The Mark

This is a poem based from my story "The Ties That Bind." If you're not familiar with the story, I hope you enjoy it anyway.

I bear the mark in my wrist.
I can't buy or sell without it.
Without it, I don't exist.

The numbers 666 are not marked on me;
though some people would say I do.
They would say I am part demon.

I hear others' thoughts,
make things fly,
see into their souls.

I bear the mark of being
different,
special,
a freak,
gifted,
whatever label you want to give me.

I mark myself as
homo sapiens,
human,
a person,
an individual,
just another human being.

I bear the mark of being me.

You bear the mark of accepting that.

What To Say

Now that I have the astronomical number of three followers, I should update more often.

What to say?

I don't know.

I'll be in my twenties in three weeks and two days.

I can't wait for this semester to be over.

I hope I get the classes I want for summer and fall.

I need to find a summer job.

Character Schizophrenia

Why are my characters always in my head?

Characters in stories I haven't even written because I have several other stories that I am working on or that I need to plan and research for.

Last night, I had a new character pop into my head. Her first name is Ophelia. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father is an English professor who hates modern society and kept his daughter sheltered from the outside world.

Ophelia is nineteen and works in a used bookstore. She never wears pants because she was raised to never wear them. She listens to folk and classical music and doesn't watch TV. She studies Classics and English Literature at her college. She was homeschooled and can speak or at least read and write in several different languages.

She's a snob and naive of the world outside of her sphere.

What am I going to do with her? I don't know, but I'll come up with something.

A career in speech pathology

I think I have finally decided what career I want.

Speech pathology.

I'm interested in words and language and how they work together. It has job security, good pay, and job flexibility.

At my education field experience this semester, I watch a speech pathologist when the class I help with and watch is at art. I do plan on watching speech pathologists in other settings, but a school setting is all I can do now.

I wish my school had a Communication Sciences and Disorders major. My plan right now is to switch from an English Education major to an English Literature major. I will take classes that would help me prepare for classes such as courses in child psychology, language development, anatomy, etc. I also hope to graduate in two years and take at least a semester off before grad school because I know I will be burned out. I could work and do some traveling on my time off from school.

Those are my plans for now. They might change.

If anyone reads this post and is a speech pathologist or studying to be one, I would appreciate some advice about the profession, classes to take, etc.

No progress on my paper yet. I really should work on it today because it's due Thursday morning.

I wrote one more part for my other story. No planning or researching For the Greater Good yet. I think I'll wait until after finals which will be the week after next.

I don't know what I'm going to do during my Christmas break.

If anyone does read this, please ignore my whining in my August 16th post. I guess I was feeling a bit emo.

Update on me.

I finally found a job. I'm a writing tutor at my college tutoring center.

I finished my first rough draft of my first book. I just have to get started on the prequel sometime. The current working title for the prequel is For the Greater Good. I hope to get some planning, research, and outlining done on it over Thanksgiving break if I don't have much homework.

I don't want to write my lit paper today, but I need to have five pages by Tuesday morning. Oi.

Writing and Coping With Loneliness

Loneliness is a bitch.

There, I said it.

I doubt that many people would disagree with me. I'm not talking about solitude and spending time alone, which is a must need for anyone, especially for an introvert such as myself. I'm talking about the nobody-wants-you-around-and-you-want-a-friend-to-spend-time-with type of loneliness.

I don't know if anyone is interested in the ramblings of a nineteen-year-old aspiring author who doesn't know what she wants from life. Ideally, I would make a living from writing, but in reality, I need a career or a practical job that will pay the bills until I make my big break. That's what I'm going to college for, right? I write almost every day, trying to learn a craft that has been practiced for centuries.

Other people have complimented my writing and my plot. A fellow writer on the site I post on says I have great potential and that I'm just a very young writer with a lot to learn. I admit that I still have a lot of learn and need a lot of practice before I'm publishable. Now why did I go from writing about loneliness and to writing about writing?

Because for me, I believe that writing is a way for me to cope with my loneliness. Now I am not putting all writers into a stereotypical role in which they are depressed and never see people or the day of light. I am talking about me personally.

Now don't get me wrong. I love writing. I have always loved to read. I believe my new love of writing stems from my love of reading. I enjoy making up stories. I have always imagined what might have been in books I have read. I love writing. I know I am good at it and will improve the more I use and practice my ability.

I enjoy all of my time I spend reading and writing and imagining. I like spending time on the Internet and I have made friends on the sites I belong to, but I miss human contact.

I don't live alone. I live with my grandmother, but she is sixty years older than me and we don't have much in common. Yes, I have a driver's license and I do go to college, but I don't have a lot of close friends.

I don't mind talking to people, but I don't like to spend all of my time with people. I prefer to entertain myself.

I think all of my loneliness stem from grade school where I was ostracized for whatever reasons my classmates chose. I don't think I helped myself by overreacting sometimes, but I've haven't been comfortable in social situations, outside of school, with those my age in years. Now I have the attitude that I shouldn't bother anybody outside of school, I shouldn't waste anybody's time when they could be spending it with someone they like more, and that nobody wants to be my friend.

I know that I'm overreacting and possibly paranoid. I worry over whether I say the right thing. I don't want to seem annoying or overbearing. I like to think I'm a likeable person, even if I'm somewhat socially awkward.

Maybe that's why I write characters who are dealing with tough situations, where they feel lonely and like no one knows what they are going through. My writing does tend to be overtly dramatic. I think it's because of my lonely life and of the pent up feelings that I only feel comfortable releasing on the Internet in my writing.

I don't know if anyone will read this, but if there are any other lonely people out there, go ahead and reply.