All Rileyed Up

I am on Day Three of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. It’s been great so far. Did I already tell you guys that this conference offers pirate workshops?

Aaaaargh!

I am seriously overwhelmed right now by all the workshopping, critiquing, lecturing, learning, blah blah blah–but all in the name of fun! And, uh, honing my craft, um, yeah, that too.

I am participating in the Ultimate Write Off. It’s a speed writing competition. Day one. 47 people. They gave us twenty minutes to write a coming of age story, fiction or non. I wrote mine about growing up in a bicultural household and a particular night when it became apparent to me that not everyone thought that was an okay thing (yes, a creepy redneck man was involved).

Day Two, they announced I had made the cut and I was moving on with the other 26 people (how they came up with this random number, I do not know). We were told to pick an object off a table. I picked up a Give Blood red rubber arm band. This seemed a better option to me than the worn, though clean, tighty whities. We were told after we picked the object to write a poem. We had 15 minutes. I do not write poetry. Except for the occasional haiku in honor of David Hasselhoff. Seriously! What’s a girl to do!!!!!

Here is my poem, in all its glory. This is how open I am people, I am sharing my poem with you. My POEM. I’m not posting it here, so you can gush how good it was. I’ve read good poetry. This does not fall into that category. My point in posting this is to show you that I stepped up to the challenge and wrote this in 15 minutes, and personally, I feel accomplished that I didn’t just walk out of that room and give up. In the words of the great Jean Claude Van Damme, “no retreat, no surrender.” (I laughed so hard just writing that. I love it when I crack myself up).

“Give Blood, Give Life”

A red circle
Wrapped around my wrist
It represents life
It represents blood
It says give blood

Another circle

A white circle
Wrapped around my wrist
It represents my life
It represents my blood
It says I am losing blood

A different circle

A red, wet, undulating circle
Nowhere near my wrist
It represents blood
It represents life

A last circle

A small, white circle
Wrapped around her tiny foot
She is a new life
She has my blood
I have given blood for life