Beach Scene Blogfest!

I have never done a blogfest, but when I heard about the Beach Scene Blogfest over at Rachel Bateman's blog, I knew it had to be my first. See, I love lakes and beaches so much that I decided to write my novella for my fiction class about a family at the lake. It wasn't one of my best ideas because I've been working on it since March and, since I'm in Chicago and summer has rudely kept itself an arms length away, all it made me want to do was go to the lake.

In fact, this is a picture of the lake I love so much:

Anyway, the scene I was planning on using is one of the pivotal scenes towards the end, but when I reread it I realized that out of context it doesn't feel very "beachy." So I'm going to use this one instead. I hope you enjoy!

            When we are parked at the beach, Clarissa and I take Samantha to the shore and decide we’re going to do what we remember her loving years ago, when I was probably only five.

            “We’re really going to dig a hole?” Samantha asks.

            “Yup. None of this sun-tanning boring crap. This used to be your favorite, right?”

            Samantha nods, a smile slowly forming, and Clarissa doesn’t wait any longer to get started. “This is going to be our biggest hole ever!” she cries.

            And it is.

            We each build our “home” into the walls once the hole is so deep water is pooling in the bottom. I have a pillow formed behind my head and armrests complete with a cup holder. We get one of the beach umbrellas and prop it up in the center, so we all have shade.

            Our heads are below the ground level of the beach and from a distance you wouldn’t even know we were here if the umbrella weren’t giving us away.

            Mom walks up to us and leans over. “There’s my children! Here’s some sodas.” She’s brought each of us our favorite, and I’m glad I can put my cup holder to use after all. “Can I join?”

            “Nope, this is only for us,” Clarissa says, and Mom smiles.

            “Okay, well it’s already four so we’re packing up in an hour or so.”

            We nod and wave goodbye so that she actually turns and leaves. I take a sip of my root beer and settle back into my spot, paying no attention to the sand in my hair and crammed underneath my fingernails from the digging. That is, until I see Clarissa, from the corner of my eye, grab some of the muddy sand from the bottom and fling it at me. It misses, but Samantha sees it too, and there is only a single moment where we pause before mud is flying between us all.

            In the midst of war simple things are forgotten, like the fact that even though the sand in the wall is the easiest to grab, eventually all the support will be gone. So we look like muddy aliens, covered from head to toe, when our hole collapses and becomes wider but shallow. Too shallow to be awesome anymore.

            I start running towards the water, escaping, and my sisters follow. I run even when my feet reach the water, and I keep going until my feet are behind me and my face hits the water. When I stand up in the lake, Samantha and Clarissa are beside me and Samantha is wrapping one arm around each of us, pulling us tight until we squirm away. “I think this sand will still be in my hair when I move in,” she says.

            “Here, maybe this will help,” I say, and I pretend like I’m going to help wash it out, but with my other hand I grab some sand from near my feet, then I spread it all over the top of her head.

When work isn't work, it's just plain awesome

A few days ago I was sitting at my desk thinking, Lauren, you have two midterms next week in classes you don't pay much attention in. You don't know much about them, and you have a lot of studying to do. AND you have done no homework today.

A few moments later, though, it occurred to me that I had just spent the last hour working on my novella for my writing class. I was having so much fun, I didn't think I'd been doing work.

Now that's the kind of feeling I want to have about "work" in my adult life. I've spent my whole life watching my dad doing something he loves every day and gets paid for it, and I became spoiled by the idea that work didn't have to mean something you suffered through.

On another note, I finished the aforementioned novella. I have no idea how I feel about it, so for the moment I'm saying "YAY" I finished the major part of my writing major. Until, of course, I reread it and see all the problems and then have it workshopped and hear all the things that are wrong with it and then revise A LOT... until then, YAY!

Now for that whole studying thing...