Writer’s Seminar- Gayle Forman

Gayle Forman is an American novelist who has recently gained recognition for topping the New York Times best sellers list for Young Adult Fiction. She is best known for her novel If I Stay, which has been turned into a film of the same name.

The motifs she typically explores in her novels include topics such as family, romance, suicide, music, and death. However, behind every novel there is a overriding theme of time that she emphasizes through structural choices. For example, in her novel Just One Day, she writes, “We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.” Using the same pattern of words shows that two or more ideas have the same importance. In this case, Forman uses parallel structure to emphasize the importance and futility of time.

Gayle Forman has inspired me to explore and broaden the genres I read. Despite not being the type of author that I would usually rave about, upon discovering her writing through recommendation, I have come to appreciate the way in which she can take simple–often overworked–ideas like love and impart them in such unique fashions.

The following emulation is inspired by an excerpt from one of her novels. It was written by Manvir, Jasleen, and I for our seminar on this author.

Excerpt:

Sixty-seven nights. I try to rationalize it. Sixty-seven nights is nothing. I try to divide up the number, to fractionalize it, to do something to make it smaller, but nothing divides evenly into sixty-seven. So I break it up. Fourteen countries, thirty-nine cities, a few hundred hours on a tour bus. But the math just makes the whirring go faster and I start to feel dizzy. I grab hold of the tree trunk and run my hand against the bark, which reminds me of Oregon and makes the earth at least close up for the time being. (Where She Went)

Emulation:

“Sixty-Seven nights. I try to rationalize it. Sixty-Seven nights is nothing.” 

At least that’s what I try to tell myself.

In those sixty-seven nights I tried to make the time go faster by forgetting you but it only made me want you more.

The first ten days.

Your name never crossed my mind, never whispered down the halls of this empty house, never ripped away a second of my sleep.

The next fourteen days were numb.

Like the calm wind that precedes a storm, its anguish chilled me until the ghost of your lips on my skin froze in place, and I could pretend that you were still with me.

The next twenty-six days were spent in solitude.

I felt as if I was trapped in prison, no matter how far I reached out between the iron bars, all that awaited me on the other side was air.

As I sorely swallowed the blood from silencing my tongue I’m reminded of the iron bars keeping me from you.

Then next ten days.

I find myself at our favorite place day and night.

It takes all that’s in me not to jump.

It hurts me to realize that a place I once loved has now become a bittersweet death trap.

The last seven days.

I do not have the strength any longer.

Every step I take I sink a little further and every call I make you don’t pick up.

Maybe you’ll realize my worth when you can no longer reach me

For the sixty-seven nights are now over.

Songs of the Dead

The following is a spoken word poem that alludes to the rippling framework in which death and indifference function. In place of a final suicide note, this piece is an ode to a childhood full of neglect. It speaks for a young man who never had a voice of his own.

The message that I was trying to get across, through this poem, was that memories never die. Beyond the grave, they echo, haunt, and sing to the living. They sing of a life, of tribulations, of sorrow, and of happiness. Unlike people, memories are impartial, transferable like ink to paper–eternal. However, much like people, they are also easily soiled by the passage of time. The scars they inflict, all the same, are unforgettable. Therefore, this piece is about the burden and destructive nature of such history and what it can amount to. Continue reading →

The Psychology of Water

 

The following is a piece inspired by a sociology class I took last year, in which we learned of the nature of people and society. On our weekly walks to Edworthy Park, in the beginning of this semester, I noticed correlations between that nature and what I observed of the river.

Along the rocky shores, beneath the bridge, we were told to sit, write, be inspired. I was inspired by the autonomous nature of the river, in which it ran in sync, despite the obstructions of people on kayaks, stray stones skipped along its surface, and pieces of wood drifting hypnotically downstream.  No matter the ways in which it was parted, the river seemed unhindered, unified. It reminded me of humanity. The ways in which a society, despite being pummeled into submission, can regroup. It reminded me of the ways in which history has proven the formidable and defective inclinations of such a society.

 

Water is a social creature by nature.

It is not social due to its cohesive properties, rather the molecular make up of water dictates companionship in a more elemental way: a communal need to conquer.

Where the earth quakes and the fire ripples like a flag in the wind, signalling surrender, water thrives. A perverse attraction builds, a precipitate tension that rises to the surface rallying the masses in a time of adversity, manipulating the bad and making it worse.

Soon sounds a call to arms, a conscription that can’t be ignored. The duty and security of a common cause and the bonding of camaraderie filtering any remaining sediment. Thus, evaporates an individual and condenses a state.

There is no singularity in water, no loneliness either. It rests together, it falls together, it runs together, and it most importantly it kills together. The blame is shared, the blood evenly dispersed, until it is almost like it was never shed.

Water does what nature dictates; it takes the shape of its container without even detecting its compliance. Water swirls in a perpetual whirl pool of repeated mistakes, never once draining in its frenzy to continue the viscous cycle.

However, every once and a while something happens that prompts a moment of pause, freezing the cycle. A moment of clarity transpires that floats on the surface of the collective consciousnesses, but it is never quite dense enough to sink in, to elicit ripples of change. And so continues the never-ending charade.

Thus is the nature of water.

Thus is the enigma.

Yours Truly

My love,

It has been three years since you left me on the docks, blubbering and gasping, feet tangled in nets, scaling a wall of despair. It has been three minutes since I last traced your picture with my hands.

At night, even though I know that you are three oceans away, I sometimes feel the phantom of your body lying next to mine–a phantom warmth. It presses against my back, spooning me, as my mind wanders to thoughts of you.

The would haves, the should haves, the could haves–sweet nothings whispered into my pillow. The words buzz around in my head like bees, producing honey, a sickly sap that slows thought, moving time at the rate of cold molasses. The nights stretch out for days, and before I know it a lifetime has passed. To fill in the ceaseless passage of seconds thought unending, I write sonnets expressing love, novels condoning bereavement , and eulogies recalling forgotten kisses on sunswept plains. I mail you my works in moments of unconsciousness, over the precipice of reality and in through the threshold of the abstract, stamping them with emblems of tears; telepathically communicating to you. In my dreams I send to you my thoughts and prayers.

Three of your friends have returned home from war today, while three more just enlisted. I had no tears to spare for them, neither in greeting nor in farewell, as my concerns and sentiments remain bounded to you.

My entire existence is a contradiction. Hating yet crying over you just makes me hate myself more. It seems as if every three seconds I fluctuate between decrepitude and infatuation. I hate that you make me feel so open to attack, so rooted in ambivalence that I have begun to doubt everything from my reflection in the mirror to the rock on my finger. I can’t sate this burning inferno any longer, the heat is too painful to bear. As time passes the memories of our life together waft up in vapor, escaping me as I slowly forget why I love you and sow a seed of resentment.

I don’t want to forget.

There are only three words that can bring me any comfort, and despite how selfish they may be, I ask of you to indulge me this one last time. Although they might not hold any truth whatsoever, I need to see these characters scrawled out before me, crafted in your bold arches and pregnant pauses. For this one last time, I want you to lie to me.

I need you to reply:   I’m    coming    home.

 

Yours Truly,

Joyce

My Scariest Memory

Child labor laws have come far in the past decades– just not to middle schools.

Every year, in October, we would each get a 10 ton box of chocolates and be thrust into the autumn cold to proposition strangers. And, most of the time, it was just as strange as that sentence sounded.

We could complain, but no one ever dared to stand up and say “no”, because when it came to fundraising, chocolates were king and we were their human foot stools. Really, it was simple economics– supply and demand– they demanded we sell sell sell, and we supplied.

One dreary afternoon, I set off on my daily chocolate-run. Dark chocolate was always the last to sell and I found that with every door I knocked on I was becoming just as bitter as it’s detested taste. However, in those much simpler times, I was strangely optimistic. That day hadn’t been a particularly bad day and I was proud of myself for that, so I walked with an extra jump in my step, loonies jingling in the paper envelope I carried to collect funds. Little did my naïve, twelve-year-old self know that in but a few moments I would see my life flash before my very eyes.

Five houses from the end of the street. Four houses. Three. Two. One.

Turn.

The rottweiler looked me straight in the eyes, and kind of nodded, as if saying, “Yeah, that’s right, I’m gonna kill you.”

And I couldn’t look away. I just slowly lowered the 10 ton box to the pavement and started walking backwards, as it stepped forward. The earlier optimism draining away like the color from my skin. I paled. I knew in that moment that I was dog food, so I shut my eyes and ran. Waiting to be devoured, for the snarling at my hind legs, for the nipping at my heels, for the slobber of salient teeth, for the tearing of flesh.

But it never came.

Instead, all I heard was a resounding clink. The sound of a strained metal, a chain taut with exertion, a leash unyielding as it kept the hound at bay. It was the sound of my savior. The lead, in equal parts, restraining the animal as well as tethering me to the realm of the living. The forces of tension running parallel, conglomerated down each chain link to the next, worked together to keep me alive that day.

From then on, I no longer cared about the casual day those who sold the chocolates would receive; although it was a tough decision, I think my life meant more to me.

The Times I Got Lost

Spirit of Life

 

Memories can be petty. When I want to remember they evade me, but when I try my hardest to forget–bam! I remember. My life has been a series of forgotten moments, especially my childhood, but recently, in search of a story that adequately sums up my life, I rediscovered something about myself– my tendency to get lost. Those that know me can attest to my ability to so effortlessly get lost in my thoughts, dilemmas, and anxieties. This quirk stems from a childhood of driving my mother absolutely insane. So, without further ado, I present to you “The Times I Got Lost”.

At the tender age of three, I developed a habit of hiding. I hid in all kinds of places–closets, tubs, cupboards, ovens… you name it. I was a connoisseur of hiding. When my mom would take me shopping with her, clothing racks were my preferred brand of ambiguity, for they provided the perfect opportunity to spectate. The partings in between hanging garments served as shutters as I would peek through each slit as if out a window. In the windows I would see men and women of every caliber. The angular housewife, the meek breadwinner, and the occasional mousy elder. Through the windows I saw every flavor of person, and with every person I quickly refined my palate.

At the age of five, I graduated to bigger and better things; this time I got lost in a different city. Family had come over so, naturally, being the gracious host my mother is, the week had been a nonstop array of landmarks, parks, and restaurants. The agenda for this particular day had been visiting West Edmonton Mall. Back in those days everything seemed grander to my youthful corneas, however, I found this place especially grand.  So, as my family posed for pictures, I separated from the herd, off to explore on my own. But, just as they apply to any cub in the wild, I was no exception to the laws of the animal kingdom. The predators soon descended. Two women, faces masked in the fogs of time and voices gurgled in the oceans of memory, claimed me. I remember walking in between them, each of my hands in one of theirs, craning my neck as I looked up at them and told them I was lost. If my mother hadn’t recognized the abhorrent yellow dress that she had made me wear that day, I probably would have ended up another face on another milk carton; another name on a list. It seems I was predisposed to fade away.

The Expanse of Green

Belize Backroads

 

The rush of cold air as I accelerate through the night is always a welcome relief from the conventionality of suburban life. The open roads are a stark contrast to the narrow walkways of my neighborhood streets. Here I can practically taste the frost that caps the frozen blades of grass, each blade unique, deformed in its own special way, yet still part of the stitching of the expansive green blanket that protects me from the hardness of the earth.

It seems as if the endless expanse of green is the only freedom that this open roads has in common with my suburban lifestyle. A part of my home that I do not absolutely despise. The grass serves as a reminder of the safety of my norm. Of the Sundays on the dusty pews of the neighborhood church, of the Saturdays basking in the heat of the barbeque. Strange, now that I think about it—all I have been doing lately is thinking—the grass was always there. When I was seven and the handles of my shiny new bike shuddered under my grip, the promise of the ground had been so unrelenting, the sky fleeting. But, as I tipped over, to my greatest joy and surprise I was welcomed into the embrace of the expansive green of the blanket that I had overlooked my entire life.

It still makes me wonder what else I have overlooked… Continue reading →

The Interview

The following is an interview that I conducted with my older sister,
a recent graduate from Ernest Manning high school and current university
student. Through this interview I was given the opportunity 
to ask her about her transition from being a high school
student to attending university, a topic that has elicited
both my apprehension and curiosity. I learned a lot 
about her and from her during this process.

What is your most vivid memory from high school?

Vivid? Well the most memorable was grad. It marked the end of twelve years of hell. No more stress, sleeplessness nights, and diploma prep. For me it marked a new beginning.

What is your biggest regret from high school?

I definitely regret not being involved in school extracurricular activities.  It’s because I believe that being involved allows you to meet new people you wouldn’t have met on your own, and experience new things. I feel that I was robbed of “the high school experience” because I thought I was too cool for that kind of stuff.

In university, how are thing different from high school?

Yeah, they are different because I get to learn what I want to learn. I get to go out into the world. I’m not so sheltered anymore because I’m responsible for my own academic future without a teacher chasing me down. I motivate myself. Continue reading →

every John has his Rose

The following is a short fiction piece incorporating several
 of the items and concepts from a scavenger hunt list 
that I completed in the month of September.





John was a man with many demons. Since childhood, they followed him around no matter what lengths he went through to escape from them, no matter how many oceans he crossed. They knew exactly how find him, how to toy with his mind, how to slam his self-worth through a cheese grater and successfully convince him that he was still whole—that he was still a man.


At the age of twenty-five, John couldn’t take the torture anymore. Every day it was the same sound. The ticking of the clock as the seconds went by, the ringing of telephone lines, the aggression of the typing, the gulping of the coffee, the desperation of the sighs, the confines of the walls, the people—the shells. The cycle was so loud, that he would put a probing finger to his ear every hour, always surprised when he never felt the dampness of blood. He was a man slowly dying, and no prayer would provide him any solace. So he found it at the bottom of a bottle.


 Continue reading →