Hello Everyone!
A little bit about my first draft process. I looked at the prompt the day it came out, studying it for a moment before ideas started firing. Usually it starts with questions: "Why does she have no shoes?", "Did she hike there with no shoes?", "Who would hike without shoes?"--the shoe thing seemed to stick out to me. After that I ponder on the prompt for a short time (could be a few hours or days). With this prompt I actually woke up with the characters voice in my head two days later and started to write. It was strange because I usually write Young Adult and Middle Grade but the voice in my head was Adult. Very adult but I rolled with it and had a blast.
I admit I caught myself a few times trying to edit. I usually write in chunks during times possible at work and therefore need to reread the paragraph before to sink back into the character. It was during those moment I caught myself editing. But I tried my best and had fun with the character. Excited to check out everyone's stories.
Grasping the WILD First Draft
You?ll feel free, they said. Empowered, they said. Lies. All lies. It?s hot, dusty, I haven?t taken a proper shower in a week. My legs are burning, feet are dying, thighs feel three sizes too large and instead of clarity I have gained existential crisis. You think divorce would be the lowest point of your life. Or infertility, rehab at thirty-two or the time a flock of birds poo-ed not once but multiple times in your hair during your first kiss. But no! This moment, while I am bare-foot, my pants ripped in the back badly enough to know my ass is hanging out and I am hundreds of miles away from any source of humanity?this is worse.
I hobbled over spikey needles and hidden pinecones ready to skewer my bare feet.
God I could eat a whole pumpkin pie right now. Or a whole loaf of pumpkin bread. Anything pumpkin?who doesn?t want pumpkin during the fall? Anarchists? Cheaters? Fertile twenty-year-olds with cherry red fake lips and even more atrocious spiked nails? They are diabolical.
Hiking is meant to provide peace. It ups the endorphins until you can tell yourself, ?I?ve climbed this motherf?ing mountain and I can climb whatever hill of bullshit you?ve got for me now life.? And to be fair all of those things did happen. I reached the peak of a mountain-slash-hill but for my own gratuity it is a motherf?ing mountain and I gained an oh so brief but exhilarating moment of clarity and self-assurance. I knew I needed to commemorate the moment with a perfectly timed photograph. I had planned for the moment. I stripped off my hiking clothes, relishing in the warm sun against my naked skin before donning a gorgeous black ensemble. Shoes off, hair perfect, body slimmed and primed. This was my mountain!
I even had a small thigh gap from which sunshine shone through like freaking rays of angels. It was perfect. I looked as if I was flying in the sky. I looked like a freaking hippie bad-ass.
Hell yeah!
But that was right before IT happened. Right before everything came crashing down, myself included, so fast every fat cell in my body rippled.
?When does the misery end?? I shout to the surrounding forest. I pause for an answer, hoping maybe a non-murdering hiker is nearby. But only a whisper of wind sways leaves on the trees. ?Fuck!?
The bushes to my left rustle. I freeze, unable to take another step on my poor swollen, and bleeding feet. Not again, not again, not again! I wait, peering into the dark foliage trying to discern a snout or horns or devilish beady eyes, but the rustling stops and there is nothing. I take a deep sigh of relief. I can?t take another flight for my life. One is humiliating enough. Two is when the angels have turned their back and figure your life isn?t worth saving. That is when you have hit the bottom. The. Very. Bottom.
The ear piercing squeal and snort from my pursuer during the mad dash for salvation is still ringing in my ears. And it has been at least an hour, or maybe twenty minutes, but for life or death moments it HAS been an hour. Damn pigs. Who knew they could so mean. You see the movie Babe and you think, Awwwww! I want a baby piggy. But then an overgrown, hairy, monster pig races at you from the nearby brush, nearly knocking you off a cliff and into oblivion and you have a new life understanding.
And could anything be more humiliating then telling people you were mauled by a pig? A PIG! Maybe it?s a lesson for eating all those delicious schnitzel dinners. Do I regret eating the pork?no, but maybe I will be more thankful for the goodness filling my gob.
Trekking another ten minutes I realize I have no idea where I am going. The trail is definently gone. Without it I can?t find my supplies, my shoes, food?ANYTHING! It is official. I am going to die here. The most I can expect is to be found in a week, emaciated (with God?s help) and mental unstable. I knew this would happen. I never liked hiking. Nature itself has always tried to kill me from my first anaphylactic shock on being stung by a bee on my wedding day to being dive-bombed by bats from a pine tree in front of my in-laws. My skirt ended up flipping up, over my backside when I fell and my new family saw way too much of the nether regions for a first time introduction.
Just as I let loose a devastating sob and figure burst from the brush only a few feet in front of me. I froze, terrified, shaking my head back and forth that it could b ehappening again. But it was! Without a doubt it was the same ravenous, territorial son of a bitch pig from before. It had hunted me down. Cued on my despair and mid-life crisis scent it tracked me down to finish the job.
With a screeching, snort and guttural growl it launched at me. I let loose my own war cry, a half sob-half earth shattering wail, and ran like hell. It didn?t take long for me to trip over something and slam to the ground. I could hear the impending doom behind me ready to gore my exposed behind. Before it reached me I grabbed the nearest stick, turning in time to thrust the object forward.
The squealing from before intensified, the stuck ripped from my palms, skin shredded. I screamed again as blood sprayed across my face, into my mouth and I gagged. I was dying! I knew it was happening but?but?where were the slow motion pictures of my life? Why was nothing there? Could I not be allowed a fraction of comfort while a boar shredded my body?
The squealing had died down. And despite the fact I knew I was drenche din blood I didn?t feel any pain.
Peeking open an eye sealed shut by salty tears and by now streaking mascara I my whole body shuddered at the sight in front of me. On the end of the stick, skewered through the throat was the wild boar, its eyes still vaguely lucid.
I scrambled away from the murder scene and dry heaved into a bush. When I was sure nothing else was going to come out I sat up. My body was shaking when I looked back over a thte boar, mortified and oddly curious of the grotesque scene.
I had done it! I had killed the pig. That son of a bitch would never chase done a helpless divorcee or middle-aged selfie enthusiast. Finally, I was the master of nature. I could feel the accomplishment and pride swell in my chest.
?Hell, yeah!? I threw my fist in the air and leapt to my feet. I pointed down at the beast, its gaze still resting onme. ?As soon as I get back I am having some bacon, baby!?
It kicked a cloven hoof and I screamed, backing away, falling through a stretch of prickly bushes. But on the other side was my back pack. My clothes, shoes, food, everything! I wasn? tgoin g to die. I was a survivor. Not a hopless naiive woman but a survivor. I could have wept if I wasn?t so dehydrated.
Topic: First Draft (Grasping the WILD) (Read 2395 times)