March 2010
20 posts
Out of the Darkness Overnight. →
theovernight.org
I’m participating in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Overnight walk in Boston this June.
I need $700 in donations to participate! If you can give anything (even if it’s just a dollar or two!), I’d greatly appreciate it. Go to the above link, and search my name: Sara Brink. I’m on the Johnny’s Angels team.
Things I can't wait to do over Spring Break.
- sleep with my cat
- drive my car with the windows down and my iPod loud
- play the piano
- shop for summer dresses
- see Alice in Wonderland
- hang out with my Mom
- finish some pastel drawings
- watch movies late at night
- go to Barnes and Noble
- play soccer with my niece
- wear ripped jeans
- pack away my winter clothes
- catch up with friends
- get coffee in the city
- etc., etc., etc.
Can’t wait to see you tomorrow morning, Philadelphia. :)
“She was illusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
—Stargirl
Write one leaf about red ink.
(via writeoneleaf)
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
—Benjamin Button
Foggy Glasses.
- Lisa: Oh my god, look at my glasses! They're fogging up.
- Sara: Oh my goodness.
- Lisa: Why are they doing that? I'm just sitting in my chair! It's not like I stuck my head in the microwave or something-- that would do it, alright.
From the worst of times.
It can be so hard to write about your life.
I have a prose piece due for Creative Writing on Tuesday. There are no restrictions, no real regulations. No page requirement, no set topic, no specific elements of craft to be incorporated. AKA, I have free range to say, write, bullshit whatever.
I’ve had a topic in mind since Friday. I’ve actually had this topic in mind for a few months, at least. I’ve had the experience on my mind for 10 years, and for whatever reason, I can’t write it. I have things down on the paper, short little vignettes, but it’s not complete. I need to add more, and rearrange, but I don’t know how.
There are some things that I’ve never told anyone. I want to write about them. I want to weave them into a story, hide them under allusions, make the reader interpret things for themselves. Never give them the real answers. I’m trying so desperately to make this work. I want this piece to be complete.
The past can sometimes come back to haunt you, to mock you. You just have to know how to conquer it.
“If we could express ourselves another way, we wouldn’t be writers. I think we write songs or poems because we don’t express ourselves exactly the way we want to in our everyday lives.”
—Tori Amos
Write one leaf about something you carry around with you for no reason.
(via writeoneleaf)
“True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation”
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich
“In order to understand the nature of language you began to paint, thinking that the logic of reference would become evident once you could settle the quarrels of point, line, and color…At dawn, you crawled into bed, exhausted, warning me against drawing inferences across blind canvas. I ventured that a line might represent a tower that would reach the sky, or, on the other hand, rain falling. You replied that the world was already taking up too much space.”
—Rosmarie Waldrop, Five Poems from The Reproduction of Profiles (1987)
Handwriting vs. Font.
I keep a specific journal for everything: one for character ideas, one to track books I’ve read, one for mixed media entries, etc. I keep a small one in my purse, and one on my nightstand to jot down dreams. If you need to know anything about me, it’s that I’ve got a pen and paper on me about 9 times out of 10. As a writer, a journal is healing; it’s a space with no boundaries, constraints, or rules, and where unwanted eyes are not necessarily permitted.
I’ve always been apprehensive about keeping a blog. I’m a fan of the traditional journal; I appreciate the smell of blank pages and the stain of wet ink. The digital realm hadn’t hit me for quite some time. And besides, who’d want to read about my day to day? Wouldn’t you all get bored with that by the second post?
Then it occurred to me: what if I could convey some of what my traditional journals hold without revealing all the goods? What if I gave you a small glimpse into those private places without scanning pages, recreating design, etc. A digital notebook, so to speak.
So this is an experiment. We’ll see how long it lasts.
