Mm. Exciting, a blog. I have to say, before I wrote 'Life Goes Up A Wall' for the book, I was strictly a poet. (Well, except for that one time...) So if you want to read my poems, click
here. If I did it right (which I probably didn't) you'll be able to go there from my profile?
Anyway. I wrote a piece of creative nonfiction (a.k.a. a memoir). Here's a snippet. It's called Life Underwater.
I woke up, and stretched, itching the scratchy pjs, my mom picked out for me last night and rolled over, wishing I were still asleep. I started smiling, remembering what I’d been dreaming of. I threw off the covers and rushed upstairs to tell my mom before I forgot. I found her in the kitchen. She sat me down at the table, with an island of steaming oatmeal in milk. I heaped sugar on it, and told her that about my dream.
“What did you dream about, Sara?”
Still sleepy, I smiled at her, my feet swinging above the floor. “I want to start swimming.”
“Why? Don’t you like ballet?”
“In my dream, I was swimming and a man was drownding. I saved him, and he fell in love with me and we got married.”
She laughed at me. “Were you watching the Little Mermaid last night?”
“No.” I frowned. “I want to swim.”
~jump~
Outside pools can be deadly, especially for backstrokers like me. Without lines on the ceiling above me to keep me swimming straight, I end up swimming in zigzags. Besides, outdoor pools are ruined by the sun, which hurts my eyes if I don’t squint. Thank goodness for tinted goggles. So I was avoiding the sun, lying on my back on the bottom of the pool. I stared up from under three feet of water, up at the shimmery world above me. Trails of bubbles meandered skyward. Suddenly a shadow blocked out the sun. I cursed to myself. I was almost out of air, but I dove farther down to avoid being run over by my father, who was swimming laps above me. He hadn’t noticed me on the floor of the pool and swam right overhead. When he’d passed, I furiously kicked to the surface. I rose out of the pool with a dramatic hair flip, which kind of failed because of the goggles. I shivered in the cool air and slowly sank back into my underwater haven.
When my sophomore World History teacher found out I was on the swim team, he laughed.
“How does all your hair fit under the swim cap?”
I frowned at him. “It just does.”
He laughed.