just a sliver in the row of buildings it rested in.  Fire Code probably restricted the number of occupants hours ago.

I sat alone, watching the low roar.  The predators, their prey, and the poisonous temptations.  Then she walked in.   The energy of the lights, the music, the tinkling glasses and the talking people were stolen to illuminate her perfect figure.  The elongated neck, the slender shoulders on down to her muscular legs, shown by the slit in her dress.  Her figure made her look much taller than she was, even among the power mongers and their leggy toys.

Her creamy, milk chocolate skin spoke Aztec Goddess, clad in a silk dress, made of leopard print material.  The trappings may have screamed indigenous native, but her eyes were unaware of the Spanish Conquest’s success.

Those staggering eyes glanced over the room and eventually found me.  Her target.  She walked toward me, each step calculated and fluid.  Each step sunk into the floor and became one with the room.

I searched through the brown of her eyes for information and found a vault and an open book, all at the same time.  Tears were not a rarity, but few had been seen by any living person.  The cause of her grief was also a mystery, though I knew they had seen Hell.

She searched through me as well.  She’d been hurt, but was determined not to be hurt again.  I could feel myself being picked apart.  My fear, my weaknesses, and my worries were all on display.  I tried to build up a wall, but I was already in her grasp.

  Within the ten seconds it took her to walk to me, I knew that she would be my predator, and I her prey.  Either the strength she exhibited was real, and I would find myself following her to my death, or it was a façade, and I would protect her to my last breathe. 

Her slender hand gracefully gripped the back of the chair, pulled it out, and she slid into the seat opposite mine.


Thanks for reading.  Have a nice day. :)