Writing Exercise

Okay, I decided to try something else new today as a challenge to myself. As I said in the sidebar, one of the challenges that I face is trying to be creative in my writing when I am typing rather then writing things out by hand. Now, most of what I have written so far has been fairly analytical. It is my thoughts on things and while there is a creative element to it, the subject remains mostly on the intellectual side of my head and not the creative.

As such, I have this exercise. I bookmarked a few websites in which I could get some writing ideas in case I wanted some inspiration on something to write on. As of yet, I have had plenty of things pop into my head, but I wanted to have contingency plans for when my brain was feeling squishy. Anyways, I went to one of those pages for creative writing prompts and then used a random number generator to roll between the 1 and 302 option that were on the page. I came up with 162, which says to write a poem using the phrases "a culture of solitude," faithful blue sky," and "where we still discover." I am tweaking it slightly and plan to write a story, but I suppose I can write a poem as well, if that would follow the rules better.

Poem first (I find poetry fairly easy for me, I do no believe that poetry has to rhyme, just touch upon our feelings, usually in a concise manner.)

We all stand under the same faithful blue sky,
Many people together but still worlds apart
Torn and shattered by strife and discontent
Eyes shaded from the harsh sun's light
Illuminating a bleak and heartless future
Torn by war, a culture of solitude.

Voices rise from our despair, cries for peace
Gathering in strength and in heart
We call for hope and courage and change
To look forward to a better tomorrow
For ourselves and our children
In a place where we still discover love.

From Islands We Are

I was always separate from others, even surrounded by people. It was like I carried inside myself an island of my very own. This was my land, my refuge, my rock. While this island kept me from being harmed by others, it also kept me alone. I lived my own way, a culture of solitude, locked away from harm.

There was one thing on this island that set me free and gave me company and comfort. That one thing was my books. I would be surrounded my them, and raise them like walls around me. I could not see others through them, nor could they see me. It was a perfect screen to the world. In these books, I found my friends, and I was free. I would fly with dragons, ride on unicorns, travel to through space and through time.

In time though, my wall of books grew higher and blocked out the faithful blue sky. The light to see the cherished pages grew dim, and I began to realize that I was lost in the maze of the books that surrounded me with no friends to help me out. My island had become a prison which I did not know how to escape.

Slowly, I began to make my way through the pages that had been my life, and gathered pieces together. I tentatively reached out to others, and found how hard it was to build up what was never there: a bridge into that other world where people were. Although it was scary, I kept going, reaching out. Many times, my gestures of friendship were slapped aside or ignored outright, but I was ever so slowly making progress.

I learned that their were others like me, who were trapped within themselves. People who were shy but actually did care about others and would not push me away because I was different. So, I gathered with this group of outcasts, those who were not afraid to be themselves even if they were diverse in there backgrounds and tastes and ages. We all shared within ourselves a common dream. We dreamed of a place where we still discover ways to be ourselves and be strong even if society tried to push us all onto our own little islands.