Here’s another writing exercise, you might like.
It came from the week we looked at The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan. I’m fairly sure proper literary types are supposed to study the book and its inhabitants from a dispassionate point of view. However, I just loved Anais, the tragic kid at the heart of the story.
It’s a bit of a challenge to get into the head of a teenager and bring enough adult to make the character sympathetic and not just irritating and self-obsessed.
The photo was taken from the window of an office as a rainbow struck the building known as The Deaf School. It too is Gothic, spectacular and no longer fit for purpose. Apparently, it’s going to be turned into ritzy flats.
Here’s what I wrote:
It’s not that I hate them, it’s that they don’t get it. How could they possibly understand?
I suppose I pity them, actually. They just care about their stupid work and the neighbours and school and what people think and the future. What they don’t get is that my life is so much more than that. Or it will be.
I mean, how can you even care about all that shit if you don’t have love and passion. Actually it’s passion that is like the most important and not some stupid university place. Why would I want to waste four years on international relations or business studies or something bone-crushing dull like that.
Passion. Yes, that’s it.
I’m passionate about my friends, Suzy and Charlie. They get me. They feel it too. We can’t squander our lives in libraries or classrooms when there are issues that are worth fighting for. It’s like life is for living, isn’t it?
Suzy is passionate about animals. You can tell that she really really cares. Why else would you paint your body like a tiger and spend all day on that protest march? She really did look amazing, but then she always does. She lost heaps of weight when she went veggie.
I can see her point, but I’m just not getting the passion like she does. You should have seen her, proper sobbing when that cat from next door got run over.
Charlie has different passions. She is all about Ryan. They’ve been together since the S3 trip.
Her mother went batshit when she saw the tattoo on her arm, but I think it’s beautiful – so symbolic- put together with his it makes a picture of the world. I know on their own they look a bit like a cabbage leaf – though I’d never say that to her – but together it’s so meaningful. They are each other’s worlds.
I wish someone would do that for me. I mean be the most important person and that I would be theirs – a forever love. Someone that I mean the world to.
Mum says it’s stupid and they are too young to get tied down and tattooed, but I think she’s jealous. Dad would never do that, he hardly even notices she’s there. She said the tattoo will last longer than their relationship but she’s wrong.
My big passion, apart from Imagine Dragons of course, is athletics. Not that I’ve won anything yet, but Brian says I’ve got more raw talent than anyone he’s ever seen and it’s like I just have to be nurtured.
He says he’s never found anyone more rewarding to coach than me. That I’m so much better and more passionate than the other girls in the club. He says he’s going to give me extra sessions in the gym and at the track.
He wouldn’t do that for anyone, he said. Mum says that he’s a bit odd, but she doesn’t understand him either. He would have been a national champion if he didn’t have that injury when he was young. Not that he’s old now. It’s like he’s nearly 30, but you could never tell.
It’s OK though because he says he’ll take me to the training sessions. The ones he says will make all the difference, but I’m not going to tell mum. She wouldn’t understand.