What If?

'What if' are two powerful words that can make anything happen. With writers, we can make the normal frog become a prince, the poorest pauper become a princess, or the unloved boy become a wizard. Recognize any of these stories? The Frog Prince, Cinderella, and Harry Potter are just three examples of what happens when the writer doesn't care that most of society thinks that magic isn't real. These are examples of when magic, the real magic that happen when writers write comes alive.
Writers don't have to believe in magic, but I think that when people write down a story, magic does become real. We can make worlds, people, and cultures. We can create death, life, or the in-between. We can make readers hold their breath, cry, or get in trouble at school for reading our book beneath their desk.
Here are some what-ifs that I think have a fantastic story behind them. You can use these for your own stories, if you would like.

What if:

The first time you met your friend she electrocuted you

You opened a fotune cookie that read: Help! I'm trapped in this cookie factory!

An alien landed in your backyard, asking for help

Someone lied and you were in danger of being expelled from school

You were an animal, the last of it's kind

You could travel to the dangerous Dreamworld, where ALL dreams come true. Including the nightmares.

Writing Quote!

100 Word Excercise- The Dead Among Us

The Dead Among Us

  I was born Rose Dean in a hospital in Michigan. The first thing I ever remember is a wispy, human-like shape hovering over me. In hissed voices I could hear it saying," This is the one, the one with the Sight. I can feel the pulsing," the spirit looked over its shoulder. "Shall we kill it?"

   "No!" The spirit was shoved out of the way, and a new one reappeared. "This child needs to grow and learn so Master can decide what to do with it." A malicious smile spread over it's face." Then perhaps, we can kill it."

100 Word Exercise- Trapped

I have decided that, every day I am going to post 1-2 100 word paragraph/short story/beginning, I don't know. Whatever you want to call it I am posting on here. Here is my first one, which I am calling 'Trapped.'

My tail was heavy and sodden with sand. My head felt like it was filled with water, and I opened my eyes wide. And gasped. Far different from my family’s usual island, full of blue water, perfect for swimming in, and a healthy jungle not far from the beach, I was floating in a terrarium with fake, plastic rocks laying on the bottom. About five feet cubed, I was barely fitting, my tail gently fluttered by it. 
I streched my eyes wide, straight into the leering face of a hairy ape-man.
“You’re gonna make me rich!” He cackled gleefully.

Writing Beginnings

Whenever I force myself to sit down at my desk and write something, I sometimes have a great idea that, like a hummingbird is quick and fast and only stays in sight for a moment or two. The beginnings are like that for me. I too often labor on the notebook, wasting ink and lead while crossing sentences and paragraphs off left and right. Anyway, one method of facing the dreaded beginning is to just... leave it alone!

Methods of facing THE BEGINNING :(

1. Ignore it for a while. Either move on to the story you are writing, leaving a beginning that is unfinished (You can change it later) or distact yourself entirely by going outside, shooting some hoops, run around a pond, do something active.
2. Read over some crossed-out beginnings. What do you like about them? See if you can incorporate all of the things you like into a sentence/paragraph/begining.
3. Think about the story you are writing. Pretend that you are writing about a pencil who wants to be a writer. Which prt do you like the most, the pencil finding out he wants to be a writer, coming alive, or writing his first story. Write a beginning from on of those three (You can use flashbacks, too).

Writing Tips

Here are some writing tips that I have come up with and like to share:

• Write every day. If you get into a rhythm, a scheduled program it will be easier and easier until you may be able to whip something off once in a while.
• Everything is right. When writing first drafts, nothing that comes into your imagination is wrong. First drafts can be anything or do anything. If you don't like it later, you can edit it out. But keep every single crazy idea that comes to mind in your first draft.
• Be attentive to the world around you. Everything that writers write is based off of something that they have seen or experienced before. 
• Write well. Pay attention in English class, because spelling and grammar really matter if you plan to submit something to a contest or publisher. 

#LikeAGirl

This SuperBowl commercial aired this campaign, setting off a storm of protests from people all around the world. This campaign is not saying that females are supieor to men, it is saying that girls are equal to them. Although some may say that girls are always treated fairly, I think they're wrong. The term, "You throw like a girl," or something along that line has always been considered an insult that you're weak or something like that. Girls are always told that they have to be:

                        Happy                         
     Weak                                                        CAN'T SAVE SOMEONE
                                    Submissive
                                                                  
If you like this idea, here are some links that may be interesting to you:

http://always.com/en-us/about-us/our-epic-battle-like-a-girl

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/03/why-like-a-girl-is-so-important_n_6598970.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-female-superheroes/

Literary Dragons

In my page Books to Read, I recommended the book Polly Wants to be a Writer: A Junior Authors Guide to Writing and Getting Published by Laura Thomas. I want to tell you just a little more about the book because I extremely enjoyed it, and I am pretty sure you will too. This book is about a girl, Polly who wakes up with a dragon in her bedroom. The smelly, snakelike, alibino dragon named Scrum, is a huge critic of Polly's writing. Polly seeks help with her unruly dragon with Ms. Whitford, proffesinal draogon trainer and author. While Polly struggles to write a story from start to finish, she becomes part of a plot that could result in no writers.  Ever again.

This story is a great read for kids who want to be writers because unlike most writing textbooks, this one is a great novel, like the ones that you normally read. This also has small tips that get absorbed very quickly. Afterreading this story of the slef -doubting girl you will find yourself saying," If Polly can do it, why can't I?"

The literary dragons that Polly has in her writer's world is supposed to represent that tiny voice inside our heads that tells us while looking at something we had just written," You're stupid, that's no good," or," Why do you even bother being a writer? You're horrible." Everyone has experienced this before. And although this can be helpful in judging story lines or the technique of our writing, it can be disastrous in first drafts or just thinking in general. 

After reading this book, I designed my one literary dragon to represent the voice in my head. My dragon was so critical of my writing during 3-5 grade that I only wrote to do schoolwork. Here is a picture of what I think my literary dragon looks like:

His name is Draco, whom I named after my 2nd favorite character in the Harry Potter series AND it means dragon. Go figure. He is very slippery, often disappearing and then reappearing just when I think my idea is good. WHY DRACO, WHY? But I've learned how to train him, at least. 

I got this template from the website Doll Divine. Here is the link if you want to create your own literary dragon!     

http://www.dolldivine.com/dragon-maker.php

Emotions

Humans rely so much on their emotions to feel and communicate with other humans. What do you think would happen if we didn't have any? And do you ever think we may have too many. Here is an example of just the tiniest things that could happen that result in a full-blown disaster. 

Disappointment

The sky was dark, and the park’s roller coaster sounded like a roaring dragon. The constant splash of water sounded like all of my classmates chanting, you failed. Your a failer. You’re stupid. My brothers were all giggling, excited, and my mother looked like this was the happiest day of her life.
Fools, I thought. The earth was coming down among us, and this was how they acted? I had just gotten my report card back tom my school . I have all A’s but math. Just because 1 point was missing on my math score, we’ll have to move! I won’t get into a competitive high school.
The day went by me in a blur. Rollar coasters rides. Amazing. Water park. Wow. I don’t think so. On the way back my mother told me the lists of the community high schools that I could go to. I finally just lost it and started crying.  I was never going to be good at anything. Not ever.

Sadness

Leaning over the rickety old hospital bed, I felt my salty tears quickly slide to drip the lifeless nose on the bed. My sister would never wake up again. There was no hope left, the doctors told me. But the hardest thing was not the fact my sister would never open her eyes again, it was the fact that I would choose if she lived or died. 

The coma was deep, the doctors told me, she won't feel anything if I decided to cut the LifeSupport. They weren't sure if she could even hear me now. Suddenly I heard the heart monitors begin to beep and my sister began to shudder. Like magic, at least twelve nurses and doctors rushed into the room, like someone had lit fire to their blue scrubs. Screaming franticly, clawing at the two nurses half walking, half dragging me out of the room, I hollered my sister's name until I was hoarse, and kept hollering, even after the doctors came out and told me she was dead. 

Imagine if we didn't have any emotions. For one, tons of words would not exist. From 'happy' to 'exultant' none of them would exist. So many things rely on our emotions, and I for one wonder what would happen if we didn't have any. For emotions aren't only about love and sadness and disappointment and happiness. If we did not have emotions we would not have any sense of right or wrong, but no sense of evilness or right-doing. It would probably be like not having a soul, just wandering around aimlessly and without point. Without feelings we would have no soul, no thoughts.

Writing Contests

If you are a young writer like me, you should know it's pretty hard to get our work out into the world of adults. Usually we enter into contests our magazines. I do contests usually, and here are links for very good contests:

http://laurathomascommunications.com/juniorauthorscontest/

http://laurathomascommunications.com/junior-authors-poetry-contest/

http://www.thebettyaward.com'

http://www.adventurewrite.com/kids/contest.html

Poems

Before school ended, my 6th grade homeroom had poetry class together. Now, unusually, my class enjoyed it and the kids who continually annoyed everybody (me included) actually turned in some great pieces of work. It is really amazing, what poetry does to you. Poetry can really inspire and give someone courage or an obsession. What I like about poetry the most is that it can be interpreted any way. And all poetry is different. Although the most common type is rhyming poetry, there is also acrostic, ballad, canto, epic, couplet, dirge, found poems, free verse, hymn, Italian sonnet, lyric, limerick, mock epic, and so, so, so many more.
Another thing about poetry is that it can be written in so many different tones. You can spell your words and meaning straight out, like a branch, stripped away of all it's bark, or you can weave rhythm and meaning and mystery in a lovely flowing river of words. I prefer to have dark, black tones in my poems, and to thread hidden meanings in the words. My poems usually are not very long, though.
My Language Arts teacher, however, disagreed with me. She thought that my poems did not make much sense, but I disagreed. My teacher did not make a great effort to understand the poem, and made me change it to what I thought was a boring, bland, amature piece of writing.

Pencils

When I write, I use a pencil in my notebook. I know many people write on their computers, but I feel that pencil is easier because you can carry it around very easily and in my personal opinion, my ideas can be transferred better to the page that way.
I would like to know how many published authors begin their ideas using a pencil. Those authors profit off of the story without giving credit to the poor, poor pencil that helped them write it. Pencils do not get enough credit, I feel like, and they should be honored.

PENCILS FOREVER!

Blind

Hoosegow, a Western U.S. slang term meaning prison, comes from the Spanish juzgado, a word forcourt or tribunal.

How many people have ever seen this word before? I never have, and it is really amazing how many words we are blind to. I have never looked up words before, instead I use boring, bland words and change them during editing using the thesaurus. People could have 20 20 vision and still be blind to everything around them. I think that maybe (although I have never expeinced it) blind people have better vision than most people. Humans who can not see probably spend more time thinking about what the world looks like then people who can do.  Once you lose something dear to you, then that's when you start to miss it.