kaylinwrites - Tumblr blog

kaylinwrites · 5 years ago

Text

Un-humble Origins: Journal 2

In my English class last semester, our final project was to write an essay on something to do with the arts. I decided to do an essay on how music influenced my life. I really loved how the entire essay turned out, but I’m only willing to post parts of it here. One of my favorite parts is the story of why I chose to play flute back in sixth grade in beginning band. This is that story, slightly edited for clarity.

[Originally written November 2019]

By: a nostalgic student that has thankfully matured since age 11

At the end of fifth grade, we had an assembly in the cafeteria, and the middle school band director brought in instruments for us to try out. There was no question in my mind about joining band—my sister had done tuba, and my best friend Amanda had been excited about it for months. I was also set on playing saxophone. In my mind, saxophone was the coolest possible instrument. It was jazzy, a fun shape, and an aunt that I loved had played it. Unfortunately, everyone else thought saxophone was the coolest possible instrument, too. The band director told us that there were always too many saxophones, so if we had a second choice, we should really go with that one. I was not deterred, however. We all broke up throughout the cafeteria to try out the various instruments. I got in the long, long line for the saxophone and settled down to wait, amongst the cacophony of squawking.

But as an easily distracted fifth grader, my attention wandered around, landing on a small crowd of kids around the flute. The helper was explaining that flute was a very difficult instrument for beginners, and not many people could make a sound on their first time trying.

At this point in my life, I had a very unfortunate collection of traits. I had been labeled a “gifted” child, which basically meant that I was good at most things, and I hadn’t yet experienced much failure. I had absolutely no humility, thought I was better than everyone else, and loved taking every chance I got to prove it.

So fifth grade Kaylin stepped out of the saxophone line and swaggered over to the flute group. I was certain it couldn’t possibly be that hard! Not for me, anyway! I watched several kids step up and fail to make any sound besides rushing air. Then it was my turn, and I approached with unwavering confidence.

“Just put it on your lip and blow,” the helper said.

Simple enough. I tried.

No sound.

Well, try again.

Nothing.

“That’s alright,” the helper said. “Maybe you can go try the clarinet or saxophone.”

I stalked away, fuming. Saxophone was apparently an easy instrument. Apparently, I should pick an easy instrument. I got back in the saxophone line.

My best friend, Amanda, skipped up to me to ask what instrument I was going to pick.

“I don’t know, probably saxophone,” I said bitterly.

“Well, I’m playing flute,” Amanda said. “You should play flute, too, so we can do it together!”

Just then, it was time to leave and give the band director our choice of instrument. I still hadn’t tried the saxophone. In fact, the only instrument I had tried was the cursed flute. I could have chosen saxophone anyways, but I thought about how everybody picks saxophone, how Amanda was playing flute, and the fact that flute had wronged me so horribly by not coming naturally to me.

I picked flute.

The rest is kind of history.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think that if I had chosen saxophone, I would be a vastly different person than I am today. It would have been too competitive for me, and I probably would have quit band altogether. I wouldn’t have met so many of the people that were huge influences on me, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunities for growth I’ve gotten.

This is the first time I’ve told the story of why I picked flute, but I’ve always remembered this story and kept it close to my heart because it really shows that one little happenstance can change the course of your life. So don’t be afraid to change your plans, even if you’re fueled by a desire to prove everyone wrong. Maybe especially then. The universe usually knows what its doing, even when you don’t.

#journal #personal #writing #flute #music #essay #long post #but not as long as some of my others

9 notes · View notes

kaylinwrites · 6 years ago

Text

Life of Pi, The Martian, and Man vs. Nature

[Started January 2019]

By: Somebody who firmly agrees that chemistry is a sloppy b****, and got irrationally upset when Richard Parker didn’t say goodbye. What an animal.

I’ve been out of the loop on here for a while, and I’ve got oversharing-syndrome, so I originally started this essay with a very long explanation of how reading on my phone made me suddenly into reading again. But then I was like, what, is Audible sponsoring me or something? As if.

So I’ll spare you the backstory. The short of it is, I ended up reading Life of Pi, and finished it within a few days. Reading a really good book is practically a drug, so I started a new book right away, another book everyone seemed to have read, The Martian.

I got about four chapters in before I started to think things were looking familiar.

If you haven’t read either book, you should. I’ll wait.

. . . . . . . . .

If you don’t have the time or patience for that right now, I’ll give you a quick summary of what goes on in each. If you’ve already read them and don’t care for my summaries, skip on down to the next row of dots.

Life of Pi is about an Indian guy named Pi, naturally. The first part of the book explains his childhood. Pi is the son of a zookeeper, so he knows a lot about animal behavior. When he’s sixteen, his family decides to move to Canada, so Pi, his brother, his parents, and a collection of zoo animals also headed for the Americas hop on a boat to cross the Pacific. On the journey, their boat sinks, and Pi is the sole human survivor. Other survivors and inhabitants of Pi’s 22 foot lifeboat include a zebra, a hyena, and briefly, an orangutan. (RIP Orange Juice.) Oh, and there’s also the tiger, but Pi doesn’t notice that at first because the tiger is seasick and was hiding under the tarp for the first, like, five days.

(Side note, that’s a very fun reveal, because everybody knows Life of Pi is the book with the tiger boat, so when we think the tiger isn’t there, it’s all like “Hey, where’s the tiger? I feel cheated out of a tiger”, and when the tiger shows back up, it’s all like “Oh s***, there’s the tiger.” Extremely good book.)

So the second half of the book is about Pi’s very unglamorous day-to-day life at sea. He eats raw fish and drinks turtle blood, and walks the fine tightrope of keeping the tiger happy so it won’t eat him, while also making sure the tiger knows he’s in charge, so it won’t eat him. Good thing he grew up in a zoo! Pretty stressful, constant threat of death, but a happy ending.

The Martian is a book set in, I’m assuming, the near future, wherein a group of astronauts are on a research mission to Mars. Six Sols (Mars days) in, there’s a big sandstorm, and the team has to evacuate and leave Mars altogether. Mark Watney, botanist, mechanical engineer, and all-around great guy, gets separated from the group as they make their way to their rocket (MAV, but whatever), and the team has reason to believe he’s totally dead, so they leave without him.

Surprise! Mark’s not dead, but he’s soon-to-be, because Mars is a deserted, uninhabitable, hell-planet. So, naturally, he has a crisis, but then decides he’s going to try to survive long enough for rescue. He starts growing potatoes, and tries to keep his equipment running long enough to contact NASA and tell them they messed up big time. There’s a lot of Mars shenanigans, which is to say, Mark almost dies a bunch of times, but he’s pretty smart. Good thing he’s a mechanical engineer! And botanist, I guess, but potatoes are less exciting than blowing up rocket fuel. Very stressful, constant threat of death, but a happy ending.

. . . . . . . . .

Way back in middle school, when we learned about conflicts, they taught us there were three types: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Self, and Man vs. Nature. I’ve heard they’ve added more now, but the only one I care about for this essay is Man vs. Nature anyways.

Man vs. Nature is all about the character(s) winning against a force of nature, be it a wild beast, a natural disaster, or even a zombie plague. Examples of Man vs. Nature stories could be anything from Lost to Jaws to Little House in the Big Woods to The Hunger Games. There’s a lot of possibilities, but the Man vs. Nature books that I’m interested in are survival stories.

More specifically, the type in which the main character is alone for most of the story. I haven’t actually seen Castaway, but I’m imagining that fits into this category. The idea is to throw a character into an unknown and hostile place, and see how they manage to survive alone.

I believe the first story of this type I read was in elementary school: Hatchet. Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem nearly as hardcore as getting stranded on Mars or being trapped in a lifeboat with a tiger, but that’s hindsight. When I was reading this at 11, it was an absolute thriller. It even had a moment of sick horror for me. I remember reading the chapter where Brian find the pilot’s decaying corpse and freaking out a little because it was the most graphic thing I’d ever read up to that point. Nevertheless, I remember that book as being adventurous, riveting, and very real.

I think one of the most interesting traits of these stories are the realism. If you’ve ever read The Martian, you know that the author definitely did his research. There’s something very cool about watching a character work out problems not with magic, or because they’re the chosen one, but with their wit and sheer determination. Life of Pi would not be nearly as fun to read if the tiger was just magically chill. Pi only survives because he knows how to work with wild animals, and while to some, that may seem convenient, I find it makes for a fascinating story.

This brings me to the first characteristic of survival stories that makes them so compelling: good old fashioned gritty problem solving. Because any problem that crops up in a survival situation has to be solved immediately or the outcome is likely death, it forces characters to find solutions. Sometimes these solutions are quite creative. Sometimes they go horribly wrong.

This connects to the second reason survival stories are so interesting: the main character is alone. They have to do everything themselves. And if it goes wrong, there’s no one there to pull them out of the s***.

The Power of Friendship is a fantastic trope. No one can deny that seeing characters band together to accomplish their goals and become closer as a result makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And exploring the way characters interact with one another and develop their relationships is interesting, sure. But isolating a character is also a goldmine of a trope. Think of the episode of a show where the rest of the team is incapacitated and the remaining team member has to save the day all on their own. It allows that character to prove themselves as a competent problem solver, and show their strengths, and in the end, they save their friends, and there’s all the more Power of Friendship.

But when the character that’s isolated doesn’t have any friends, so to say, what happens? Being indefinitely cut off from the rest of the world makes for some interesting exploration of humanity as a whole.

From a writing perspective, it’s a fascinating challenge. For one, when your main character is your only character, they have to be able to carry the story by themselves. In Life of Pi, the first half of the book is devoted to letting the reader get to know Pi, so they’ll be rooting for him, and understand his thought process a bit better. The Martian throws backstory to the wayside and tosses the reader headfirst into a catastrophe. The reader is hooked for the time being, and by the time the initial catastrophe is over, Mark has proven himself charismatic and likable, so the reader is alright with following this story through his lens.

There’s also the psychological side of things, the reflection, which is the third thing survival stories do that’s weird and awesome. The writer can decide how much focus to put on the character’s sucky situation. The Martian plays this pretty light: Mark has a few moments of existentialism, but he hangs on to his humor and general will to live throughout the entire novel. Mark’s narration never truly loses the personality that made it so likable in the first place, even if it gets a stronger undercurrent of “F*** Mars” as the story progresses. In his situation, the threat of death is looming and ever constant. Everything seems to break, potato plants die, and one misstep means suffocating in the cold wasteland that is Mars. Life of Pi has a more passive dread. Once the tiger is reasonably under control, not a lot happens. This is the classic ‘stranded in the wilderness’ type of survival story, but with even less space to do things. All Pi can really do is collect water and fish. This makes his narration more introspective, and sometimes more numb. He spends a lot of the story grappling with his faith, which is a key component of his character.

(Mark and Pi are interesting to compare in that regard: Mark is so obviously a man of science. He trusts in NASA’s work, and his own calculations. Pi has enough faith to practice three religions, and though he sometimes loses trust in God, in the end, his faith is stronger than ever.)

What I’m saying is, these stories can go one of two ways in regards to reflection. If a survival story is more immediately threatening, the story will focus more on the problems and solutions that come up and the writer will build a story more based around the events, though the main character’s personality is still important to keep the audience caring about the outcome. If a survival story is more slow moving and passively threatening, the story will focus more on introspection, and the writer will build the story around the character and how they react to their situation. Both serve the purpose of seeing how people deal with things alone, physically or mentally.

An honorary mention for things that make survival stories compelling is the lack of antagonist. Some may say the point of Man vs. Nature is that Nature is the antagonist (duh) but I would argue that it isn’t. Nature is really just doing its thing, and Man is the poor schmuck with bad luck. Despite what Mark Watney might say about Mars, it isn’t actively trying to kill him. It’s just existing and coincidentally killing him. And I know I said Life of Pi is more passive, but it might have a stronger claim to an antagonist in the tiger than The Martian does in Mars. But even then, Pi and the tiger reach a sort of understanding by the end, and there’s no longer a true threat besides starvation or one of the many other side effects of being stranded in the middle of the Pacific.

(Speaking of side effects of being stranded in the middle of the Pacific, Life of Pi absolutely had my suspension of disbelief snatched right up until the part where Pi, half dead, meets another lifeboat out in the middle of the mcfreaking Pacific ocean. There’s no way he didn’t hallucinate that. It’s probably a metaphor, but it gave me so much whiplash I couldn’t figure out what for. Still a fantastic book.)

Survival stories above all give us perspective on our place in the world. As the world grows smaller and smaller, I hope we can remember to keep telling stories like them. They remind us of things we shouldn’t forget: Nature will always be stronger than us, though we can hold out against it. Mankind has a strong will to survive-- for ourselves, for our relationships to others, for our faith, or maybe just out of pure spite. I love both Life of Pi and The Martian for their exploration of these topics, and for being so unexpectedly but delightfully similar.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go live in the woods, surviving off berries and pheasants that I’ve shot with my bow, and contemplate the nature of man.

[TL;DR What does Mars and tigers have in common? They’re both orange. And also trying to kill the main characters of two well-loved novels.]

#writing #essay #reading railroad #book report #the martian #life of pi

3 notes · View notes

kaylinwrites · 6 years ago

Text

Deals With the Devil (Short Story)

So first, some context. My English class read The Devil and Tom Walker back in December, and we had an assignment to create our own satirical modern interpretation of the Faust “sell your soul to the devil” story. At first, all of the ideas I came up with were more political than I wanted to get in an 11th grade general English class, and also... kind of angsty. And then I started thinking about how stupid GrimDark media is. And then I started thinking about Gravity Falls and our good friend Alex Hirsh and what if that didn’t go so well. And then I was thinking I might actually have some fun with this assignment, ‘cause it’s not every day you get such a reins-free creative writing assignment, and then I went absolutely buck-wild in the typical ‘I write for fun’ fashion. So, this was the result:

The Devil That is the Entertainment Industry and John Washer

[January 2018, unedited]

By: someone who did not try at all with the names

No one could deny that John Washer was a dreamer. But not the sort that sat a desk job, only to spend it staring out a window imagining how his life could be different. John was the sort of dreamer that made his dreams come true, moving to New York City and pitching his ideas to anyone who’d listen.

Ever since he’d taken a screenwriting class in college, John had been perfecting his first and greatest television script. It was John’s pride and joy, and it was perfect just the way it was.

Upon moving to New York, John hired an agent. She was kind and optimistic, and she loved John’s vision almost as much as he did. Melanie knew her way around the business, and she had contacts that she was sure would take a risk on John’s show. But each one she called declined a meeting.

Just as John began to get disheartened, a big production company took an interest in his project.

Melanie and John were excited to have a chance to pitch to such a renowned company. They met with the head of the company, who sat quietly listening as John explained his show.

“Well, Mr. Washer,” the man said. “I’ll be honest with you here. I don’t think your show will sell. It’s not interesting enough.”

John was disappointed to hear this.

“But,” the man continued, “if you’re flexible and can work with us, I could open doors for you. Get your show in shape and make you the most popular man on the air.”

“That sounds--” John started eagerly.

“Wait a minute, John,” Melanie said. “Let’s talk about this for a second.”

“Of course,” the man said.

Melanie pulled John aside.

“Are you sure you’re thinking this through?” Melanie whispered. “It sounds like he wants to change your show. I mean, this is your vision, John, you’ve been perfecting it for forever.”

“Yes, and I want to get it out there,” John said. “So what if we have to change a few things to make it work?”

“Well...” Melanie started.

“It’ll be fine,” John said, and turned back to the man sitting patiently at the table. “I would like to accept your offer.”

“Excellent!” the man said. “Just sign here and we can start Monday.”

Monday came quickly and John started to work with a team of writers and directors. They asked a lot of questions, but at the end of the day, John felt confident he was finally moving towards his dream.

A month of production later, the first episode aired. It was exactly like John imagined it would be, and people were talking about it already. John got his first paycheck, and went out and bought a new apartment. Melanie was very happy for him, and decided she must have been wrong about the company wanting to change everything.

As production for the first season continued, John noticed the writers making more and more suggestions. It started innocuous enough:

“Maybe it would be better to have this character do that instead.”

“Maybe we should word that differently.”

“Don’t you think we can leave that part out?”

John thought this was all fine and good. Small changes, small sacrifices when he was living the dream. Melanie, who still kept in touch with John even though her job was technically over, started to get a bit skeptical.

As the months flew by, and season two, then three, were aired, the suggestions got more demanding.

“You know, zombies are really In right now. Put in zombies.”

“People are practically dying for a hetero-normative romantic subplot.”

“We need to kill off a character. Nothing tragic has happened in a while. It’s getting boring, John.”

John thought this was all perfectly fine. His dreams were coming true, after all. Small... small changes. Fine.

Melanie decided she needed to heave a talk with John.

She knocked on his office door and let herself in.

“John? Can we talk?” she said.

John looked happy to see her. “Melanie! I actually need some advice on something. I need your opinion on who should die in the next episode. George has the highest ratings, but if we kill Fred, it’ll make the love triangle so tragic--”

“Hold on,” Melanie said. “Just... listen a second. You never had it in your plan to kill characters. Or have a love triangle. Or zombies, John. Don’t you think this has gotten a little... out of hand?”

“No?” John looked genuinely confused. “It’s just, you know, show business.”

“It’s not your vision, though,” Melanie said, frustrated. “Can’t you see that? This isn’t even your show anymore.”

“Yes it is! John said. “I can’t believe you’re saying such awful things. If you hate me living my dreams so much, you can just leave.”

Melanie glared at him. “Fine. I will. But when’s the last time you checked out what people are saying?”

She walked out, leaving John fuming. She didn’t know what she was talking about.

John checked the forums that night. It turns out people were complaining about the recent directions the show had been going. A lot of people said they wished it would go back to how it was in the beginning.

They didn’t know what they were talking about either.

A few more weeks went by, and John was in a meeting with the boss to talk about the ending of season five. It was going well, until the man said, “and in season six...”

“Season six?” John said, gobsmacked. “What do you mean? Season five is the last one.”

The man looked at him like he was stupid.

“Why would we end it?” the man said. “It’s still making money.”

“We end it because it’s over,” John said. “That’s the end of the story. I’ve always intended this to be a story with an ending. This is non-negotiable for me.”

“Is it.”

“Yes,” John said with conviction.

“You’re fired,” the man said.

“What? You can’t do that!” John said.

“I’ll sue you, too, if you don’t get out of my office right now,” the man said.

John did not want to test that. He left. None of his coworkers seemed particularly sympathetic. He got his last paycheck in the mail the next week. He moved out of his apartment, and got a cheaper one, and a job at Starbucks. There were a lot of Starbucks in New York City. There were a lot of failed screenwriters working at Starbucks in New York City.

John spent most of his time watching what had become of his show. It got more and more ridiculous as the seasons dragged on. It was almost laughable. John couldn’t find it in him to laugh at it, because all he could think about was how great it could have been.

Fin.

[Just a quick end note, my English teacher wrote my absolute favorite piece of feedback for this. She was all like, don’t think this is bad because you finished it in study hall and didn’t edit it, and, I quote, “you obviously have no idea of the drivel that gets turned in.” (Dang girl! Roast ‘em!) Then she recommended I take the creative writing class next year, which, of course I was already planning on, but knowing she thought I should take it was just some extra confidence points. God, why are English teachers always so unbelievably cool? This was the same teacher that brought in her lapdog one day with the reason “Dogs make people happy and I think that’s great.” Absolute legend.]

#short story #The Devil and Tom Walker #Faust #satire #writing

1 note · View note

kaylinwrites · 7 years ago

Text

Twix, my dead grandpa, and thoughts on the nature of morality: Journal 1

[2/13/18]

So I was just standing in the kitchen, eating a Twix bar (minus the caramel part) and I had a thought:

“I wonder if my grandpa would support me being queer.”

Now, this is a complex question, because I have never come out to any friends or family, so I have no idea what kind of reactions are even possible from people I love.

It is also complex because my grandpa passed away five weeks ago.

I didn’t tell him while he was alive, so I don’t know how he would actually react, and that has led to a lot of speculation. I believe in heaven, so my first thought was, “Well, if he was homophobic, he would learn better once he was there. An angel would teach him, or something.”

I debate morals often. My father is a democrat, and my mother is a republican, so I’ve been exposed to opinions on both sides of the political spectrum. Both me and my sister are overwhelmingly liberal, and we both have a strong sense of what is right and wrong. I don’t have the secrets to the universe or anything, but I take pride in this.

It’s so obvious to me that persecuting people for who they love is wrong.

When bigots die and go to heaven... or, purgatory, maybe, they would see the error of their ways and be taught better, right?

But when I think this, in my head, ‘better’ always aligns with my morals.

Isn’t that... kind of an arrogant assumption? That my morals are always right?

Looking at the way things have been going the past 200 years or so, I genuinely believe my beliefs will be on the right side of history. In fifty years, kids will look back on people like Trump like kids now look back on people like Hitler.

But I can’t just write off people’s bad political opinions. If I do that, there’ll never be any understanding, and then there’ll never be any hope for showing people the right way. There are things that are undeniably wrong, to anyone in their right mind, that is. Maybe people just need to be brought back into their right mind. People just need to be taught to love, not hate. Whatever the solution to the world’s problems, the one thing I’m sure of, is that we can’t wait for heaven to do it for us.

And for the record, I think my grandpa would support me loving whoever I loved. He cared a lot about me.

#journal #personal #writing #politics #this is kind of a moderate view but trust me I'm 110% a socialist lol #queer issues #kinda on the queer issues

0 notes

kaylinwrites · 7 years ago

Text

Commentary on 5+ Sentence Paragraphs

[Written sometime in November 2017]

By: a salty student with too much time on their hands

My English teacher has a rule that paragraphs must be 5 or more sentences. I like her as a person and a teacher, but I hate this rule with all the burning fiery passions of my soul.

Allow me to start with an anecdote.

In 6th grade, I had perhaps one of the most influential history teachers I've ever had. Mr. Long had us write quite a few essays in our time with him, and (like many history teachers) wanted us to cut the BS. He didn't want fluff in essays, which I get, because he had to read about a hundred of them every time he assigned one. He always told us a paragraph is however long you need it to be to get your point across, be it 3 sentences or 20.

I feel that if teachers insist too much on a rigid 5 sentences (and I say 5 sentences instead of 5+ because most kids in my class do the minimum required) any good writing we may have gotten is lost. I know when I have to fill a 10 sentence requirement for a journal, I start chopping up my sentences. It is sad. My grammar is lame. Sentences are really short. My classmates do the same. I am sure of it. I think this is boring to read. (Look at that one, that one has two verbs! Now we're expressing ourselves!) My syntax may be suffering severely, but By Golly am I reaching the sentence requirement.

And if students are writing anything that's not a formal essay (those are a different beast), shorter and longer paragraphs can add a variety that is desperately needed. Contemporary articles and nonfiction would be insufferable to read if it weren't for the writer’s dashes of style and humor. A one sentence paragraph, for example, can be an impact moment or a sly aside to the reader.

Look out for my usage of these puppies.

Especially in creative writing, it's important to not get bogged down by sentence requirements. I mean, I'm trying to tell a story here. Imagine how A Tale of Two Cites would read if Dickens was trying to up his-- oh, wait.

(That was a joke, kids. I love Tale of Two Cities, but the way Dickens writes is ridiculous,)

Now, this wouldn't be a commentary without a good old fashioned rebuttal.

I am in English III, as opposed to AP English Language. I should have expected there to be some stupid rules for the kids that don't want to try very hard and have to be forced to do any work at all. If my teacher just put a prompt in front of us and said, “Write something about this,” she would have half the class turn in two sentences.

I would like to say, in their defense, they just didn't have anything to say about it, but I know that's being too idealistic. Some kids just don't like writing and will do just about anything to avoid it. I, the nerd who is currently writing a commentary in their free time, cannot relate, and I get mad at rules controlling anything writing related. But what am I supposed to say? That the rules shouldn't apply to me?

I'm not that arrogant.

And there's been a time or two when even I don't have a lot to say, and I would have turned in about 6 sentences total. Maybe my sentence structure suffered, but at least the 10 sentence requirement made me write more about something I cared little about, which is a useful skill to have in certain situations, such as when applying for jobs.

In conclusion, I suppose there's nothing for it. In my 11th grade, regular-unmotivated-Joe English class, 5 or more sentence paragraphs seem to be a necessary evil. I can be as salty as I want about it, but I have a nagging suspicion that my English teacher is already well aware of everything I've said here. She’s a smart lady. I mean, she has an English degree. This is a battle I feel I cannot, and perhaps should not, win.

#writing #article #essay #sentence requirements #fighting authority #first post #aww

0 notes