Wait a minute...

I've been here before...

At the moment, it is 1:40 a.m., I just got done with laundry and homework, and I'm just filled and leaking ideas for art, stories, and things to do in general. I am truly contemplating skipping my first class in the morning so I could stay up a bit later and finish typing / sketching what is just streaming through my mind. While waiting for laundry, I finished up homework, and then pulled out my Olympia Traveller C, portable typewriter, and then began roughing out a story, almost completely freeform and just stream-of-conscious writing. It felt very good to be super-productive: typing while waiting. If my typewriter was a little smaller I'd carry it with me everywhere.

I am instantly reminded of when I went to the Whidbey Island Writers' Association (WIWA) conference in February 2008. My Creative Writing teacher in high school brought up in class he was going to this event a few months later, and said that students may apply for a scholarship to pay for it. One of my fellow students and myself applied; she got the big scholarship to go, and because so few students were attending, I got a sightly reduced rate.

The conference was a three-day event, starting with the introduction meeting and key-note speaker, followed with separating into groups and visit with more authors and do workshops. During this time, I was introduced to another young student, one Miss Kate Laster. We've been talking since then, and she's even started producing a comic series, with a second volume just released.

The second and third days of the conference were full of workshops and lectures all day. From the schedule I got, I circled and looked up classes that looked interesting, and planned accordingly. Partway through the first day, I am struck with inspiration, and I just sat down at a table and wrote, for like two hours on end. I ended up skipping a few of the classes that looked interesting, but I had no regrets. I got something accomplished! Also, it was my first taste of what college would be like--the flexibility and option to not go to class, and just sit around in the sun, typing until 3 a.m., or just finish reading a really good book.

I love college.

For those interested, here is the raw, barely edited version of what I wrote during the WIWA conference. The fuller, edited version can be found here.

Rocket Midnight, Basic Version

“Come on!” she said, flashing an exuberant smile and trying to drag him along. He half resisted against her urging, but was also intensely drawn to what she was suggesting.

A car whizzed by them, submerging them in a blaze of light before running into the night, red taillights dimming into dust, then nothing.

“Oh, come on, George!” her eyes twinkled in the night. The road stretched on and on for miles either direction. Not another car along the single road. Complete solitude.

He tried to stand up and not let her push him around…but her eyes, her smile, her laugh…it was all so—intoxicating. His feet unconsciously led him towards her, and utterly followed her words. He could feel his face grow hot as he thought himself like a puppy on a leash. He looked up sheepishly at her, half hoping she’d see the urgency in his eyes, half hoping she’d ignore it. He looked over his shoulder, back the way they had come. In the distance, he could just barely make out her car, parked on the side of the deserted road. A few yards back from him, the shapeless mass of his backpack and textbooks littered about. He wanted to scoop them up and retreat to her car, and go home to lose himself to reading. Her hand gently rested on his back, sending a rush up his spine that made his eyes whirl. He drunkenly looked at her in a daze.

“George,” she cooed and stopped pulling him. “You never get out enough. You’re always so trapped with your studies and everything. It’s just so boring; you need to live!” She yelled the last word up and out into the sky, the brilliant, star-studded sky. “Isn’t it beautiful? George, look!”

His mouth a-gape, he looked up to the deep blue sky, filled with infinity-infinity stars. He blinked once, twice. He adjusted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He heard his heart hammering in his ears, and felt a small stream of tears running down his neck. He touched a hand to his cheek; yep, tears. Awestruck, all he could do was stupidly stare into the depths of space. The sky above seemed to wrap around his head like a halo; pressing around him, but everlasting.

“George,” she whispered; butterfly-wings quiet. A flood of warmth seeped through his hand as she gently wrapped her pinky around his. He regretfully tore his eyes from the heavens; and looked down at her. Her once brown eyes were now brilliant mirrors full of nebulas and Dwarf stars and asteroids and satellites and moons and suns and…

All hindrance in his mind cracked and suddenly vanished. He could feel his body realign itself as his spine straightened and he shuffled his footing. A dull burning of power was again burning in his chest, after suppressing it for years in his studies. With a smooth move, he removed his glasses and casually discarded them over his shoulder. His eyes locked with hers, and he leaned forward, slowly; she stood on her tiptoes to meet him.

With all the courage he could muster, he tucked his hand beneath her chin, and closed the distance. Their lips warmly sealed against each other. Without words, they spoke of constellations and black holes with their lips.

He withdrew for a moment, and then looked deep into her eyes, deep enough to glimpse her soul, happily lost in the galaxies.

“Thank you, he breathed; his heart hammering like rocket engines.

“Happy Birthday,” she whispered.

He then embraced her and gathered her into his arms as they silently observed the heavens, and the heavens silently observed them; each full of energy and wonderment.