This month's prompt: How has writing affected your perception of the world?
My friends say I use big words.
I read the phone book because I like hearing strangers' names and imagining their lives.
I took my sunglasses case out of my purse to make room for a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a rhyming dictionary.
My favorite pillowcase is an old, faded blue thing covered in Sharpie notes, book quotes, and friends' signatures.
I have entire conversations with my friends in my head.
My dreams from the night's sleep generally end up in a never-finished story.
I search stock photo websites for random pretty people to make up lives for.
The personalized Google ads on my laptop range from engagement rings to way-liberal colleges to birth control ads, because I've researched for stories about wedding planners, rebellious college students, and pregnant teenagers.
If I had a gift card to any kind of furniture store whatsoever, I would rearrange my entire room just to fit another bookshelf in here.
25% of the time, "I didn't sleep well last night" translates to "I got lost in a book/my Kindle/an audiobook and didn't go to bed until midnight."
Certain friends and I talk more about rescuing kangaroos from invisible Wal-Marts or breaking a murderer out of prison using the sewer system than we do manicures or homework assignments.
I can't give directions to my own house, but I know what my friend was wearing last time I saw her or the general layout of my church (which is a very large one).
I never set out to base characters off people I know - in fact, I work to avoid it - and, when reading over my rough draft, discover I've written several of my own relationships into the story anyway.
I have a total of one poster in my bedroom, and it's from a book series.
I have no sisters to raid my closet, but my three brothers are always raiding my bookshelf.
Because I have to know my characters well in order to write their stories realistically, I find I understand and relate to people in my own life better as well.
A sunset or cherry blossom tree, or anything else outside that comes within my vision, is in danger of becoming a poem.
I'm worse at photography than most people I know, but I'm so obsessed with the beauty around me that I snap five photos of the same tree branch. Literally.
I never go to a bookstore alone, because whoever is with me ends up dragging me out so we can leave at a reasonable time. It wouldn't be fair to the bookstore staff to have to deal with that.
Have any of you seen the movie where a pregnant teenager is abandoned in the middle of nowhere by her boyfriend? She spent six months living in Wal-Mart by sneaking in right before they closed, hiding in the bathroom, and then sleeping in the camping display. She'd set a few alarm clocks, get up before any employees came to open the store, and use a shower head from the store shelf to bathe in the bathroom sink. After returning the shower head and alarm clocks to their shelves, she'd hide in the bathroom until Wal-Mart had been open long enough and leave like a normal shopper.
Let's just say if I'm ever homeless/stranded/abandoned, I'm living in Books-a-Million.
July 7– Miriam Joy Writes
July 8– Musings From Neville’s Navel
July 10 – Here! :)
July 11– Scribbling Beyond the Margins
July 12– Lily’s Notes In The Margins
July 13– Comfy Sweaters, Writing and Fish
July 14– The Zebra Clan
July 15– Reality Is Imaginary
July 16– A Myriad of Colors
July 17– An MK’s Meandering Mind
July 19– All I Need Is A Keyboard
July 20– Teens Can Write Too! (Announcing next month’s chain)
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