Today is the day I start worrying because tomorrow night at midnight I need to have something to write.
Can I still imagine things like a child would? Can I think like a child enough to write an entire 50,000 words from the perspective of an 8-10 year old?
It's been a long time since I was a child. 18 years ago, I was 10. I was propping up planks between my bed and the beds of my sisters. I would stand on that plank and sing like I was on stage, making up the slow sad song as I went, tears threatening to well over because the song was just so beautiful.
Interpretive dance was, of course, incorporated.
Yesterday, I practiced a little bit... not at being a kid, but writing from a child's perspective. I think I made to to roughly 1,000 words. I don't know where I was going with the story and I did not finish, but this is what I came up with. (I am also horrible at staying in the same tense as I write!)
- Elise
Can I still imagine things like a child would? Can I think like a child enough to write an entire 50,000 words from the perspective of an 8-10 year old?
It's been a long time since I was a child. 18 years ago, I was 10. I was propping up planks between my bed and the beds of my sisters. I would stand on that plank and sing like I was on stage, making up the slow sad song as I went, tears threatening to well over because the song was just so beautiful.
Interpretive dance was, of course, incorporated.
Yesterday, I practiced a little bit... not at being a kid, but writing from a child's perspective. I think I made to to roughly 1,000 words. I don't know where I was going with the story and I did not finish, but this is what I came up with. (I am also horrible at staying in the same tense as I write!)
Flit, flit, flit. It's wings are too many colors to count and yet I try as I watch it dart around from flower to flower in my back yard. It lands an one and throws itself off of another, like it wants to do an incredibly intricate olympic dive. Except, I guess butterflies don't do backflips. I wish they did.
My cat, Moomoo, ponders the butterfly's presence but does not adopt an attack stance, instead, she lies idly on my lap, purring. I put my hand on her back and she purrs a little louder. Moomoo's name likely tells you as much as you need to know about her. She reminds me of a cow. She's all spotted and black and white like a holstein.
My family has no cows, even though I like them a lot. But I do have a cat named Moomoo. She's 5 years old. That's half the age that I am.
From my back porch, I can see everything in the world. All of the deer in the pastures and the sky and the trees. Sometimes I see rainbows and I always see the bugs. Sometimes Moomoo and I like bugs and sometimes we don't. It depends how gross they are. Moomoo really likes ladybugs, but I only kind of like them because they smell funny.
It's getting shady, now. I want to go inside because there's a little bit of a chill in the air and Moomoo gets cold pretty easily. But when I turned to go in my backdoor, my entire house was gone. Hmm. I pulled my shawl a little tighter around my shoulders. I'd forgotten I had my shawl with me.
Moomoo was standing beside me and when I looked at her, she had transformed into a majestic cow lion! She looked like a lion but had the coloring and the nose and mouth of a cow, plus she was big now!
"Moomoo, we're lost." I said. I moved closer to her and tucked myself against her side as I searched for any sort of landmark that might lead me back home.
Moomoo blinked her eyes at me and then crouched down and gestured with her head for me to get on her back.
I rubbed my jawline with my finger. "OK. But, I've never ridden a lion cow before, Moomoo. I'm kind of worried I'll fall off."
She bumped me with her head and started purring again, assuring me that everything would be OK. I patted her head. "Alright," I said, and I jumped up onto the saddle that had just appeared on her back. And the saddle had a seat belt! So, I buckled up and we took off at a trot in the direction of my family's old well that was right on the border of my back yard and the forest, if I was even still in my backyard. I kind of doubt it because my house is gone.
As we trotted along, it grew misty out and I could barely see in front of me. It's like we've been traveling for hours. It's getting dark out and just ahead of us, I notice two lights blinking the distance. They shimmer like stars through the fog. Moomoo slows. She quietly inches her way toward the lights now. Carefully creeping closer, closer, closer.
The shadowy shape of human appears in the mist ahead of us. The starry light appears to be on it's head. The figure stands unmoving with its arms stretched out slightly to the sides as if welcoming us into open arms. But both Moomoo and myself were leery. We moved closer and the other star attached itself to another immobile figure stuck in the same gesture as the first. The sky was dark, but the figures (I think they're giants) were even darker. Like black holes. I hid my face in Moomoos neck as we approached.
Soon, she stopped moving.
I stayed with my head tucked into the back of her neck until I heard her start purring. Then I slowly sat up and looked around. The area around us was lit with a weak blue light. I looked up were the figures with the stars on their heads were and found two giant stone men. The lights that had been on their heads had doubled and were now hovering in their open hands. They had no legs. It was really a cliff face in which the two giants had been carved, their heads and torsos, arms and hands. Their faces are not human. I think maybe they look like foxes. Yes. They look like foxes. Tufts of hair at the cheeks, little pointy ears on their heads and long, thin noses, all carved from stone.
The lights still look like stars from the sky only bigger, maybe as big as my head and I think if I reached out, they might come toward me and we could be friends. As I studied them, I started hearing a tune in my head. Somehow, I know that this is their way of communicating, but I don't know what they want me to do. I can't understand them.
I looked at Moomoo. She was walking toward a circular stone structure. A well. It was my backyard well. We were still in my backyard!
I turned again to look back where my house should be, but it still wasn't there. I sighed and watched Moomoo look into the well. She beckoned me over with her head and I slowly walked toward her, careful to stay back five feet from the edge of the well like my parents had told me to do. "It's not safe," they've said a billion times. "Stay away from it. Don't throw stones into the water. You might fall!" I really don't want to fall into a well. It doesn't sound like fun.
I stood by Moomoos tail and watched as the blue star lights moved toward us. They stopped above the well. I wanted to reach out and touch one of them because I could still hear their songs in my head. A creepy song, wavering up and down - wooo woo, wooo woo. One of the lights shot down into the well at lightning speed and a couple of seconds later, the others followed. I wanted to see what was down there, so I climbed up onto Moomoos back and tried to lean over her head just enough to see past the stones surrounding the deep hole.
- Elise
