Photography - One Liner Inspirations

Here is a collection of 35mm photos I took during a trip to the local park in early Autumn. I was inspired to write a few one liners (unedited thoughts that popped into my brain) while analyzing these photos. It's nice to recall warmer days during a cold snowfall. 

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She taps her paint brush against the water bowl,

colors splatter a paper sky

 Skinny stick stalkers saunter through the green, slicing stems and flower heads relentlessly.

 Rickety crack on the bridge's back, goes the toes of leaves across the wooden track.

Bark neck blistered green, she bled leaves on the pavement.

 Wrinkled necks stiff and tight, unable to breathe, the poison seeps, decadent decay.

Photography - Botched Photo Interpretations # 5

What story can be conjured from this photo?

Riding the train to Yonkers, NY. 35mm. Taken by Carolina.

Overactive (Story fragment)

Sophie's ten-year-old pale fingers press firmly against the window of the train. Bridges, boats, and brownstone buildings pass by as it travels lazily beside the river. The glass is cool, marked with smudged finger prints and scratches. She believes her hand can push through glass if she presses hard enough. 

"It's gotta work," she thinks urgently, for she has to warn the townsfolk across the river of the impending danger heading their way. Her brown eyes lock on the sight of a metal monstrosity, it's back hunched at sharp angles and skinny steel limbs hole-ridden, face a blank sheet of gleaming metal. It marches sluggishly slow towards the sleepy town, appendages sinking deep into the ground. She imagines them caked in mud, worm guts, and pigeon poop. Those limbs will soon strike the rooftops, crashing through bedrooms and living rooms, splintering bed frames and breaking televisions. They will drag forward, knocking over surprised fathers and shrieking mothers. They will cut into flesh and continue onto other homes until there are no lives left to snuff out.

Sophie has to save them from such a perilous fate!  

She tugs on her mother's sleeve, attempting to direct her attention to the creature, but her mother smiles dismissively and continues to read a magazine. Sophie huffs and returns her gaze to the window, only to realize she cannot spot the creature anymore. Panicking, she stands up abruptly, nose to glass, palms to scratches, her mother's reprimanding tone a whisper fading into the train car.

"Sophie! What's wrong with you. Sit down!" Her mother yells and shakes Sophie's shoulder. The town grows smaller as the train travels farther away.

She tries to explain the occurrence happening across the river-they have to stop this train at once-but the stern gaze her mother gives leaves no room for explanations. Pouting, Sophie returns to her seat dejectedly, for she had failed to be a decent hero. Sighing, she glances out the window anxiously, craning her head. The town is mostly behind them now, the creature suspiciously absent. Had it done the evil deed already?

Her eyes pass over the water tower at the foot of town, a hulking mass of rickety metal flesh, menacing yet ordinary in the landscape that zooms out of focus, and then fades from view.  

Notebook: Another Genre - The Rough Narrative

One of the numerous notebooks I use. I purchased this at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in NYC. 

Notebooks are personal pieces of ourselves; holding the rough narratives of our minds. 

I find them to be more intimate than romance books because I get an exclusive peek into what a person's mind looks like when spread across pages. Ideas are rough, pages are layered with indecipherable scribbles, doodles have unrefined lines, words are unpolished, and clusters upon clusters of emotions clash into each other. Notebooks are diaries, sketchbooks, research logs...they can be anything. They're bodies without a soul until we give them one.

I wanted to share a few pages from my notebook. Take a glimpse at the ideas/thoughts floating through my brain!   

I've been interested in the Korean language as of late, so I've been practicing the alphabet in my free time.

Some pages are dedicated to my handmade book shop, PikiThins. I generate countless lists and notes-from tasks, supplies, to brainstorming keywords for search engines-to keep the shop up to date. I'm always researching new ways to inject life into my shop! It's a great outlet to express my creative energy.

Dreams have become an important part of my life. They are a means to explore the person I've become through the metaphors they leave behind. I've gotten into a habit of recording them (that's why some of my writings have many misspellings. I'm usually half awake when I write my dreams down). I recorded over 100 dreams in 2013.

I admit, most of my dreams are nightmarish in nature. The writing shown here tells of a dream I had of being raped by two college students. Traumatized by the event, my friend helped me escape the college campus and create a new identity for myself. However, my friend was captured by those disgusting college students, and they forced him to ask me to return. I hadn't realized what trap I was walking into until it was too late.

Aside from dreams, I also jot down story ideas, occurrences I see on the street, and spur of the moment contemplation pieces. As you've noticed, I write very small! Can you imagine squeezing two rows of sentences into one college-ruled sized row? 

Rough narratives-whether about dreams, ideas, or occurrences in life-sound more like it could be its own genre. Any thoughts on this?

 If you were to share a page in your notebook, what would it be?