Perhaps they are nothing more than bedtime stories, fairytale notions, and dreams that can never quite be, told to children to help them sleep, as a momentary reprieve from their nightmares or reality.
Hoping for a happy ending is like hoping you’ll win the lottery jackpot, despite more odds being against you than in your favour, a roll of the dice, the luck of the draw, a game of chance on which you stake your bet.
Perhaps there is no such thing as “happy ever after.” Maybe there is only “happy” and “ever after,” two rooms, adjacent and connected but impossible to reside in at the same time.
Perhaps a happy ending, is making peace with the fact that not all endings are happy, ever after, riding off into the sunset and maybe happy for now is the best that you get.
We do not always get closure even if we want it or perhaps sometimes we do, but it does not take the shape we had imagined. Sometimes it comes earlier than we expect, sometimes far later, and sometimes not at all. We cannot control closure nor sometimes can we control the circumstances to us needing it to begin with. Sometimes things are what they are, and closure means things are never really closed, full of open ending and unanswered questions, and lessons, learned. Perhaps being okay with no closure at all, is the only true closure that is ever really earned.
I am not my worst mistakes. I am not the things I cannot change. I am not irredeemable, though my mind tells me I am, because there is at least a small part of me, that can make amends. The wanting and trying to change is proof, is it not, that I have a conscience – one that overthinks and ruminates on all that has past, and all that has been lost? Mistakes are worthwhile if you learn from them. If you don’t – is where you fail. I am perhaps the biggest cautionary tale, of losing friends. I wanted to be friends with everybody but I realise now that I cannot. I have to pick and choose – between befriending all, and being a friend, to a few.
Red. Scarlet Red. Like the colour of their blood. A horror, lies in Flanders Fields, between the rows of us.
We ask not for mercy, just to remember what befell, and through the sea of ruby red, a story we must tell.
We are a mark, a reminder, a memory, telling tales of courage and men who paid their debt. And beneath the days of golden rays, we vow: “lest we forget.”
I love writing challenges. They’re a great way to stimulate your imagination, practice your skills, and encourage creative thinking. For me, I find them especially useful if I hit writer’s block, as although they impose restrictions in one aspect, I can write freely in others–and usually what I end up producing is something unexpected, but often useful.
Recently, I challenged one of my best friends, Isaac, to write a short story without using the letter “A”, and wanting to exercise my own writing muscles, I decided that it was only fair that I, too, take on the challenge. Here are a few things I learnt:
We use more words containing the letter “A” than we realise. I would estimate that 90% of our daily language consists of sentences with words including this letter–from conjunctions and nouns, to verbs and adjectives. And trying not to use any words with this letter is a complete and utter mission. Forbidden words include: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘am’, ‘as’, ‘at’, ‘are’, ‘was’, ‘also’, ‘can’, ‘what’, ‘had’, ‘have’, ‘said’, ‘any’, ‘say’, ‘that’, ‘than’, ‘all’, ‘again’, ‘back’, ‘because’, ‘about’, ‘make’, ‘take’, ‘way’, ‘want’, and ‘after’.
Trying to construct a complete, concise sentence without using the letter ‘A” is hard. There are so many things that you want to say, that you want to say in a specific way, but you just can’t.
You have to be clever. So, I can’t use ‘I have’, but I can use ‘I’ve’. I can’t use ‘and’ but I can end sentences and begin new ones. I can’t use ‘a’ but I can use ‘the’. You have to be extremely selective with the words you use and how you use them.
Here is what I managed to come up with:
The lights in the house flickered one by one, the silence creeping in through every sliver. Somewhere beyond the river, the trees, owls cooed, wolves howled, wind whistled in the breeze. The boy knelt, keeled over, wheezing, the glistening pools of liquid ice, quickly freezing below his feet. The chill enveloped him, like piercing knives deep into his spine, the whine, the whine of piercing cries, echoing. ‘I come in kindness,’ the voice whispered. ‘Lies,’ the boy replied. ‘You do not seek good.’ The boy hiccoughed, sobbing into his shirt, sodden with dirt. ‘My mother is gone. My sister too. You took them from me.’ ‘They left willingly.’ ‘More lies,’ the boy replied. ‘You took them in the night. Destroyed their minds. Twisting, turning their thoughts into fictions where they felt they could not go on. You left me on my own.’ ‘Their choice.’ ‘More lies. You do not know freedom. You simply collect souls until your collection is complete.’ ‘My boy… it is not my choice. I follow orders. My list of souls… it differs every week. Some slither into the ether, where I struggle to find them. Others seek me out like I seek them.’ ‘But…’ ‘Hush, boy. Do not worry. It is not your soul I’ve come to collect.’ ‘If not me… then who?’ The voice did not reply. The owls cooed; the wind whistled; the wolves howled. Silence surrounded the boy once more. From the house, the lights flickered out of control–more quickly with every second ticking by, before stopping swiftly. Then, he felt it deep within his bones: the blood-curdling cry… the sound of the voice collecting his next victim.
What do you think?
In my opinion, it’s not bad. It’s not great, but considering the multitude of words I couldn’t use, I’m quite happy with it! I may have to have another go at some point in the future, perhaps writing something a bit more upbeat because this took an awfully dark tone which was unexpected… but then, I guess that’s the beauty of these challenges because you never know what kinds of things you’re going to end up creating!
Why don’t you have a go at this challenge and see what you can come up with? (And if you do, please tag me in your posts, because I’d love to see them!)
I am learning, slowly to be okay with the things that I am not okay with, loose endings broken friendships with no reparation in sight.
I am learning to let go and not hold on so tight, to let memories be instead of thinking of them tainted.
What’s done is done. What’s past is past. There is no use in looking back for it will do nothing to help you move on, when yesterday us gone. The only direction is forward.
Perspective is all we gain from hindsight, watching the road in the rearview mirror, seeing how far we’ve come and of how things might look different be different if we had made different choices and taken different roads, said ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’, and ‘yes’ instead of no, knowing when to keeps our mouths closed.
Loose lips sink ships and I have sunk a few, accidentally with excitement and wanting people to talk to. I did not think of the consequences, and was blind to the unforseen circumstances, until the rose-coloured glasses shattered upon my eyes, and I saw things for how they are, not how I wished them to be.
I am learning to be okay with refusal of apologies, for my actions though I have tried to apologise but perhaps I am already the villain in some people’s eyes, more than I realise.
I am learning to be kay with the silence. Silence is serenity, sometimes necessary, and often tells you everything you need to know.
Perhaps the things that bother me now will not matter in a year, or so and they will be just memories of their own.
I am learning every day, how to be better and kinder, to know what not to say and to say to whom, to sit with these feelings that feel overwhelming and feel them, in the hope that someday soon they will shrink and dissolve and disappear into the ether.
Who am I to know?
I am learning that things change and so do people, and sometimes the greatest thing you can do for people is change yourself when you have become someone that is not authentic and you are not the person you know you are, when you hate the human being you’ve become.
I am learning that learning is constant a constant, ongoing, evolutionary process.
To learn is to progress.
Mistakes are a part of learning too, and to learn from them and start anew is to bloom, from bud to flower, phoenix from the ashes, all over again.
I should have listened when they said, “he will only get in your head, and make you think that you’re the problem, while he takes another girl to bed” but I just wanted to believe, all the things he said to me.
He doesn’t talk much, though his talk is sweet.
No, it’s not sadness – just regret from ignoring all the flags, though they were waving in the wind, bright and burning red.
I look back at my naivety, feeling stupid for letting him in, but they say the devil drives a hard bargain. How were I to know it came in the shape of a red corvette?
Dangerous deadly hazardous to the environment a simple carless spark, spreading a perfect solitary paradise engulfed in flames thick clouds of charcoal smoke against the azure sky as it burns for days, weeks, months on end merely a shadow of what it was of everything it used to be blackened broken barren burned beyond recognition the debris of ash and dust a mark of devastation destoryed by wildfire, lost forever.
Do not tell me how to be a woman to stop biting my lip because it turns you on to stop playing with my hair because it’s one of the things you like to stop being articulate because you find intelligent women sexy or to stop wearing my favourite dress because it reveals my legs just enough to keep you interested.
Do not tell me how to think how to act how to dress or what to do while you have a faithful girlfriend waiting for you at home.
Do not tell me how to be, just because you never really got over me.
You’re surrounded covered by darkness like a blanket but it is not warm or comforting.
It is cold, like shards of rice ripping through your skin deeper and deeper into your soul drawing you in until the light fades and is replaced with the nothingness, the abyss.
I saw you drive by my house this morning and I felt that familiar feeling that knot in my stomach that elevated heartbeat that I used to get when I knew you were coming to see me.
I think about you all the time, in the most uninteresting moments, because my mind wanders and I wonder are you thinking of me too?
Do you tell stories about me of the things we used to do together?
No, of course not… but, do you?
I thought about dialling your number but I decided against it.
She was the kind of friend that would have you dancing on tables and taking shots of Tequila at 3am reminding you how it feels to be a free spirit again.
I am enchanted by his magic smile that turned me weak at the knees his slicked back hair and his gravelly morning voice and the way he walked with his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. I am enchanted by his corny jokes and his childish banter, his love of black and white movies, and his captivating charm that reminded me of James Dean.
I am enchanted by the look in his eyes every time he looks at me and the way my name rolls off his tongue.
In a world of unfaithful, adulterous men, he is a gentleman.
These halls have changed so much since I have been away, that I barely recognise the place. It doesn’t feel the same. These walls do not understand me in the same way, they do not understand who I am or where I have been or share the memories that we built in them.
The tiles on the floors do not remember my footsteps, and these are not the same corridors that I have walked a thousand times. They do not remember the way I would laugh with my friends over an inside joke or the hard work I put in, or the the small moments in between that I worry I have forgotten.
They do not remember the times I cried, or the stories that have been told behind a beaten old locker before it was time to go home.
They do not remember the kisses and breakups the making up between friends the queues in silence before exams or two not quite lovers holding hands.
There used to be a photo of me upon the wall, but now there is a blank space no memory of me at all. Everything has been replaced with new people and new things and I find myself there, staring.
I thought that it would feel like returning to sacred ground overwhelmed with emotion the band playing out like the end of a movie, reminiscing.
He is sweet like American Pie drawing you in with the promise of being everything you’ve ever wanted the man of your dreams saying he will give you everything you need and love you like you’re his only Queen.
But make no mistake, he is not a knight in shining armour and he does not ride around on a white horse.
He will not come and save you.
He breaks his promises and he’s good at his disguise, because behind his charming smile and innocent eyes are perfectly rehearsed lies.
So don’t believe everything he tells you, for he is his father’s son, and after all, as you may know even the sweetest apple can be laced with poison.
She cared for him like a precious garden with flowers bursting from the ground a majestic masterpiece of exotic colour, lavender, bluebells, marigolds, roses, poppies, daisies, sunflowers, and petunias carefully planted and pruned the kind of garden that wins a prize
but then he broke her heart, and now
the garden is so overgrown with weeds and insects running wild trying to break free.
I looked at him, the first boy who ever loved me, the first boy I never loved back, and realised that not loving him was the wisest decision I ever made, as he could never be everything I need for I am a grown woman yet he is a grown man, stuck at sixteen.
We’re scared, terrified, terrified that this may not work, terrified that it’s the biggest mistake of our lives that this will end in heartbreak leaving us a lost cause and broken beyond repair.
We have never had anything like this.
From the moment I met you, I knew you were the one, between flirtatious banter and stolen glances my heart fell in love with yours.
It might be wrong, and dangerous, like comets colliding but I want to be bold.
There’s a carousel, like the ones you see at a fairground, in vibrant red and vibrant yellow, with intricate designs carved into every curve, with bright lights constantly beaming, where the horses jump from floor to ceiling, bound by the metal ropes, that hold them to the floor.
They can only go so far.
You ride the carousel, spinning faster and faster and faster and faster, your knuckles white as you hold on desperately, gripping for dear life, but you never slow down.
It’s been 81 days since you left and I still wait with bated breath for someone to exclaim that it is all a dream and what I know isn’t really happening.
It’s been 81 days since you last smiled a cheshire cat grin – the kind that makes you feel something, everything.
It’s been 81 days since you last spoke some words any words but being five thousand miles away I will never know what they were.
It’s been 81 days since I last saw your face on my screen as a human being alive pulse beating.
81 days later and it has yet to sink in that you’re not coming back that you will not laugh sing cry joke breathe or be again.
They tell you to be yourself but what good is it when they mock your health and your wealth?
‘Stand out from the crowd!’ they scream ‘Do your own thing!’ But how do you do your own thing when the thing you want to do is be like everyone else?
‘Stand up,’ they say, ‘even if you’re standing alone’ but how can you, when they are quick to break your bones and shatter your spirit, your dreams?
‘We must do what is right,’ they’ll say; that it is our responsibility to speak for those who are marginalised underrepresented undervalued unnoticed. But those saying such words are the first to criticise us for not being authentic, for being too white for black, too straight for gay, too rich for poor, too young for old, too uneducated to question what we’re told, to not take things at face value, because faces can mask the truth.
We are imposed with double standards but what if double did not exist and standards were simply to stand and fight for what is right and what is true without anybody humiliating, mocking, condescending or scolding you.
Imagine – you’re sitting on your sofa watching your favourite television show. Something really intense has happened. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad. But, as the episode is drawing to a close and your favourite characters are making emotional, thought-provoking speeches, you hear the familiar sounds of the piano as a beautiful, intense ballad begins to play. You reach for a tissue as a tear slips down your cheek…
If you’ve ever seen Grey’s Anatomy or nearly any other TV drama or film in existence then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
You know the feeling… the feeling when you hear a particular song on your Spotify, in a shop, or even on another show, and you know exactly where it would fit. Whether it’s in a hook-up scene, a breakup, or a goodbye scene… you just know.
Often when I’m writing, I have those exact moments. I’m sure we all do it. We see our stories like a movie in our head, and we know exactly what songs would play in the background of each scene.
Though, I know when it comes to film writers are not the sole decision-makers on what music appears where, I do feel that it helps us to write those scenes; and we are as emotionally attached to our own characters as we are to those that others have created that we have watched week after week for years.
That is why I decided to create ‘Ultimate Writing Playlists’, so if I am stuck, or there is a particular feeling that I want to evoke during a scene but I just can’t get it right, then I can press play or shuffle and hope that inspiration will strike! It has become an extremely useful tool, and just allows me to visualise the scene more clearly while letting the ideas flow.
If you haven’t got writing playlists of your own, then I highly recommend doing so. Of course, you don’t have to have separate playlists for different moods – you could have all of your ‘writing’ songs in one playlist, but I prefer having everything separately because I hate having to scroll through a long list to find the particular song with the specific vibe that I am after. I also find it far more organised, and I can see exactly what songs I have and the recommendations that Spotify gives are more tailored and accurate than if all the songs from all the playlists were just bundled together.
‘Okay,’ you’re thinking, ‘but where do I begin?’
Well, my friends… allow me to introduce you to my six writing playlists. Whether you want to follow them and use them for your writing, or simply find inspiration to create your own lists, I have linked all of them below for you to scroll through and listen to your heart’s content – each with a brief description above, noting the kind of songs in each and the sort of scenes I imagine them in.
Playlists:
Intros: Songs that I envision in opening scenes to a film/show that set the tone for the show – e.g, when the camera pans over the city. These could also serve as transition songs between scenes.
Badass Moments: When the character is about to be/being a badass. Goes hand in hand with some badass dialogue.
Powerful: Coupled with Badass Moments, but are a little less ‘badassy’ in their vibe and instead a little more ‘I’m strong and powerful’
Hot & Steamy: I think this is self-explanatory…
Emotional: The songs for the deep conversations, where the character loses somebody they love, where they’re reunited with someone for the first time in decades, where they’re contemplating their futures, someone proposes and scenes end on a happy note… a.k.a all the ballads, and songs that will make you cry both tears of sadness and tears of joy. (Could also title this: every single song that would work in Grey’sAnatomy.)
Miscellanous: Songs that don’t have any definitive category – they could fit in multiple places but I’m not yet sure which exact playlist to designate them to.
I hope that you find these helpful – I know I do. And of course, if you end up making your own writing playlists or there are songs you’ve heard that you think I might like to add to these, then please drop me a comment as you can never have too much inspiration to draw from!
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