Andy really was a pocket kind of guy – that’s why when his mother made him a special pair of beige pants with extra large square pockets he thought it was the best gift he had ever received. Lots of pockets, on the knees, at the waist and even on the side of the thigh, and very large, about eight inches square, could hold just about anything a 9-year-old boy could ever want to carry. And he filled them sometimes! At Johnny’s birthday party, other children gave him angry looks because he seemed to have an unfair advantage for collecting piñata candy. One Summer afternoon he filled his pockets with soil and wild daisies just to see if he could be a walking garden. (It lasted until he went inside the house for dinner and his mother made him leave the dirt and flowers outside.)

His mother was smart when she made his clothes – she always made parts detachable or re-useable. Their small family didn’t have too much money after moving from the city, so what was pants one year might be part of a patchwork quilt as soon as he outgrew them. She figured out how important those pockets were, and took them off and sewed them onto a new pair of pants when he outgrew the first pair. She had to reinforce the insides of the pockets with some plaid scraps leftover from father’s old flannel shirt, but on the outside they were still the same worn, beige pockets.

Mother missed city life. Every morning she would wake up and look out the window – when father asked why, she said it was too quiet. While tending the vegetable garden she would often hum a tune that reminded Andy of the cars passing by outside their old city apartment window. Nothing about her humming reminded him of the sirens of emergency vehicles that would sometimes pass by. You only remember the things you really like sometimes.

At school he kept pens and pencils and markers in his pockets sometimes. When he got older he kept other things which he probably shouldn’t have had in there. After an incident at school, his father tried to start searching his pockets to make sure he wasn’t keeping anything in there that he shouldn’t be. That didn’t last too long because it took his father (a very thorough person) about 20 minutes to go through all the items in Andy’s pockets, and he was a busy man and didn’t want to take the time. Drinking his afternoon coffee in the old green armchair was a far more pleasing use of the time.

When Andy was 14, his mother fell ill. Sometimes she didn’t seem sick, but just very sad. The doctor could find nothing wrong with her, so Andy did everything he could think of to try and cheer her up. They sat together and talked, they made bread and cookies together, and one day Andy went out and picked so many wildflowers that they filled up his pockets and he brought them back into the house.

“Remember when I tried to be a walking garden with the dirt and the daisies?” He said. Of course she remembered – it took a lot of washing to get those pockets clean again. “Well, I guess now I’m just a walking bouquet.” Her lips parted a little as she tried to smile at how ridiculous it all was. Andy’s father returned from work while the flowers were still in Andy’s pockets. He laughed nervously and then together they placed the wildflowers all over the house, in cups and champagne flutes when they ran out of glass vases.

Andy’s mother died that evening, sleeping, and Andy’s father cried all night at her bedside. Andy spent the night tending to the wildflowers, ripped from their backyard and placed in cups and vases all over the house.

I know you’re only supposed to add one habit at a time, and I call that in for why my posting died. I’m not happy with the fact that it died, but I am happy at my new exercise habit which I’ve been adjusting to for almost a week now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to this habit and add it back in next week! I think maybe I got a slow start here on my stories – maybe coming back I can try a different approach…

Clarissa Marie Rosen
born October 4, 1987 – age 22

1534 N. 5th Street, Apt. D4
Olympia, Washington

5′6″ tall. A little taller than most of her peers. Naturally skinny, nothing she does seems to change her lanky, pale complexion and shape. Her friends say she’s lucky to have such a look without any effort, but she doesn’t like that, wishing her body shape more resembled that of her friends, or even that it would change at all. Blonde hair and blue-green eyes make her seem like a candidate for modeling, but she’s not really interested.

Clarissa has always had a mole on her left cheek near the corner of her mouth. Her mom would call it a ‘beauty mark’ to make her feel better about it, but she’s never really liked having it there. The freckles on her nose and her glasses make her seem serious with a fun side. She wouldn’t touch a cigarette if her life depended on it (and she really believes it does.) She has a strange habit of turning her earrings when she’s nervous – the signal of her hand moving to her ear is enough for most of her good friends to know they’ve made her a bit uncomfortable.

She’s usually in good health with no complaints besides the occasional cold or headache. She wears a light floral perfume every day, but for the most part nobody notices. Her voice is unusually high-pitched for someone her age, and often people mistake her for a child on the phone. She happens to be quite good at singing, but doesn’t do it much because she’s afraid listeners will make fun of her squeaky pitch. Clarissa is quite effeminate and enjoys wearing skirts and dresses. Because of her tendency to wear high heels when out with friends, she walks with a short stride, placing her feet in a straight line one after the other. This is another reason her friends often think she belongs on a runway.

Clarissa is a neat person who always has things organized. If you forgot to take notes in class last week, she’s the one you want to talk to. She’ll have all the topics that were discussed listed out and the important stuff all highlighted in yellow. She tends to move in a self-conscious way, looking over her shoulder and checking to see if anybody is watching her.

She pretends not to like shopping for clothes, but it’s really one of the things she enjoys most. She wears clothes and accessories that are in sync with current fashion trends but sometimes she likes to wear odd things too. Her spirit of experimentation is evident in some of her stranger outfits. Clarissa doesn’t pay any attention to what she eats, which is why her friends are in awe that she stays thin most of the time. She enjoys getting exercise at the gym and going out dancing with her friends. She doesn’t mind a drink or two at the club and especially enjoys eating fried foods like onion rings and fried chicken.

I sill haven’t decided what story I want to write first, so instead I’m going to start with a character sketch and let the character help me figure out what I’m going to write. Clarissa will be my first character, because I’ve mostly written in terms of female characters in the past. I’m not sure why that is, but I’ll have to add a male character after Clarissa is fleshed out a little bit.

I think she seems to be one of those people who enjoys dressing up and going out to the club with friends, but she’s a little insecure about her looks because her appearance often causes strangers to stereotype her as a bit of a shallow person. I’ve found a character trait form, and I’ll use that to develop ideas about who Clarissa is and what she does through the next few posts. After I think I know her well enough, I’ll create a little story that tells something about her but that doesn’t have any other important characters. Then I’ll add another character and write a scene for the two of them.

This is going to be really interesting.

I like writing out what my process is going to be too, because then I’m more likely to look back at it and actually do it – well, it’s worked so far!

So I still have some work left to do and I’m not quite ready to start writing, but I’m instead trying to think of some topics I might like to use to get started. This is my first time coming back to narrative storytelling in years, and I want to build the habit right and make something I can really be pleased with. My storyline from last year began as a mundane chronicle that turned into a fantasy adventure. I like the format, but it’s hard for me to keep going (and I’m terrible at dialogue – I really need some practice), so instead I want to do something a little less rooted in fantasy, at least for now, just to practice writing dialogue and writing in general.

I like writing detailed descriptions about the character’s environment, but I’m not very skilled at making detailed character traits. I’ll probably use some of the character template documents to get started on the characters. I am a writer who has a strange relationship with the concept of intimacy (ha – pun.) Maybe for my writing plan I’ll start with very short stories that illustrate each of the sub-concepts I want to explore. I would list them here, but they’re things that aren’t easily named or summarized. That’s probably why I find them interesting and I want to explore my own understanding of them. Over time the meanings of these things may have changed for me. For part of my research I will use excerpts from my old journals as points of departure for stories and discussions, because it’s quite a personal thing.

I just realized that I have had this blog for a really long time! Wow, 2006? I was really writing some garbage then. (And the stuff I write now is probably garbage too, but hey, it’s MY garbage). But this blog has been used for so many different things! I need to clean up my categories and do some content maintenance. I’ve gotten only one or two legitimate comments, ever, and why not? I’m not posting anything here that would stimulate a response. I’m not writing content every day trying to gain readership in a popular or thought provoking topic. File this blog under ‘personal’ because it really is.