Creative idea: A story about a woman with Alopecia who finds out she is adopted from Madagascar. She tries to find her biological parents, but ends up becoming a Queen and dealing with Alopecia and self-consciousness about losing her hair.

​Story title: The Other Side of the Mirror
-Word Count: aiming for 50,000

-Realistic Fiction

-Malagasy culture and traditions

Story introduction: Everything seems to go well for Volana when receives her first job offer months after completing university. Unfortunately her Alopecia resurfaces, causing a larger chunk of her hair to fall out. This prompts her parents to tell her she is adopted and her biological parents live in Madagascar. Volana then embarks on a journey to Madagascar in hopes of locating her parents and possibly finding a cure or solution to the Alopecia. During this search, she meets and falls in love with a King, becoming Queen of Fleur Fanjakana. This new position creates new problems and brushes away old issues as she deals with keeping up appearances and hiding her falling hair, while feeling frustrated at not finding her biological parents.

Story description: Volana has dealt with Alopecia her whole life. It comes and goes as it pleases, taking away chunks of her hair. Alopecia Areata is an autoimmune disease which means the body sees itself, more specifically, hair follicles as foreign and attacks it/ This causes a person's hair to come out. After finishing university and landing her dream job in a transportation company, Volana's alopecia comes back. This prompts her parents to reveal that she is adopted. Volana decides to save up for a year, take off from work, and travel to Madagascar. She thinks this will be a simple journey doesn't plan on the detours in her path, including marring a King and becoming Queen of the five kingdoms in Madagascar. During her reign, she deals with tensions with her husband due to the unsuccessful methods of curing her alopecia. She becomes more self-conscious about it, hiding her hair from the kingdom. Volana will soon come to realize loving yourself starts within, not with what you see in the mirror.

Story overview: A first person POV of Volana and Thulani (her husband), and a third person POV (kingdom). A woman has alopecia areata and finds out she is adopted. She attempts to find her biological parents but ends up marrying a king and becoming Queen of a kingdom. She has troubling acclimating to this new position while dealing with old problems. 

This Skillshare class I watched was taught by best selling author, Preeti Shenoy, and she gave tips on the fundamentals of creative writing. Here are the prompts and my project:

1. Use a timer. Set it for three minutes. Now write down all the ideas that you get.
Submit it!

1. Flash fiction stories on Instagram pictures on my timeline
2. A boy helps smuggle drugs in his sculptures he creates.
3. An old lady leaves a diary in a library on purpose. When someone opens and reads an entry, they get sucked into it.

2. Create three characters using all that you have learnt. Remember to add the details!

Idea #1: 13 year old sculptor. Black hair. Lives in a village. Makes beautiful sculptures to sell. A local drug lord (King Caesar) employs Mitchie (Or he asks the drug lord) to puts bags of cocaine inside his sculptures ans ship them across the world. He makes enough money to help his village and his family. He moves into a house with his family. Of course they don't know what he really does, they just think his sculptures are in high demand.
Mitchie loves to sculpt. He started with pottery, making jugs, cups, plates, and other things for locals in his village. He's 5'4 and is in secondary school. Mitchie had mud brown eyes as he likes to describe them. He loves playing freeze tag with his friends. Mitchie also like to be alone. To gain inspiration, Mitchie takes walks at night when everyone is asleep. He stares at the stars and the moon. Mitchie wants to travel and help people in his village.

​Idea #2: Old Lady Martha is lonely. Both of her children died in a train crash four years ago on their way to Greenwich. Old lady Martha as the neighborhood calls her, has a cursed diary with various entries in it. Those entries are made from the lives of people that become trapped in the diary. Then, she reads them at home and can them come to life.
OL Martha is a short lady that wears different capes depending on the day. She has burgundy, blue, black, red, purple, and glitter. Little kids love and abhor her. She makes breakfast at six thirty in the morning everyday except Sunday. She makes breakfast at eight. OL Martha lives by a strict routine of breakfast, a walk through the park, staying at the library for two hours, eating lunch at a nearby sandwich shop.

*Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash.com

I watched another class on Skillshare by Morgan Lindsay Nelson and she explained the difference between suspense and surprise. Here is my project:

 Skillshare is a platform where you can watch classes on anything you're interested in and learn a new set of skills. They have four categories: Creative, Business, Technology, and Lifestyle. Within these categories, they have specialized fields for you to choose from. I use the Creative category and click Writing, which gives me countless videos- made by real people from those fields- on how to write characters, pitch stories, plan a plot, etc. This is a great tool for someone who cannot go to a physical classroom. For each class, there is a "project" you do to try out the tips given in the class AND the teacher will give you actual feedback on it. You can explore it for free for two months by clicking this link: ​http://skl.sh/2pjW1B7

Now, as an example, I will share a project I did for a class called "Brainstorming Your Story" taught by Steve Alcorn. The objective was to write a summary of a new plot you could create a story from. The story I did wasn't new, but I wanted to  write a revised summary and incorporate my new ideas. Here it is:

Mai Jenkins moves to New York to pursue her modeling career and faces hardships in this journey that test her character. She grew up with a single father in small town Venolia, Texas. She dreamed of walking down runways since she was five years old. Fifteen years later, she makes those dreams a reality.  Mai expects the model life to be luxurious, filled with free fashionable clothes, champagne all day, and jobs coming in hot. Unfortunately, she soon realizes the modeling industry isn't all glitz and glam. Through hardships, lost friends, and expensive rent, Mai tries to stay afloat above the ever churning waters. In this journey Mai learns not to trust everyone who says they want to help her, and she begins to trust in her confidence. Not only does Mai's new life in New York bring hardships of the modelling life, but it causes her to grow as a young woman and find her place in this world.Not all that glitters is gold.
This isn't a finished product, I have always struggled with writing summaries, especially in school. Either I add too much or too little information. The teacher of this class message me and told me to add more of her challenges and how she overcame them. I didn't expect a quick response, but I'm glad he had a chance to look over what I wrote. Skillshare is a really helpful website and my writing is going to grow for sure.

*Photo by Kari Shea

This past week was Writer's week at UC Riverside. Writers of all kinds -poetry, non-fiction, fiction, essays, and others, came out to speak and share with  the rest of us. Due to my busy schedule, I was not able to attend until the very last day. I'm glad I went. It wasn't about what I learned, but how I felt leaving the theater. 

Sometimes when I leave workshops or events I don't remember much. Instead, a feeling is embedded within me. A surge of encouragement and inspiration to write better, study harder, laugh longer, or dream bigger. I could take notes all I want, but they'll just end up in the bottom of my bag or in the trash weeks later. The reason I go to these things is to gain something to apply to my life. They help me to stay motivated and remind me why I do what I do. For any career people think there is a secret, a shortcut, or a quick fix to get them ahead. We rely on others as a guide to our own lives, but they can't tell us how to live our lives. These professionals don't know us and everyone's path is different. It's the same with asking people for help. They will recommend the "best" plan without understanding your background. Options that work for someone else may not work for you. Person A may need to take a quarter/semester off school, or get a second job, or move to another state for better opportunities. Person B might take a gap year, delete their social media accounts, or start a new business. I take what they with a grain of salt while acknowledging what I am capable of. Don't limit your aspirations and possibilities based off another person's life. Their limit is not your limit. Their footsteps are not your footsteps.


​*Photo by Ali Yahya on Unsplash.com

​Have you ever wondered what personality type your character has? I took a personality test for two of my characters in “Our Father”. These men are brothers and have very different lifestyles. I thought it would be interesting to take the test and see how they would answer them. The link is at the end if anyone wants to try it out.

They described Nathaniel as practical and more logical than emotional. People like him have dedication in their work. They believe honesty and loyalty are most important. This sounds like Nathaniel. He’s a bit of a loner, and has a tough time trusting those around him. It also said they go the extra mile for the people they care about, even if they do not understand their feelings. They also love to acquire new skills and knowledge. The second character I did was his brother, Jason. Reading through the results, I kept saying, “This sounds just like him!”. The results were spot on. It described him as being a kind person that cares for others and their happiness. People with his personality type are sensitive, analytical, and can be social. They are very altruistic and sometimes their accomplishments go unnoticed. 

Some of their traits did align with each other and I was kind of surprised. It makes sense though, they are very alike, but use those traits differently. They are both very caring of others and emotional. Nathaniel doesn’t have handle his emotions, while Jason sometimes suppresses them. This is a great tool to use if a writer wants to understand their character personally. I do wish I’d done this last year when I restarted “Our Father”. Recognizing your characters as humans and not just characters in a book makes them well-rounded. Their personalities drive the story. It is about them. Someone who suppresses their emotions is bound to explode at some point and that should show in the story. A reader can relate to them and comprehend their actions, or why they said certain things. Like I said, it's a great tool to use, even to understand yourself more.


*Photo by Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash
**Test used: https://www.16personalities.com/

Dividing an essay into manageable chunks makes it a straightforward task. I don’t write papers in one day. In fact, it takes me three days to a week to complete one paper. Why? I write a couple hundred words a day. For the example I am using today, that paper was 3,487 words and some days I wrote 500 words, other days I wrote a thousand. Some people can crank out thousands of words and finish a whole paper in two hours. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t operate that way. I l enjoy creative writing, but I have a strong dislike for essays. Whether you can crank out those words or not, my method can be a viable alternative to use.

As an example, I will refer to a paper I wrote for my Popular Music of the world class. We had to analyze at least two non-western songs and connect it to the topics we covered in class. I copied the Paper prompt and pasted it into Microsoft Word to create an outline. Here are four key things to successfully plan out your essay for easy writing.

1. Answer specific questions/directions in the prompt. By doing this, you won’t miss adding something important for your topic. I recommend copying and pasting the prompt in Word or Google docs.                    


2. Find sources to include and organize it under questions/directions from the prompt that correspond with it. 
a. The bold parts are what were necessary to include in the paper. I used bullet points underneath each piece of direction for the research aka websites and scholarly journals.

​3. Organize everything you have into an outline

4. Proofread! As you finish each section, proofread it before you move on.

Extra tips: Once you have a strong outline, assign each paragraph topic a day. Example
Saturday: Intro; 
Sunday: Country background for Ghana;
Monday: Country background for Nigeria; 
Tuesday: Genre background for Highlife; 
Wednesday: Genre background for Afrobeats; 
Thursday: Highlife song analysis; 
Friday: Afrobeat song analysis and conclusion

Once you've finished, send a draft to a friend or if your school offers tutoring, use that option. Another pair of eyes may detect an issue with the topic or a grammatical error.

Using this method has improved my grades when it comes to essays and I hope it does the same for you!

*Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash.com

 
Poetry is not about words sounding pretty. It’s not about depression. It’s not about love. Your creativity, experiences, emotions, and your words define poetry. A poem does not only consist of stanzas with four lines each in ABAB format. Poetry exists as a method to express. Poetry speaks the words you cannot say. Illustrates a feeling you cannot draw. Poetry releases those things and creates a story that embodies everything you want it to. I’ll give you some tips on how to do that.

Let’s begin with imagery. Imagine a setting. Smell the air. See the scene. Close your eyes and immerse yourself in it. Allow your senses to deliver words of description. The thing about poetry it’s all about experiencing your words and a lot of patience. For me, I can’t interrupt myself or the flow will stop. Once you feel that, don’t take a break yet. Start by describing what you hear or what’s outside your window.

Next, is using a thesaurus. Have a page open either on a phone or computer. Sometimes our vocabulary is not expansive enough to give us proper words to use. “Walk” may work, but “stroll” is better. I constantly look up synonyms to everyday words. It’s not about it sounding fancy. You as the writer want to convey a message. Specific words relay that message better than others.

Next, is structure. I tend to leave this until the very end. After reading through the whole poem I create line breaks. The way it's broken up can change a poem. If there are many situations going on, breaking it up in the right parts is important. If the top part speaks about mistakes and the bottom is about redemption, finding the right place to separate those two helps a reader. Organization in poetry helps the flow. Poetry has guidelines, but don’t feel confined to them. It can have stanzas, or it could be a paragraph. It can be half a page or several pages.

Now for the poem itself. I like to start with feelings. Am I cold, upset, stuck (metaphorically), etc. With writing about another person, you can begin with their physical description, their personality, how they make you feel, or an action. If your poem is referring to a memory, describe the scene and why that memory has stuck with you for so long. If you have absolutely no idea what to write about, look around the room. Pick a color and a couple random things or do I what I do and write random sentences. Something will spark an interest and your mind will get creative. It’s like bait. A sentence will stand out and an entire poem can come out of it. Here’s an example of mine:

I turned around to find a friend

I turned around to the end

As solid ground flew away 

I called out to the sky

Because she never said bye


​Cancel the dreams

Undo the seams

She has gone and left me here

Unraveled and unclothed without my friend

Is this truly the end?

I wrote several lines after the first two, but didn’t like the way it sounded. I kept the first two and took off from there. I created a pattern of two lines of rhyme, a break, and two more lines of rhyme. I almost deleted the first draft, but those two lines stuck out to me. It’s not the greatest, but gives you an idea. Poetry comes from within and as with any art, it is difficult to “teach”. Keep sharpening the tool. Never let the mind dull. Everyday brings new inspiration. You need to stay alert and grab at it when the opportunity arises. Keep a notebook with you at all times or download a notebook app. Challenge yourself to writing a poem at the end of the week for a month. Practice, progress, and perfect.

*Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash.com

 Have you ever picked up a book, opened it to the first page and read the first line? Yes? Well have you ever put the book back because you didn’t like the first line or paragraph? First impressions whether on paper or in person can be crucial. The most important work history goes on top in a resume to catch a potential employer’s eye. It’s the same with the beginning of a book. Something needs to grab the reader and make them want to continue reading. They say the beginning of a book should give readers an insight on what the story will be about. Yet, it could be a quote, dialogue, or a foreshadowing. The plot is what will entice someone to read your piece of writing. Nonetheless, I’m going to share some of my first lines/paragraphs and comment on why they work. By the end of this, you will have an idea on how to create an enticing beginning for your story.

 These lines are from my book “Down to the Chase”. “My body convulses at the sight of the dead man lying in the middle of the alley. Blood pools around his abdomen, as his life slowly trickles out of him. Shallow breathes kill the silent night. The cold knife slips out of my hand and clangs to the ground.” These lines are my favorite openers. I wrote this book during Nanowrimo 2014 and I don’t know what type of creative juices were flowing that day. The whole first page is spectacular in fact. The story starts off with the end of a fight. Main character Deonte, stabbed not just anyone, but his girlfriend’s ex. Yep. I wanted to catch the aura of this scene. I wanted readers to be there, feel Deonte’s desperation and the weight of killing a man.

 My novel “Our Father”, begins with a poem and the first lines are, “The man staring back at me is not the same man they remember. I’m renewed. Life has breathed itself back into me. I am new. I am stronger.”

 This is a thought by my character Nathaniel, who is stalking his former best friend. These lines express how Nathaniel strives to become better while also distancing himself from the past. When I started this story five years ago it opened with Robyn -his old best friend- waking up at her friend’s house. It was more interesting to begin with Nathaniel and let readers see the mystery beforehand and wonder who this person is. As the chapters goes on, readers will understand Nathaniel is someone “scary”, “cunning”, a dear friend and brother. This beginning's purpose is to introduce a character and his motives.

· Next story is “Being a Model”. The first two lines are, “I breathe in the unique New York scent. A little wet and salty.”

 This beginning opens with scenery. My character is coming in from a small town in Texas to the Big Apple, a dream of hers. My idea was to start with her coming in from the airport and get her reaction to New York. My initial idea was to have her already established in NYC, but this beginning made more sense. This is the crucial element in writing a great beginning. Write something that helps the story move along. It paves a way for the rest of the story. The way you start it could change the plot in several ways.

 Finally, “The Other Side of the Mirror”. “In Madagascar, we don’t look the same. We are one people. We are the Malagasy people.” I begin with this quote and then a prologue, “We watched as the car rumbled away from our humble home. The home that couldn’t take care of our baby girl.”

 The quote is important for the Malagasy culture. It doesn’t explain what it means. The people of Madagascar have great diversity ancestry and culture. Their ancestors come from East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. As for the prologue, this sets up the rest of the story. It has a background explanation and a foreshadowing. My main character Volana, has Alopecia Areata and is adopted. In this prologue both of those things are expressed with an ending scene of her biological mother’s hair falling out. The beginning of a book is a road map for the rest of the story. Hopefully from reading my first liners it gave you inspiration on how to start your masterpiece.

It's How-to January! Each Saturday this month I'm talking about how to write  different things. Next week's topic is about poetry.

​*Photo by Matthew Sleeper on Unsplash.com