WRITERLY ADVENTURES

Slowly, I'm learning to love writing again. I had given up on writing stories years ago - poetry, I dabbled in sporadically because it was shorter, quicker, and required no long-term commitment. But after a few amazingly fun Writer's Craft classes and after reading an incredible novel by my friend Natasha Poholka, I caught the writing bug at last. It's so much fun to put down thoughts and feelings on paper as you explore somebody else's life. It shapes you as a person, I think... when you ask yourself, how would you act in this situation, you get a good grip on what your values are. And you learn about how other people feel when they act in ways you wouldn't -- it really develops your sense of empathy. It's incredibly soothing to sit down and forget everything for a little while, and immerse myself in painting a picture with my pen.

I'm writing two short stories at the moment. One is set in the early 1800s, about a little girl named Analise who works as a servant for a cruel and abusive master. She does manage to find someone to love her in the end (I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that), but there are big twists in it which hopefully make it more than the generic Cinderella story. I will add it to FictionPress once I'm done.

The other story was actually inspired by a brainstorming activity we did in Writer's Craft. We had to create plots based around inanimate objects, and I got a lock, so I began to make up a story about a poor Mexican woman who lost everything in a house fire. (This was a day or two after that incredible story about the baby thrown out of a burning building in Germany, so fire was fresh on my mind). I actually managed to get a really good plot, which, upon revision, didn't involve a lock ... or a woman for that matter. It's about a young girl who emigrated from Mexico with her family to go to University in Toronto. I won't say much, since I like this one more than my Analise story, but after losing everything, she met Jason, a man who would change her life completely (and it's not a romantic relationship at all -- that should keep you guessing! :). Again, off it goes to FictionPress when I finish.

Love, Oksana