Thursday, May 20, 2010

Third 'Class'

I didn't actually make it to today's class, but I did get my assignment in on time :) It was the 'first page' of the novel which she scrutinized for content and character development. Aaaand aside from a few minor tweaks, she really liked it :D She said I had a very well developed character in Nis'ku and interesting backstory that can be peppered throughout the story.

So I'm happy :D Now my new assignment is to create a character chart, outlining my main character's 'Goals, Motivations and Conflicts' that will carry the story. I know all of these, for sure, but wording them right will be a challenge!

I'm up to it though! I will prevail :D For now, here's the 'First Page' I submitted that she liked (except for a few tweaks that I'll add later).

“My name is Nis’ku, and I’m an alcoholic.”

The room around her was quiet, but restless. Some of the others were giving her their full attention, staring at her in a way that she’d hated since the first time she spoke at a meeting, and others were looking away, staring off into space or sitting with their eyes closed, listening blindly. She looked back down at her hands in her lap, watching her thumbnail scrape back and forth across her palm in a slow, steady rhythm.

“I’ve been sober for three years and five months,” she said, tempted to add in the days, hours, minutes, seconds. She was proud of each one of them, because even now, after so long on the program, they were each their own tiny battle. Some of which she’d lost.

“That…that’s not true,” she sighed, looking away from the others, unwilling to see whatever expressions they may be showing now. “It’s actually been six days.”

The very first meeting she’d attended, then a strung-out twenty year old angry at everything, she’d used a truly anonymous name. A mask she wore at all subsequent meetings until she’d constructed a completely false self that had been safe to share. She’d construct stories about a fictional family and a fictional father who beat her, when in reality it had been her addict boyfriend who had put her in the hospital the week before. She couldn’t give him up even then, even when the police had tried to drag out of her what had really happened. She couldn’t admit to what he’d done to her, any more than she could admit that she, Nis’ku, was the alcoholic, and not the anonymous ‘Sarah’ that she had created. She’d loved him too much. Loved it too much. She still hadn’t come to the point of letting go, and so Sarah got the help and not Nis’ku, and it was a simple matter for Nis’ku to return to the bottle when Sarah finally crumbled under the weight of her own lies.

Now, five years later and sitting under the weight of accountability and her own failed confession, she wished she’d just stuck with Sarah. Or Jane. Jane was a nice, nondescript name.

Until next time! Let me know what you all think, I love feedback (good or bad!)

2 comments:

  1. So beautiful, my dear. <3

    I still want to read the prologue, regardless of the fact you're scrapping it!

    ... also, the comma may be your friend, but even friends hate being used too much. =D

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  2. eeps! I used my friend too much? *looks over* thanks for telling!

    uhhmmmmm you've already read the prologue, I just edited it a bit for submitting to my prof. It's in Nish's journal, the flashback with Rob :P

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