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March 19, 2024, 09:22:18 pm

Author Topic: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat  (Read 7066 times)

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The Cat In The Hat

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The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« on: November 28, 2020, 04:32:39 pm »
+10
I figured I may as well make my own thread. I'm a story writer and almost finished (I hope!) NaNoWriMo for the fifth year. This will probably have excerpts, my favourite bits, from that novel/ones in the same series. It is titled 'To Kindle A Flame'. Comments are very much welcome, including feedback like how you feel it could be improved, etc. Be as harsh as you like.

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The Cat In The Hat

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2020, 06:02:37 pm »
+5
Am I allowed to double-post in my own creative journal-thing? ;)
So just a bit of context: the story is essentially that of a search for truth by a futuristic girl. She had always believed what she got told to be truth, and then the Bible came into her radar and she realised that she really had to make a choice. Her name is Adira, her mother's Dorothy, her friend/adopted sister's Emily, her friend met during the book Tom, and the mentor-type helping Adira to discover things (without bias, but he does agree with the Bible not the Ruler, the competing ideology), Mr Saunders.
My first excerpt, quite possibly my favourite:

Suddenly awakening to the time, Adira hurried out of the building and into the twilight. I spent all day here? she marvelled inwardly. The time had gone by like a flash as she avidly consumed the words on the pages of the book. When she closed her eyes, briefly, she thought she could still see them, sharp and clear and confusing.
What if everything she had always been told… wasn’t true?
Was it possible?
[…]
What was the truth?
The questions buzzed around her head like a thousand flies that were trapped in there. All of a sudden they seemed like weights that lay heavily on her, a burden that would not go away. If that was truth — then all she had learnt, all she had been taught, was lies.
An ugly word.
What if?
« Last Edit: November 29, 2020, 09:03:58 pm by The Cat In The Hat »
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ATAR 85
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Y1T2:
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HNN122 (double)
HNN114
I hope I don't fail....
Listens to Amira Willighagen and Alma Deutscher and a little Marjolein Acke
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The Cat In The Hat

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2020, 09:03:32 pm »
+7
Today I finally got to introduce one of my favourite characters (at ~45K words). I rather like the way I introduce him (wrote this pretty much just now), although it definitely needs a lot of work. In this, Emily and Adira are out shopping at the market. The tildy is a scene break.



[...] In near-silence, the pair went through the shopping list uneventfully.
With one item to get, something happened.
Emily misjudged the distance between herself and someone else and nearly knocked the short, hurrying man off his feet. He turned, his face in almost complete shadow from his hat, which was tilted low over his forehead, partly in an attempt to recover his balance.
In the process, his gaze fell on Emily.
~
I hate crowds. Someone bumped against Neil for the second time that morning, and he glanced up, ready to let loose a verbal tirade against the disturber of his peace, then let it go out of sheer exhaustion. This day of all days I have no patience. He pulled his hat down lower over his face, hoping that no unlucky chance would make him meet anyone he’d once known. Something he had feared ever since…. He cut off the thought halfway.
Now he could barely see. Great. But still, it was better than the alternative. Head down low, Neil charged through the crowd, his small yet surprisingly solid frame ploughing through the people. Maybe I should go to a different market; this one’s getting horribly busy now.
The last item on his list was got, his small robotic shopping trolley running obediently behind him. It crossed his mind that the manufacturers must have had a sense of humour; no sane person would have constructed a shopping trolley with the ordinary structure, but adding on a head to give instructions to, and short legs to allow the device to run after its owner, instead of wheels or traction pads. He was faintly aware of surprised and sometimes annoyed glances as his trolley followed him. That make was from long ago, well, eleven years ago. No one had those any more.
Neil didn’t care. He just wanted to get his supplies for the month and get out again. Once more he inwardly cursed the deliverers and their determination that being out on an island, he could hardly expect them to deliver food and other necessities of life to him: he had to leave his home and go there. His lips turned down at the remembrance, and it was followed by a whole host of inconvenient memories.
This was definitely the wrong day to come: the eleventh anniversary of the day his life stopped.
Another person knocked into him as he charged towards the exit, with no other thought than to get out of the place. In stumbling to get his balance, Neil looked up through the shadow cast by his akubra and looked straight into a pair of eyes that he knew.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2020, 09:05:06 pm by The Cat In The Hat »
VCE 20
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ATAR 85
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Y1T2:
HNM102
HNN122 (double)
HNN114
I hope I don't fail....
Listens to Amira Willighagen and Alma Deutscher and a little Marjolein Acke
~English - PM for P&P/creatives help~
Creative excerpts
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For Narnia and for Aslan!

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The Cat In The Hat

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2020, 09:18:39 pm »
+8
In celebration of just having won NaNoWriMo (literally just now) I shall put up another excerpt.



“Well,” he said with a flicker of a smile, “that’s a question I can’t answer. Stuff happened to me, and I had to get out of there. Look, kid, I’m sorry, and maybe if I went back and had it over again, I’d do it differently — ”
~
He stood in purest shock as the words came from his mouth and, unbidden, called up a whole host of recollections.
I’d do it differently. He had scarcely thought of it before, in the time after the nightmare began. But now, now that he’d said it aloud, Neil began to wonder if it wasn’t true.
I had to do that. I had to get away. Or was that run away?
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts that were occurring to him, unsettling ones.
VCE 20
HHD MM Revs (F/R) Eng T&T
ATAR 85
Uni 21-24: BNursing/BMidwifery @ Deakin
Y1T2:
HNM102
HNN122 (double)
HNN114
I hope I don't fail....
Listens to Amira Willighagen and Alma Deutscher and a little Marjolein Acke
~English - PM for P&P/creatives help~
Creative excerpts
Nur/Mid uni journal

For Narnia and for Aslan!

she/her

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2020, 09:38:57 pm »
+3
- snip from above -

Hey Cat in the Hat! :)

Congratulations, this is amazing news, thanks for sharing! ;D These excerpts have been a good read too :)

Coolmate 8)
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 09:40:34 pm by Coolmate »
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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2020, 07:46:49 am »
+4
CONGRATULATIONS The Cat In The Hat! So proud <3
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The Cat In The Hat

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2020, 12:50:35 pm »
+3
Thank you both!

This is just a one-sentence-er, but I wrote it and it felt so sad and real I couldn't resist breaking other people's hearts too. Poor little Emily - she was mad at him, and then it just deflated into this. But maybe that's just me....




“You never said goodbye.” There was reproach in Emily’s voice, her lips quivering a little. “I was just a kid, and I was waiting for my uncle to come back, and you never did.”
VCE 20
HHD MM Revs (F/R) Eng T&T
ATAR 85
Uni 21-24: BNursing/BMidwifery @ Deakin
Y1T2:
HNM102
HNN122 (double)
HNN114
I hope I don't fail....
Listens to Amira Willighagen and Alma Deutscher and a little Marjolein Acke
~English - PM for P&P/creatives help~
Creative excerpts
Nur/Mid uni journal

For Narnia and for Aslan!

she/her

Basically inactive now. May change. Have a nice day.

The Cat In The Hat

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Re: The Creative Endeavours of a Cat
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2021, 09:48:20 pm »
0
I've been waiting to write this section for ages. I haven't done it justice, but that's for the next few drafts... right? Any corrections are gladly welcomed!

Slowly, Adira opened the door.
Tom stumbled inside and towards her, leaning heavily on her for support. Shockingly, he was weeping, dry, convulsive sobs that shook his whole frame.
“Come inside.” It was no time to ply him with questions. She led the young man to the living room, where he collapsed into a chair; his face was white. As she watched it seemed to go past white into grey, giving her a moment of fear that he could faint.
At last she said softly, “What’s wrong?”
Tom’s head had been bowed; now he raised it, looking stricken, though with more colour in his cheeks than before.
“You’re right, Adira. Everything you’ve said is true. And I’ve believed a falsehood all my life!”
VCE 20
HHD MM Revs (F/R) Eng T&T
ATAR 85
Uni 21-24: BNursing/BMidwifery @ Deakin
Y1T2:
HNM102
HNN122 (double)
HNN114
I hope I don't fail....
Listens to Amira Willighagen and Alma Deutscher and a little Marjolein Acke
~English - PM for P&P/creatives help~
Creative excerpts
Nur/Mid uni journal

For Narnia and for Aslan!

she/her

Basically inactive now. May change. Have a nice day.