20sw: care packages

another writing prompt from the creative bloggers over at 20sw! this was actually a lot more difficult than i thought it would be!

The Prompt:

For each of the following people, choose 1 book, 1 song, and a brief piece of advice to leave them. Explain why you chose the pieces that you did.

• 2 close friends
• 2 family members
• 2 fellow bloggers
• 2 ex-friends/significant others
• 2 younger people in your life (10 or more years younger than you)

close friends:

• N: you're in this category because you are my closest friend. you are my best friend. the song i'm including in your care package is the fray's "look after you", because this will be our first dance on our wedding night. i hear it, and i think of you. the book i'd like to give you is my "lord of the rings" trilogy, because you understand my need to re-read and re-watch things over and over, and you don't seem to mind sitting there while i do it. the one piece of advice i'd give you is this: you will never fully understand women. but that doesn't mean you should stop trying.
  
• L. over in colorado: because i miss you so much sometimes, i'm sending you israel kamakawiwa'ole's "white sandy beach of hawaii".  it makes me think of home, and when i think of hawaii, i think of you too.  hope you always know that a part of you always stays in hawaii with a part of the quints.  i'm not sure what sort of books you're reading these days, but i'm re-reading dan brown's "angels and demons" and am really enjoying it. since you're meandering your way through faith, i thought it would be a fun read for you too. and i think your fortune cookie will say: the physical distance between friends is really no distance at all.
  

family members:

• my younger sister: for you, i'll send the divinyls' "i touch myself". strange, i know. but i'm sending it because i'm worried that, with all of the difficult changes you're facing in your life right now, you're not remembering to have enough fun. and if nothing else, this song is fun! i'll also send you elizabeth gilbert's "eat, pray, love". i can't honestly say that i think you'll enjoy it, but i do think you can get something out of it. and my advice to you is this, little sister: we are only as happy as we make ourselves. if you're not happy in your own skin, don't be afraid to make the necessary changes until you are. take chances. that's what life is about.
  
• my oldest step sister: in your care package would go carrie underwood's "so small", because the message is something i think you could relate to better than most. in terms of a book, i would most likely include haunani-kay trasks "from a native daughter". this book changed the course of my life. it taught me how important the work i could do may be, and it also showed me that i can disagree with theories but still agree with principles. hopefully, it can do the same for you. the piece of advice i'd put in your fortune cookie would be this: the battles you've faced so far have only made you stronger. don't be afraid to be yourself in the future.
  

blogging friends: (okay, i'm kind of cheating here, since some of my closest friends also blog)

• B. over at isn't she pretty in pink: for you, i'd send bonnie tyler's "total eclipse of the heart", along with a little note requesting that you listen to it (loudly) while in your car at an intersection, and lip-sync it desperately to the person in next car over. in terms of a book (you know it's coming), i would give you my copy of "twilight", and make you sit down and actually read it! it'll take you like, 2 hours! and though you're usually the one giving me advice, let me just say: you do not have to stay on the path you chose 3 years ago. do what makes you happy.
  
• K. over at the artist in the ambulance: i can't send you many songs you don't already have and listen to regularly (particularly since you're the one usually sending me the songs that i listen to!), so i'm pulling something out from our hazy hana-bata days, and sending you nsync's "tearin' up my heart". while our music taste may not have been as undeniably awesome as it is now, i'm not sure i've ever had as much fun as i had with you and the girls during those days. instead of a book, i would send you an I.O.U. for the one i hope to write one day. you will get one of the first five copies, hands down. i'll even autograph it. and my sparkling words of wisdom: there is no rule saying where one should be in their life "by now". continue to live the way you choose, with happiness as your goal and friends by your side. things will happen when they should.
  

ex's:

• J. (the bff from the sixth grade): though i would never actually send you a care package, if i had to, i'd include mariah carey's "always be my baby", because it was part of the last good memory i think you and i had. i have no idea who you are now, and no idea what happened to cause that. but i no longer care either. we were kids, we're not anymore. the book i'd send you would probably be our slam books (which are in storage somewhere), because i definitely don't need them. and my advice is this: burning your bridges leaves you with less places to go.
  
• K. (although you don't really qualify as an ex, since we never really went out): i'm not sending you a song i think you'd like. i'm sending you back a song you thought i'd like, along with my memories of random nights listening to music in your car, being sympathetic as you bitched to me about the girlfriend you'd never leave (though you told me you would), and waiting for your phone call the next morning after i knew you went to see her. so you can have beyonce's "that's how you like it" back. it wasn't that good anyway. as for a book, i'd send you tucker max's "i hope they serve beer in hell", because though i may be mad on some level, we left each other on good terms, and i think you'd find it funny. my advice? don't marry her. you don't really want to.
  

young'ns:

• my 4 year-old nephew: in your care package, i would include brooke fraser's "seeds" as my song to you, because i love you, and i worry. the book i would send to you would be a book of hawaiian legends. though i know you'll get your fill of it one day, it's never too early to start. and my advice would be this: don't grow up too fast. you'll have your whole life to be mature and adult...live freely and have fun.
  
• my 10 month-old niece: for you, i'd send a fine frenzy's "lifesize", because for such a tiny girl, you are larger than life. this song is positive and sweet, and so many more of the things i hope your life will be one day. in your care package, i'd also put sophie kinsella's "confessions of a shopaholic", because i want you to know, early on, that books (and life) can be fun and silly, and it's completely okay to want that. just don't go into credit card debt! my advice (aside from the credit card debt thing) is this: don't follow in anyone's footsteps. make your own, regardless of what your well-meaning family may say.
  

20sw: a history of writing

following up with a previous post about a new writing community, i'd like to happily announce that twenty something writers has officially launched! i'm so excited to take part in this, and for those of you who love to write, or want to start loving it, go over and check it out!

for this particular post, 20sw suggested a prompt that we answer in our blogs. here goes!

The Prompt

We’d like to get the ball rolling by hearing your responses to the prompt: Tell us about your writing history. Have you always enjoyed writing? Did you hate grammar lessons in school? Who have been your greatest influences? What kind of writing do you enjoy most? Take any creative spin you want. Post your response on your blog and leave the link in the comments below. Check out the responses of others as well.

i think i officially remember starting to write, i mean really write, in the fifth grade. prior to that, i was never really much of a reader, and so writing for me was just something i needed to do. it wasn't until my best childhood friend, S., shared with me some books she was reading at the moment (r.l. stine's "goosebumps: return of the mummy," if you're curious) that i learned how great writing could be.

now, there was always an unspoken competition between S.and i. where she was first in the class, i was second. where she could speak two languages, i could speak one. where she was cute and small and asian (a badge of honor in hawaii), i was...well, not. so when she offered me these books i of course took them. i'd do anything to make myself just a bit smarter, a bit more like her. (in case anyone's wondering, she moved away at the end of our fifth grade year, eventually went on to go to columbia for college, and we're still great friends). those books, as odd as it may seem, opened a whole new world for me. i began recognizing what writing could do. it could introduce you to people who will never really exist, but whose lives you're completely invested in. it could show you places you may never go to. it could totally capture your imagination and run wild with it. i think that's why i firmly believe that, when people say they don't like to read, it's because they haven't found The book that's gonna change their lives. and when N. tells me about kids he teaches who can't really write, it's almost always because they hate to read.

so my love affair with writing began when i was ten. i immediately saw my writing ability sky-rocket. in fact, i remember this one time when i had just finished reading r.l. stine's "fear street saga: the betrayal" (you know, the first book when savannah goode gets burned at the stake in the salem witch trials?), and i chose to write a book report on it. writing the book report wasn't very hard, didn't take me very long, and in the end i remember thinking that it would probably get a decent grade. two days later, my teacher calls me up to her desk and asks if i had copied my summary off the back cover of the book. and i was shocked. not only was that the first (and only) time i'd ever been accused of cheating, but i didn't even think what i wrote was that good. so i showed her the book cover, and i ended up getting the highest grade on the book report. i think that was the first time i realized that writing was something i was okay at, and it wasn't going to take much of an effort.

so from then on i wrote. my friends and i started a slam book that eventually progressed into a straight out poetry book. i think i still have it somewhere. we'd pass the book from person to person throughout a class period and each of us would write a poem a day. childish poetry. teenage poetry. why doesn't this boy like me? what will it be like when i'm an adult? i hate this teacher because this teacher hates me. simple stuff. but it got me writing almost daily, and critiquing the writing of others.

a few years later, when i was in high school, my friends and i began writing fan fiction. i don't think i even knew what fan fiction was. just, one day, my best friend decided to write a story involving our circle of friends (ten years older than we were), and the celebrities we had crushes on at the time. i picked up on it and away we went. i'd sit in english class, finish my assignments (which still did not require me to work very hard for good grades) ahead of time, and start jotting down scenarios and dialogue for the next chapter of whatever fan fic i was currently working on. i also began the infamous "incomplete novel" that my friends (the quints) still ask me about. i took each of us, created characters which embodied the extreme characteristic of each of our personalities, and wrote a story about growing up and remaining friends through the changes that our lives throw our way (interestingly enough, the character that embodied me was a fiction writer. lol.). a few years later, when i looked back at the pages i'd written, and when i was in one of my moods where nothing i produced seemed good enough, i deleted it. i still regret that.

i was also journaling heavily during this time. heavily. i think in my sophomore year of high school, i must have gone through about three or four composition note books worth of journaling. i don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that writing, at that point, during that time, saved my life. it was my only outlet, the only place where i could say things and not have to censor myself. the only "person" i could tell my secrets/fears/angers/worries/sorrows to and not worry that i would lose them because of it. for a while after that, years really, i wondered if those months where writing was all i did somehow purged me of the need for it. because prior to that writing really was a need i had. and since then until right about three years ago, i haven't been able to write much, and i haven't been able to write any fiction.

even now, my writing is different than what it used to be. i'm not just talking about my skills (though, JEEZ, that's changed. thank God.), but more so my style. i write academic articles now. that's what i know how to do. i research, analyze, and suggest policy changes. i got published for the first time this year (still doing a happy dance over that!), and will be published again in a few months (woo-hoo!). and i think i'm good at it. i would never say that if i didn't really, really believe it, because i'm not the kind of person to toot my own horn. ever. but writing has always been the one thing i'm good at. i'm not great. but i'm good.

so recently, i've tried to pick up the torch again when it comes to writing for fun, which for me means writing fiction (romance/fantasy/paranormal/take your pick). i mean, i blog, but i don't write fiction anymore. and i've got ideas (a composition book full of them!), i just never seem to have the time. i can make the time, i think. i just haven't yet. hopefully, 20sw will get me moving in a good direction!