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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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The Writing-Practice Journal
New Intention:
Now in 2017 and the following years, if any, I shall use this journal for whatever I please to write. 
Still, I reiterate: Read at your own risk!
Old Intentions:
Now, starting with June 2013, I will use this journal for the entries for "I Write in June-July-August "  . Afterward, I'll go back to the part I have down below in red. Still, read at your own risk. 
Now, starting at the end of 2010, I am going to write into this journal directly, without making any other copies. Freeflow, but from prompts. I may use prompts or simple sentences as prompts, which I'll put on the subject line. I'll probably use some of the prompts from the Writing.com app.
And yes, I do intend to make a fool of myself, because I miss writing on a good old fashioned typewriter with no other cares. Maybe some ancient and wise author like Dickens will watch me from Heaven, shake his head, and say, "You haven't made a dent." Not a dent, but making my own mud is my intention. So, if you read, read at your own risk.
Truth is, I had started this journal in 2002 for the different reason of writing down ideas on the craft of writing. Over the years, my personal blog took over what I wanted to do here. Afterwards I continued with writing exercises with no order or plan to the entries. And now, this.
Who says I can't let my hair down! Okay, I can't because my hair is short.  But I've got nerve.
  
October 2, 2020 at 6:35pm October 2, 2020 at 6:35pm
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Aiden's eyes shot wide open, blue and startled.
"Get under your bed, Aiden," he heard his father's voice. In an instant, he was off the bed and on his feet, feeling the chill of the late afternoon. The house was shivering, too, and the floor under his bare feet shuddered.
The six-year-old Aiden ran into the closet. How could he trust a bed in which he was made to take an afternoon nap against his wishes!
This had to be a game, San Francisco's game, fated during the Creation. The big one that came on October 17, 1989. No tell-tale signs with this one, but it was big enough to sink and crash the entire house.
Aiden, now 36, leaned against the back of the chaise-long on the porch and closed his eyes tight to recall.
A steadily clamped mouth, as if a notch carved at the bottom of a strong head, with a sense of calamity. Why can't he remember more of his father? Yet, his mother, how fine boned she is! So frail, and slim, with her protruding belly, carrying the brother which will never come. Yet, Aiden recalls the baby things, spread on the sofa from the purchases of the day before the earthquake hit: several brand new blue overalls with Donald Duck, Teddy Bears, and Superman on them; milky-white diaper-bundles, Johnson's Baby Shampoo and Powder, tiny socks, and a pair of baby shoes. He has tried so many times to imagine the baby feet that could fill those shoes, but it wasn't meant to happen.
Then, no more San Francisco for the orphan Aiden, a lonely child. He is in Long Island, now. Kings Park. A different place. Uncle Matthew's place. Aunt Nora who faults Aiden for just about everything, and to begin with, for existing. Granted, she is already over her head with Aiden's older cousins, Julia and Ivy.
Thinking back…Sometimes it hurt; it really hurt, Sometimes, he panicked because he didn't know how to handle it all. How could he know in his early ages that in stressful times of change, those who have a stake in the act of kindness could make the object of their kindness a punching bag?
"Aiden is wild. Don't believe him. He is lying because he has a switchblade. He's hiding it," Aunt Nora is screaming at Uncle Matthew, Aunt Nora the cheater, Aunt Nora who Aiden saw kiss another man in the living room, when others weren't home, and Aiden talked about it in his uncle's presence.
"No, Mom, that switchblade isn't Aiden's," Ivy butts in and is immediately sent to her room. Julia stays quiet, although she watches Aiden standing by the open window, bawling, and she knows the switchblade never was Aiden's but hers.
One single really bad earthquake. That was all it took.
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Oct. 03, 2020-- CONTEST ROUND: Protagonist Background Story
All the other non-contest assignments are in "2020 NaNo Prep"
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