Reading to Know You

“Could I talk to you?”

I’ve been locked up for 264-days.

The train station at Pebbleton, dark and sooty though it was, glistened in the mist.

The world might be sunny-side up today.

It was a little after midnight when Lance McKendrick left his tiny bedroom in Max Dalton’s New Jersey base and padded barefoot through the corridors and out into the base’s large garage.

I am an hourglass.

These are all the first sentences in books that are, or have been, my favorite books.

This was before I knew the characters

who I now love

this was before I knew their fears,

loves,

goals,

and failures.

This was before I meet some of my closest friends

and also people who I would never like to meet.

These words were the first judgement I made about the characters,

not their appearance, voice, or reputation.

In books,

it is so strange because I am reading to know people.

It doesn’t matter that they are made out of ink and paper

or caffeine inspired imagination.

What matter is that these people, these characters,

live and breathe in my heart.

That is were it counts.

With each word written I get to know the character

better

and better.

But their lives do not come to a stopping halt

when the last period is placed

and the finally page is turned.

They continue to live on in my heart.

That is were it counts.

“Why?”

I’m ready.

After all he had accomplished, and considering how much he had learned and how far he had come, it is a curious fact — indeed, a remarkable one — that what Nicholas wanted now, more than anything, was to get started.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind.

“He’s human,” Lance said. “And it’s about time he understood what being human really means.”

“I can’t wait to watch them try.”

 

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Books in order of lines:

Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Hunter by Michael Carroll

Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Weather Forecast

I’ve built the world

pages ago.

I wrote the dark and dreary forests

and foraged the happy and hopeful meadows.

I created the trees and carved my name in their trunks.

I scrawled the birds and now I watch them fly.

I’ve built the world,

but that was pages ago.

But now,

Now

I make the world dance!

I get to decide whether it will rain on the forest and meadow,

whether my characters will cry and fight

or

will it be a sunny bright day without a cloud in sight

where my characters will laugh and smile.

That’s the magic,

I decide.

I create

and now I get to control the weather forecast.

My characters are written in pages

and live in my heart.

They are so close to me,

I know them so well.

I devise people who I love

but someone who I would be scared to meet also.

I know their fears and loves

their mother’s first name and their children’s best friend.

I fabricated this world,

all the plants, animals, and stone walls.

But then I start to wonder,

if I feel this way about a world only typed,

not alive.

How does God feel about us?

Pixabay/user:geralt

ON or OFF

It’s like I have an ON and Off button

Either I am full on and it just comes to me

Or I don’t feel like creating a single string of words

When I read I have no motivation to write whatsoever

Yes, I know that it is the opposite for most people

but I know the characters

I study the writer’s style

And creating my own words do not seem appealing to me

When I read a novel,

it’s like a forced writer’s block

But when I only write

I forgo all the exhilarating people

living in the pages tightly shoved on my bookshelf.

I started a book

and now reading is the only thing I want to do.

Not because it is so good

(which it is, I love the writing style!)

but because I have prolonged my thirst

for a person’s life played out in a few hundred pages

I look at the world and my thoughts around me

and have an urge to make sense of them

through words artfully created

But when my eyes absorb the words

of thoughts and emotions of characters

I look to them

and not my own

leaving me to have no need to sort through them.

Oh, the joys of books

but the heartbreaks of not writing!

It’s like I have an ON and Off button

Pixabay/Unsplash

Forged From Fiction

To create a life made of fiction

Made only from imagination

Making one’s personality

before ever meeting

Searching for the perfect name

Quirky, yet beautiful

A face that is comfortable, yet interesting

Fabricate someone only to meet in ink and pages

Crafting out of clay

Molding into someone believable

and real

Dynamic

Smooth, but rough

Someone who has secrets yet to uncover

A character with levels

I’m able to create a new friend

but someone who I would be scared to meet also

Who lives an ordinary life turned astonishing

All made from a spark of imagination

I’m making a person

Forged from fiction

into our reality

My Missing Character: A Rondeau

 My never ending character

last period such a fervor

but in mind they never leave

for the good and the bad you grieve

of them you hope for a glimpser

 

More than figment, they go further

A direction to your future

From ink to matter, interweaves

My never ending character

last period such a fervor

 

Now I’m wishing for their valor

Willing to be a lifesaver

Wishing not to underachieve

Trying to be my character

My never ending character

last period such a fervor

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I just finished the Superior Spider-man series and I want more Otto Gunther Octavius and Anna Maria Marconi!