Growth Spurt Lizzie Rose
Growth Spurt
Lizzie Rose
Growth SpurtLizzie Rose
Cover Photo Courtesy of Samantha Didyoung
Table of Contents
Author’s Foreword
PoetryFree Verse
“Easy as Pie”“Sunshine”“I Remember”“Please”
Formal Poetry“Chameleon” (Conceit)“Close My Eyes” (Cinquain)“Migrating South” (Haiku Story)“Tap Dancing” (Triolet)
FictionMicro Fiction
“The Box” (MicroFic)Five Twitter Fiction
Short Story“Afternoon Tea”
Non-Fiction“A Thicker Skin”
Author’s Note: The Original Drafts“Excuse Me”“Chameleon”“Easy as Pie”
“The Box”“Afternoon Tea”
Foreword
I entered this Creative Writing class with a bad case of Writers’ Block. It was torturous. Night after
night, I would stare at a blank Word document until I saw spots. Nothing came. When I did have an only okay
idea, I would write a little and then become convinced that it was garbage and delete it all. It was a vicious
cycle, until I was smacked with my first due date for a Nonfiction piece, then I really had to throw it into high
gear and just write something. Then, something happened. I sat myself down with a due date lurking in the
back of my mind, and I wrote. And I actually liked what I wrote. Whaddya know?
In the last few months, we have learned how to apply many different writing techniques and styles in
our writing. Everyone prefered a different style, depending on what kind of writer they are. For example,
poetry and its ____ was much debated. Since I had never really spread my wings farther than free verse poetry
and fiction, I was excited to explore the other different branches of writing. There were three strategies and
techniques that stuck out to me. When these techniques were taught, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy writing them.
However, I enjoyed the challenges that these styles posed. I always did love a good puzzle.
1. Nonfiction
I was not expecting to enjoy writing Nonfiction. I only saw it as a hurdle I had to jump before getting
to the good stuff (Poetry! Fiction!). I’ve never liked reading Nonfiction, I found those kinds of books
downright dull. What I realised after the unit began, what I had been looking at the wrong kind of Nonfiction.
When I thought Nonfiction, my mind immediately went straight to manuals, books about nature, self-help
books, stuff like that. The thought never entered my mind that Nonfiction could be entertaining. I don’t know
why this is. I’ve read Bill Bryson’s (hilarious) books and Anne Frank’s diary. I guess that those books never
checked themselves into the part of my brain where the boring bird books and Eleanor Roosevelt biographies
live. When we did start writing Nonfiction, though, I really liked it. I liked writing about one snowy afternoon
that I spent with my cousin and a lesson that I learned. In this compilation of works that I produced this
semester, my one Nonfiction piece is called A Thicker Skin, where I tell the story of how I learned one
particular lesson (a little too late in life). These stories used techniques that I also used in Fiction, only using
real life scenes and experiences. Nonfiction is very truthful, in my opinion, which was very refreshing.
2. Form Poetry
I’ve written poetry ever since I picked up Shakespeare’s sonnets for the first time when I was the
tender age of five or six. However, the difference between Shakespeare’s poetry and mine is that mine is what
would be considered free verse, and bad. As I grew older and discovered Hughes, Neruda, Browning,
Dickinson, the Bronte sisters, and some of my other favorite poets, I grew in my poetry. However, I never
strayed from free verse poetry. Form poetry was so intimidating and strict when my thoughts just needed to
flow freely in their angsty way that my middle school poetry does. Whenever I tried to branch out and try
writing a sonnet, it never worked.
During the poetry unit, the form poetry loomed over me like a cloud. I had gotten to the point where I
was dreading the thought of straying from the comfort of free verse. When the free verse lesson ended, I felt
like a baby bird that was being pushed out of the nest. But when I was assigned the first form poem, a funny
thing happened. Something clicked, all of a sudden the looming doom dissipated and I felt like I knew what I
was doing. I was enjoying it, too, and liking what I was producing. Sometimes, when the idea was right and
paired with the form that it was supposed to be paired with, the poem fell into place. Most of the time, I had to
work and rework the idea that I had until it finally fit into the form. Form poetry is almost like a puzzle. You
have to make all of the pieces fit perfectly together, make the right lines rhyme and have the right meter and
number of syllables (depending on what form you’re using). That takes time. There is no wiggle room, no
grey area. Haiku must have a 5-7-5 syllable pattern.A Cinquain poem must have a ABABB rhyming pattern.
Etcetera, etcetera. The fact that it takes so much time and effort writing and editing these poems is what I
liked most about them. It was so rewarding to have a finished product that I knew I spent an awful lot of time
of. My poem “Tap Dancing” is a perfect example of this. As I explain later on in my Author’s Note, it was a
very, very challenging poem to piece together. An idea that I had written down quickly into a free verse poem
was whittled down into a triolet, and I could not be more pleased with it. It is my favorite poem that I have
written this semester, because of the time spent on it and how crisply the pieces fell together when it was just
right.
3. Micro Fiction
This style was by far the most challenging for me. Ranging from a few words to a thousand, there is
little to no wiggle room for someone who loves to write details. Micro fiction had me stumped. How could I
portray a story that was so cut and dry, with nearly no details? It wasn’t easy. How could I tell a story in under
250 words? In my MicroFic The Box, I did it in 161 words, but it was not very good. The edited version is a
little better, but it was a challenge. One of the key elements in Micro fiction is insinuating what you mean.
Don’t patronize the reader, they’re smart enough to figure it out by themselves. That is something that even
novelists forget. The writer has to be able to tell a story through a few short sentences and strategically worded
details. And then there’s Twitter Fiction, where you have to do all that, in one sentence.
Being forced to use these different strategies, techniques, and styles in my writing this semester has
definitely pushed me to grow as a writer. Being stuck with a deadline really puts a fire under your butt to
produce something. You might not produce a masterpiece, but at least you tried something new and expanded
your repertoire. This “Final Portfolio” is no exception. It forced me to look back at things I wrote months ago
and edit them with the newer knowledge that I’ve accumulated. It’s also made me look back and see how
much I’ve grown since January.
Poetry
Easy As Pie(Free Verse)
My grandmother
hunched over the counter
in the kitchen,
folding over the doughy crust.
Kneading, kneading, kneading.
She smiles to herself,
a look of peace spread on her face.
She uses quick motions.
Flip the dough,
stir the cherry filling.
Spread the mixture smooth,
flipping, stirring, spreading.
Seasoned with years of practice,
My grandmother could do this blindfolded.
Open the oven,
a blast of heat
bumped closed with her hip.
The timer dings,
a golden pie, placed on the table
on the quilted oven mitt.
The divine smells danced in the air.
Hungry souls,
with growling stomachs,
gather from all corners of the house
following their noses.
Sunshine(Free Verse)
That should be her name
she shines
pure rays of light
Merry and exuberant
bursting with innocent love
that radiates on everyone
even those who don't deserve her light
a joyful luminescence
sunny and flitting
childhood that illuminates everything that is good
I Remember(Free Verse)
I remember
My first memory
My cousins crowded around looking down at me
Curiosity of new life in their eyes
I remember
being very little
Falling asleep in the car and waking up in my father's arms
Being carried up the stairs to my room
I remember
that everything seemed so big so full of wonder
and now those same things seem so small
I remember running around my backyard fleeing from imaginary villains
Finding shelter in my evergreen fortress
I remember
Swinging in my backyard singing along as loud as I possibly could to Martina McBride
I remember entering Elementary school
Discovering books and making friends with the characters
And escaping to their worlds
At least for a little while
I remember middle school
And how the experience was similar to when you jump into freezing water on a hot summer day
I remember
how with every year
I would rejoice at how much closer I was to being "all grown up"
Without being thankful for the remaining years of childhood I had left
Now I'm in high school
And those years of running away from my demons are long gone
Now look at me finally an adult
Now is the time for responsibility
And pushing those childish ways aside and each day gets a little more complicated
This is what I wanted
Isn't it?
"All grown up"
So why do I wish I could go back
Live childhood without taking it for granted
But now there are new memories of my three year old cousin
Doing the same things I once did
With me as her sidekick
I'm happy to live those adventures again
This time watching her grow
Using my memories
Old, new
And the experiences that I haven't lived through yet
To help her though
And be there for her in the future
Because I remember
Please(Free Verse)
I’ve loved with my whole heart and soul
And not been loved back
Every unspoken word
A regret hollow inside me
Please, don’t forget me
I’ve moved on, let myself love
And trust again
Only to have my heart
Tossed aside
broken at my feet
Please, don’t break me
I’ve been betrayed, stabbed in the back
By people I've trusted
Those scars remain
Please, don't hurt me
I’ve been abandoned and taken for granted
Forgotten.
I know what that feels like
Please, don't underestimate me
It’s because of these
That I've built these walls
Afraid to love,
To trust,
To forgive
And forget
Please, try to understand
Chameleon(Conceit)
You are a chameleon.
Changing for others,
losing yourself in the process.
This is your camouflage,
a way to disguise yourself to hide your scars.
Changing your colors to blend in,
moving to the next
When the colors wear off.
Because it's easier to forget
than it is to stay.
Close My Eyes
(Cinquain)
Long sleeves, cold hands gripped
dragging feet, scraping along rough pavement. Snow
swirls, getting caught by outreaching fingers and eyelashes. Stripped
of anxieties, I enjoy the serene, cold quiet as gravity slows.
I close my eyes, letting go.
Migrating South
(Haiku story)
Today is the day
moving their home downward south
Their yearly journey
They flit, branch to branch
Harried mamas rouse their young
Their feathers ruffle
Forming into lines
They take flight, saying goodbye
Some will not return
birds are migrating
Rising up, out of the trees
Clouds of feathers flock
Birds wings carve the sky
Sculpting around the white clouds
Around the steeple
Tap Dancing
(Triolet)
Excuse me, but you're tap dancing on my last nerve
So kindly step off, if you please
You vex me with every word you say, as I'm sure you've observed
Excuse me, but you're tap dancing on my last nerve
It's like you're Fred Astaire, with fancy footwork you reserve
Just for me, I'd like give your neck a squeeze
Excuse me, but you're tap dancing on my last nerve
So kindly step off, if you please.
Fiction
The Box
(Micro Fiction)
The doorbell rang. The woman opened the door to find a FedEx delivery man standing on her doorstep. She never got
packages. She could barely hold her excitement as she scribbled her signature for the man and hurried the cardboard box to her
kitchen table. She found an X-acto knife in the junk drawer, and slit open the packing tape. She flipped open the flaps of the
cardboard box and froze. It held something that she hadn't seen in a very, very long time. Tears dripped down her nose and
cheeks as she pulled a small wooden box out. She opened it, and a tune played, a little mechanical ballerina spun to the music.
There was a faded picture inside, two faces from long ago. Herself and a small child. She remembered as she flipped the
picture over. On the back, in her handwriting, was "I'm sorry."
Five Twitter Fiction
The apartment complex across the street was like having fifty television sets looking into fifty people's lives. It was great, until she saw a
flailing hand streak blood on the window through her binoculars.
The old man opened the door to find a baby on his doorstep. The daughter he had deserted years earlier watched her son.
The woman suffered from a disease. It tore her apart. The dreaded writer's block!
A dancer, a singer, a scholar. These are the things you could have been. Now you're an angel.
Day by day, night by night, it was all the same. The woman took her future in her own hands, and her problems went away.
Afternoon Tea
(Short Story)
There is a long list of ridiculous and pretentious things on this earth. Sunday’s afternoon tea being one of them. Every
Sunday, my parents put together a spread of stupid finger sandwiches and sickly sweet tea, like we’re British or something. My
mother even sticks up her pinky when she sips her tea, and installed the same mannerism into my being after years and years of
her forcing my finger up when I tried to take a sip of anything. God forbid I make the grave mistake of forgetting to lift my
pinky.
Every Sunday, ever since my birth, it has been this way. Every Sunday after church, the family gathers in the parlor
and sticks their pinkies up together. Not much has changed over the years, except the people. My grandfather passed away
when I was fourteen, and my brothers have since gotten married and left the nest, leaving me behind. Now, it’s just my father,
my mother, and my batty grandmother who is not nearly as sharp as she once was. Sundays now consist of my father’s stony
silence, my mother’s constant nagging (“Stand up straight!” “Don’t slouch!” “Don’t! It’s rude!”) and Grandmama’s loony
mutterings that make absolutely no sense at all. We’re all stuck in this restrictive state. Even though I’ve never been in one, I
imagine that this is what being strapped into a straight jacket must be like. Freedom seems so close and so simple, but it’s out
of reach. The muscles beg to breathe, to flex free.
This is how I feel every day, but I felt especially stifled this afternoon. I stared out the window at the sunshine
beaming down on the green grass. The outside shone so brightly I had to squint. When I looked away, I saw spots flicker
around my mother’s head as she handed me my teacup and saucer. I sat confined on the plush antique armchair, the light
heating the side of my face.
Father entered the room and smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes when he kissed my mother and took his tea
cup.
The both sat down primly and neatly. My mother sat up rigidly straight, being careful of her posture and her pristine
Chanel suit. She smoothed over nonexistent flyaway hairs as she set her teacup down on the claw foot coffee table.
“Where is your mother?” She asks. I have come to understand through observation of friends families that their
parents treated their inlaws like their own parents. Not in this house. There had always been an icy understanding between my
mother and my grandmother. It only got worse when Grandmama went crackers and lost all tactful abilities. Whatever she
thinks, she says. Loudly.
Today is a good example.
“Leave me alone! Leggo of me!” I hear her yelp as she makes her way down the grand hall, whacking the walls with
her cane. I see my mother flinch in the corner of my eye. She’s probably totaling up the repair costs to fix the scuffs on her
precious walls.
Grandmama’s waving cane comes to view in the doorway before she does, along with the harried butler who looks to
be at his wits’ end.
“I can go from here! Shoo! Shoo!” She shouts as if she’s hurrying along a stray cat.
“GOODmorning! Beeeyouutiful day, isn’t it!” She exclaims joyfully as she hobbles her way to her arm chair, her
cane flying around her head. My mother is crouched in a protective position, ready and willing to take the old bat down if she
takes a swing at the priceless Royal Doulton and her silver teapot.
But Grandmama sits down peacefully after hanging the cane on the back of her chair.
Mother grimaces as she places a teacup in front of Grandmama, as if she’s already seeing it in shards on the carpet.
Father breaks the ice, asking me, “How was your drive? Are your classes going well?” He doesn’t really seem to care
for an answer, but hearing me drone on about Med school is better than silence.
I fake a smile, “It was fine. Classes are going well.” I lie. It was my first year of premed, and classes were awful.
My father nods, “Good, good...” Then lets the conversation drop. Silence once again.
“So, Tara, how long ago did you send out your book? Have you heard from any of your publishers yet?” My mother
asks, her tone meaning to be nonchalant but ending up hurtful. “No magical acceptance letters? None at all?” She pushes as I
stay quiet. I don’t know what to say, but her words sting. She’s rubbing salt into a very fresh wound. She knows very well the
kind of answers I was getting, since they all come to the house. I had gotten another rejection the previous Sunday.
“Dear Miss Humphries, though your story does have potential, it is not what we’re looking for at the moment…” and
so on.
Mother knows she’s got me now, she sinks her French manicured talons into me even farther, “How glad are you now
that you decided to earn your medical degree.”
I had to stifle a laugh at the irony that she’s under the impression that I was the one who decided to go to Harvard
medical. Lets just say Med school is yet another example of my parents and their obsession with keeping up appearances. I
wanted to be a writer. I begged them to send me to school in New York City to study creative writing, but they would not have
it. They demanded that I “be practical,” which is parent speak for “not embarrassing.”
I even wrote a book. I spent years and years writing, pouring my whole heart and soul to it before I dedicated my life
to science. I even sent it out to a few publishers, my last ditch attempt at freedom that turned into a box of rejection letters. My
parents only allowed me to send out the manuscripts so that I would “get it out of my system.” I only had a couple more
publishers to hear from yet, if they bothered to send an answer at all.
Mother and father are laughing a little, smiling at me. So proud that their little girl finally left childish things behind
and decided to follow in her brothers’ footsteps and become a doctor. However, unlike my brothers, I’m not nearly as gifted in
the sciences. God help the poor sap who ends up on my operating table.
A hot, angry fire flashes into my cheeks and stomach, but It’s not worth the fight. “Yes, yes it is.”
Grandmama pipes up, her voice ringing in a high decibel, “My husband was a doctor!” She exclaims. We all nod. We
know, we know, we say. My grandfather’s profession is what made this fancy lifestyle that my family leads possible.
Grandmama looks at me with an intelligence in her eyes that I haven’t seen in years, “And you know what? He was
downright miserable!” She nods and wags her finger at us, continuing, “And so was I! I wanted adventure, but he wouldn’t
have it! Said he needed a proper wife, not an explorer. I regretted it for the rest of my life, and so did he. So boring! Boring!
Boring!” She yells exasperatedly. It scares me how animated she is, all this emotion erupting out like lava out of a long
dormant volcano. She whirls around to me and wags her finger some more, “You take your youth while you have it! Don’t
accept the regrets of the future if you can change them now!”
My mother jumped up. Enough was enough. She clapped for the butler and the nurse to take Grandmama back up to
her room. She reached over and slipped something into my hand before they lifted her up and out of her chair. When they took
her away and her cane clattered on the walls leading up to her room, my parents discussed her declining condition.
“It’s just getting worse and worse. Such jibber jabber!”
“Have you ever heard such nonsense?”
They marveled together, but I stared down at the crumpled letter that Grandmama had slipped me.
It was from the last publishing house that I had sent my manuscript to. They wanted my book.
Author's Note
Excuse Me
Excuse me,
But you're Tap dancingon my last nerve
It's like you're fred AstaireMaking me angry, like a pro
Toeing the lineSpinning my head
So kindlyStep off, if you please
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
As mentioned before in the Foreword, this poem was written for a structured poem assignment, specifically cinquains
and triolets. While I was thinking about what to write, I was also thinking about a fight my friend and I had gotten into that
morning. A picture of a little tap dancer tap dancing on my last nerve, and the idea for a poem sprung into my mind. I just wrote
down the poem in free verse-style. I didn’t like the poem in it’s original form, but I just couldn’t let go of the picture of my
little tap dancer. I decided to try to rearrange it into a form poem for my assignment. First, I tried making it into a cinquain, but
it just wasn’t working. Then, I tried the triolet. With the addition of few extra lines that I had omitted from the original poem,
the poem fell into place perfectly as a triolet. I’m very happy with the result, and I think that it may be my favorite poem that I
wrote this semester.
The rhyme scheme for a triolet is AbaAabAB, a far cry from free verse. It took an awful lot of working and reworking
the words to get the pattern just right.
Chameleon
You are a chameleon
changing for others
losing yourself in the process
this is your camouflage
a way to disguise yourself to hide your scars
Changing your colors to blend in
Moving to the next
When the colors wear off
Because it's easier to forget
than it is to stay
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
What I changed in this free verse poem called “Chameleon” was the addition of punctuation. Though it may seem like
I added a few insignificant commas and periods, I think that the punctuation gives the poem a different tone. As we learned in
Creative Writing class, punctuation makes the reader pause, if only for a second, and think a little more about the poem and its
message. The original poem was like a run on sentence, broken up into lines, leaving much to be desired. The revised version
has a much better flow and is more comprehensive, not just one long stream of consciousness.
Easy as Pie
My grandmother
is hunched over the counter
in the kitchen
folding over the doughy crust
kneading kneading kneading
She smiles to herself
a look of peace spread on her face
She uses quick motions
flip the dough
stir the cherry filling
spread the mixture smooth
flipping stirring spreading
Seasoned with years of practice
My grandmother could do this blindfolded
Open the oven
a blast of heat
bumped closed with her hip
The timer dings
a golden pie is placed on the table
on the quilted oven mitt
The decadent smells danced in the air
Hungry souls
With growling stomachs
Gather from all corners of the house
following their noses
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
This was the poem that I workshopped in the first free verse poetry workshop. Almost all of the members of my group
mentioned that the poem would greatly benefit from the addition of punctuation. One group member suggested putting commas
in between “kneading kneading kneading” to emphasize the kneading of the dough. Much like my poem “Chameleon,” the
addition of the punctuation helped organise the thoughts in the poem. Since there were plenty of “natural pauses” in the poem
already, the punctuation only emphasized those spots, making the reader pause. One line in particular, “a golden pie is placed
on the table,” I deleted “is” and put a comma after “golden pie,” which made the tone of the line and that stanza completely
different. Also, the”is” in the second line of the first paragraph was dropped, and “decadent” in the first line of the last stanza
was changed to “divine,” since it was pointed out to me that “decadent” may have a negative connotation.
The Box
When the doorbell rang, the woman hopped up from the couch and paused the video she was watching. She opened
the door to find a FedEx delivery man standing on her doorstep. She never got packages. She could barely hold her excitement
as she scribbled her signature for the man and hurried the cardboard box to her kitchen table. She found an X-acto knife in the
junk drawer, and slit open the packing tape. She flipped open the flaps of the cardboard box and froze. It held something that
she hadn't seen in a very, very long time. Tears dripped down her nose and cheeks as she unloaded the contents of the box onto
the table. It was a small wooden box, when she opened it, a tune played, one that she had blocked from her mind. There was a
faded picture inside, two smiling faces from long ago. She remembered as she flipped the picture over. It said, "I'm sorry."
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Micro fiction was one of the things that I found most challenging in this unit. Since I’ve always been one for
description, it was hard for me to shorten my lengthier passages. This story included. In the original micro fiction, I had
intended to make the reader make their own conclusions as to who the two people in the picture and why it had “I’m sorry” on
the back. I did this because I wasn’t sure myself as to the circumstances of the package and why the woman was so upset. No
one else was sure either, and the other members in my workshop group were all very confused. Who is the woman? Who’s in
the picture? Etcetera. When I revised this micro fiction, I tore it apart. I deleted the first sentence, which was merely fluff. I
described what the people in the picture looked like. “Herself and a small child.” I also added that the “I’m sorry” was in her
handwriting, thus hinting that she was the one who had sent this package to someone else a long time ago. The small child in
the picture. The woman abandoned her baby, and later on, she felt sorry and sent her child a family heirloom with a picture of
the two of them. The child, now probably full grown, sent the package back.
Afternoon Tea
(Original Beginning)
It had been a long day, which may explain why I broke down, on the job, in front of a complete stranger. I had been serving coffee all day to some of the rudest people on the planet, and now, at ten o’clock at night, my no good very bad day finally caught up to me.
The day hadn’t started out very well, my mother had called and nagged me about how our “deal” was almost up. The deal was that I would spend a year in New York, living out my dream as a freelance writer for a year. If I was successful, I could stay, if I wasn’t, I had to return to New England and attend Harvard and earn a degree in pre-med.
Story of my life, what i want takes a back seat to what's "practical", which is parent speak for not embarrassing. Apparently, being a writer is embarrassing. Or, it is when the writer is completely unsuccessful in selling her works.
Here she was again, sinking her french manicured talons deeper and deeper into me as she kept picking and picking, rubbing salt in the freshest of wounds.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
In the beginning, my idea for my short story was drastically different than the revised version is. The original piece
was based on an idea I had had for a long time, which was a young girl in New York trying to make it as a freelance writer, but
failing miserably. How could I make that work? I added an uptight mother and a deadline to make things a little more
interesting, but it still wasn’t enough. After the first couple of paragraphs, it dawned on me that that wasn’t enough. Then I
added a job. But then after writing that in it just seemed like fluff. Then a wise old guy at the diner that she worked at was
added. I felt like I had written myself into a corner. To make the original story work, it had snowballed into something much
more complicated and long than it needed to be.
I decided to focus on the relationship between Tara and her family, specifically her mother. How did they feel towards
each other? The dialogue and the backstory came together quickly. The setting soon followed suit. Taking the place of a wise
customer was a batty old grandmother who knew more about what was around her than her family knew. I wanted the
relationships in the family, the mother and the father, the mother and her mother in law, the mother and her daughter, to
illustrate the family’s “keeping up appearances” attitude when everything is really falling apart.