I found myself talking to my brother about what it meant to be a writer. It really made me stop and consider What makes a good writer? Every time I talk with him, I realize that there are many aspects to being a writer.

When you speak with someone, you use tone and body language to let them know how you feel. It is estimated that words are only 7% of communication, the rest is tone and body language. Writers can only use this 7% to communicate though. A good writer can get their feelings across. What would you say in body language and tone, you must now put into words. Using tactics such as connotations and imagery is so important. Being able to get your tone and mood to match up is essential to being a good writer.

Writers also must create worlds and people. They have to make the reader seem like they're in another world. Their characters, their places, their culture. All of that has to be made up by a writer. They must create something new, right out of their head. All of that creativity.

The plot is what is obvious when it comes to being a writer. There must be a problem. That's what makes a good story. It's the way that someone who is kind of relatable can overcome a challenge. While you may love the character's, you would not enjoy reading about them so much if they didn't have to problem solve.

Finally, they have a passion to share it with others. That's why there's libraries, bookstores, and even the Prose. Sharing i important. For feedback, for ideas, for all sorts of things. Without new ideas, people can't grow, and someone has to plant the seed.

In short, all of the these things come down to being a writer. Being a Writing means you create feelings, thoughts, worlds, and people. It means letting the world know what you have to say, without ever having to verbally say it.

My mother was a florist and my father was only a man in love, a dangerous combination nonetheless. He wooed her with bouqets filled with pink, red and white camellias that were peppered with hibisucs and when my mother refused them he made her gentle promises through bouqets filled with white yarrows, zennas and honeysuckle. Weak was my mother for a man who could speak her language and so she removed the garland of yellow carnations from her door and opened it just a crack letting the warmth from her home seep onto the cold dimly lit streets. My father worked early mornings at the factory so from then on my mother would wake up to find a red chrysanthemum where my father once lay until one day as abruptly as it had started it stopped. I was around 8 at the time and had been studying flowers along side my mother, so i knew when the beautiful vase filled with dark crimson roses and marigolds arrived on our doorstep with a tag from the factory 3 days after my fathers disappearance, things would not be the same.

https://www.almanac.com/flower-meanings-language-flowers

I am a nurse. Trousers quit her job at the hospital. I feel as if I was pushed out the door because I didn't fit in. I would not get vaccinated because I contracted covid, likely from the patients, less than a year ago. Research indicates that natural immunity is better than any vaccine.

An email went out at work blaming the unvaccinated for the "covid variant surge." The hospital started forcing the unvaccinated to wear metal, painful ill fitting "N-95's." If a mask steams up your glasses it is ineffective. Period. One must be fitted for an N-95. Who the hell do corporations think they're fooling? Nurses?! It is disturbing that about half the nurses forgot their common sense and education. There has been little pushback. For the sake of supporting their families, they succumb.

For over forty years I've been on time, dependable, accurate and nearly always "in charge." They begged me to reconsider. I'll get my last paycheck tomorrow.

To be employed as a healthcare worker, one must get the "jab." Drink the cool aid.

I feel sorry for people thinking they have no choice but to take the chemical in the arm or face unemployment. I am not having proteins block the virus's invasion of the cells. You can bet other healthy things will be blocked from what the cells need. Long term effects may be devastating, we do not know for sure.

People have others depending on their paychecks. Mandates are a characteristic of tyranny. The propaganda is coming from what used to be respected news sources. They sold out. People believe lies to the point of ending friendships and family relationships over the fear mongering "news outlets" insisting the unvaccinated are inconsiderate health hazards.

This government administration will leave its people to die, facing a tortured death in Afganistan. Do you really believe Biden's administration gives a shit about us?

Does anyone report the millions of dollars the pharmaceutical companies have made producing vials of this (now less effective than thought) shit? Fauci's ideas change like the wind. He is nothing more than a dancing monkey. If he ever had any real sense, he sold it out.

There is a more sinister plan. I believe it was intentional: the weapons we gifted terrorists with. China has a border of several miles with Afghanistan. I smell a rat. Biden and Hunter are still in the afterglow of being in bed with China.

The massive Afghanistan refugees will soon bring their culture to our communities and covid will be kept alive as long as it is useful in the attempt to control us.

I will be losing my health insurance. I have no promise of a regular income and I am nervous about it. But one thing I'm not nervous about is refusing to "follow the crowd." I will wear a mask if a business requires, I don't want people afraid of me. I think to myself that I am living in a woke clown world. I prefer the red pill. I think that is the one that allows you to see the truth as uncomfortable as it may be.

My God has never let me down. I will be OK as uncertain as my future is. I will stand for liberty and freedom come what may.

I got another rejection this morning. Rejections are fine, truly; whenever you send a piece of writing to a publication, a rejection is the expected outcome, and that’s the math of it. I once heard thirdhand of a writer who said she aims to receive a hundred rejections per year, which helped me grasp how this all works. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some pieces accepted for publication, but there will not be some magical “made it” point where my quill develops a Midas touch; each time I see a message from a journal, I say the word “rejected” before I open it, bracing and grounding myself. Rejections are the norm and the price.

That being said, they suck.

As planned, I still sat down to write this morning. I’m a teacher on his last summer day before reporting for work tomorrow; my daughters are with grandparents and my wife is at work, so I need to make some literary hay while the sun shines. The rejection was a cloud, though. It was kindly phrased: “This one didn’t quite feel like a match for us, so we’re going to pass this time, but we enjoyed the read. The ______ made me smile.” It was a nice thing to say and a wholly expected outcome, and yet…

I contemplated killing an hour or so with Netflix.

Instead, I read a few pieces on Prose. @Huckleberry_Hoo made me laugh. @InLoveWithWords made me sad. @AlisonAudrey shared her writer’s dream. And by the time I had read their pieces, language felt vibrant again. I pulled up this lovely challenge by @TheWolfeDen, and I wrote.

I joined Prose in October 2019 because I wanted to write again and needed some help getting unstuck. I have kept using Prose through this morning because I wanted to write again and needed some help getting unstuck.

My thanks, everybody.

Call them radiant

Call them mother’s eyes

Home’s a narrow space for me to find

Your beguiling state in endless heights

I’m just not moving right

Just not moving right when it’s just not you

The last day of summer is ending. It’s getting cold at nights.

Herds of students are scurrying about near the university I was working on my thesis in.

The Sun lazily beams from the clouded sky.

Eleven years ago I was elated to be among a crowd like this.

Do the people I was with back then matter now? No.

Well, do the people I was with even as recently as three years ago matter now? No.

Threads are torn.

I am halfway into the twenty-ninth year of my life. In less than two years, I will have turned 30. Acceptance of certain things in life never comes easy.

I got hitched in April, four days after I turned 28. I’ve been watching a lot of my friends being busy tying the knot right after. Never thought I would be the first among our circle, yet here I am. The circle. I feel that these bonds are stretching and, perhaps, will have also become irrelevant. Way sooner than we may be thinking.

At this moment, I don’t want to be thinking about what may lie ahead, the shithole the world is turning into et cetera. I am just harking back on my life.

Autumn. It’s always autumn. Yet another academical year commences. I dress up, hop on the bus, go to uni, hop on the bus, go to the private school I was teaching kids chemistry at. The lessons are over, and it’s getting darker and colder. I wrap myself tighter in my coat and light up a handrolled cigarette, and the vanilla-flavoured whiffs drift in the damp air. I listen to some English podcast or BBC Radio 4. I bump into my friend from another uni. He’s earned some money and wants to drink it all away. I’m in. The bar is inundated with students like us. When we finish the fifth round of drinks, we go outside and hail a cab. Next morning, I’m not having a hangover. I hastily write an essay for the forthcoming English lesson and go outside.

These small pieces seemed so trivial and insignificant as they were unfolding. No, I have not missed out on anything. Just the nostalgia painting my past in bright colours.

Memories. When I am pipe and slippers and rocking chair, that’s gonna be all I have got.

My family knew I loved to write, so, my brother offered a website I could use. He said it was called "Prose," so, I decided to try it out.

That's right, I actually joined Prose at 9 years old. It went downhill from here, but after long-ass breaks, I feel comfortable here again. It's real peaceful, scrolling through stories, everyone writes so beautifully. I love to just scroll, read, listen to music.. relax.

Relax, that's the right word. Prose is my spot for relaxing, even if it seems I'm never active.

Life on Earth, according to us, is life outside of the water.

The barriers between land and water are why and how we live. Electricity isn't important except for its use to keep the pumps working. We are a civilization of--and because of--pumps. When pumps fail, the entropy begins: water seeks its own level in the places where we have forbidden such levels--our homes, our beds, our banks, our internal combustion engines, and our existentialism.

Days after the electricity failed, the water rose. It continued to rise, seeking a level that could be measured only after equilibrating with the dry world.

Water breaks down everything, so when entropy wins and there is no longer a distinction between what's dry and what's wet, chemistry ensues.

We will eventually become one with the murk, our molecules simplifying. We will finally rest in peace. What will arise out of the murk next time?

The sound of a hundred birds wafted slowly in the air as the sun rose gently from far behind the distant mountains. They flapped their wings, singing a sweet lullaby and moving in choreographed melody, their feathery plume shimmering in the arching rays. The benign breeze swept over the somnolent springy turf and skimmed through the waves of the river. Darkness surrendered to the verdant hues of gold and a brilliant blue loomed in the skies like a bizarre sorcery. The birds disappeared into the clouds, their calls fading away adagio.

Tranquil waves kissed his feet as he sat on the pier, mesmerised by the mellow crack of the dawn.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said to his daughter who sat next to him on the dock. “You know what, Grace?” he said, his eyes averting from the ether, “this reminds me of the day when you were born.” His cheeks welcomed a warm smile as his grey cataract eyes filled slowly. Wrinkles adorned his face like layers of clean muslin. His hair wasn’t combed, his face wasn’t shaved and his clothes were all puckered. He had a visage that had seen more of youth than age.

“It happened at this hour,” he said drawing his breath “in the dulcet December, when the indolent sun rose late, and dawn lined the horizon in faint yellow. You never troubled your mother even then.” He let out a chuckle and turned towards Grace. He wished she would say something but she remained silent, like a sundial in the shade.

“Have you noticed the sparks of sienna fires that burst and flew up when blown?” he smiled “That’s how your eyes were when you first opened them. Your hair was a shade of taupe brown, just like your mother. Oh, Grace, I have never seen her happier.” He rubbed the side of his cheek with the back of his fingers.

“It is odd, is it not?” he sighed “how fast time flies, how swift things happen.” He paused to draw a breath, trying in vain to control his tears that rolled down his cheeks effortlessly.

“I know it’s going to be a beautiful place,” he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight for one last time. “You’ll get to see your mother,” he bit his lip and shut his eyes tight as they waded towards the shadows of the willows. Tears squelched on his lashes when he opened them. It wasn’t dawn anymore; perhaps it will never be, he thought.

Sitting on his knees, he opened the urn, scattering her ashes into the river. They seeped through the water and vanished in seconds. He longed for someone to cradle him into their arms as he broke into hysterical tears.

“I’ll meet you there, Grace” he gave out a sigh, almost a whisper, barely emotionless. He brought his legs close to his chest as a warm pallor spread on his face. A vacant expression fathomed to be a smile took shape on his face as the word escaped from his mouth—“Sayonara.”

It is odd, is it not? How fast time flies, how swift things happen.

I just moved in with my boyfriend and we have this lovely rooftop patio I like to read and write on - and take the occasional selfie on.

We live in Silicon Valley. He’s a techie at a big company and I’m a writer. We live happily with our (my) corgi.

But this isn’t a biography. It’s a picture, of me. And I’m happy. Happy to be here in sunny ol’ California.

As unhappy as my writing is, I’d like to say that I’m this picture, I’m beaming.

She sits on the smooth wooden floorboards, legs curled beneath her, threading a golden bead onto a strand of her curly hair. She is surrounded by similar beads of various sizes, arranged in piles on the floor and woven into various small braids scattered throughout her mane of curls. Her eyes are shut, dark eyelashes curl against the freckles on her cheeks. Her hands continue the braid with the ease of something done many times over.

She finishes the braid, falls onto her back, her bright clothes and hair glowing in the small, sparse room, beads still scattered around her. She opens her eyes and smiles up at the ceiling.