Prompt: Resolute Writing

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Determination is a massive part of our lives. It’s a necessary ingredient for ‘getting stuff done’. For some people, it takes a massive amount of it to do things the rest of us might find easy. For others, they’re confronted with problems that a usual person’s resolve wouldn’t begin to cover.

I’d like you to summon up your own writerly resolve and write a story (200 words or more) about someone demonstrating a significant amount of determination. It can take any form you like. You’ll earn 20 beans for completing this prompt as well as it counting towards the chance to snag our shiny Quill and Ink award.

There is no deadline as such for these prompts but if you’d like it to count towards your chance of earning the award for a specific year, we’ll need it by the end of that school year. If you’re comfortable sharing, then post below. If not, email your story to us via hol.bookclub @ gmail.com (without the spaces). Oh and remember it’s a good idea to check through your piece carefully for spelling and grammatical errors as they make it harder for people to properly enjoy your work.

[Shiloh Adlar]

I did not know how to say it. Words were impossible to actually tell them how I felt. If only there were a way to say nothing at all, but that could not happen. I had no choice. I had to confront them.

I took a deep breath not knowing at all how this would end up. Things may go smoothly or I may never leave this place again if they dislike what I have to say. I may take all the words I have left and lock them up so no one will ever hear me speak again. After all, if they could not hear these words, then what was the point of saying anything else at all anymore. Words were apparently of no meaning if this is the case.

My heart pounded as I stepped into the room and they stared at me, or stared down at me. I felt small, like a critter of prey waiting for them to pounce. "You wanted to speak with us," the first one asked.

I nodded numbly. No, use your words. That is why you are here, is it not? To speak up, so do it. "Yes," I replied, but it came out soft. I cleared my throat before trying again, this time stronger. "Yes, I want to speak with you."

"We are listening," the second one replied.

I paused for a moment, running through what I wanted to say in my head. No, don't think about it. Thinking only lands you in traps. Just do it. "It's about this project. It's not fair that I am continuously left alone to do everything. It's a group project which means we should be working together on it. We can assign ourselves each a certain thing to do then come together and collaborate on what we come up with on our own then as a team. I won't do the entire project on my own. It makes me feel as if I'm being used, so I'm hoping we can compromise and make this work."

The three others who were members of my group stood there and looked at me. "Why didn't you say something before," the third one asked me. "We weren't trying to make it seem like we were using you because you're smart. You always seem like you like to do things on your own, and we didn't want to get in your way."

"Oh," I said surprised. "I do like doing things on my own, but I also like working as a team when necessary. It makes the project more fun. I'm sorry if I came off that way."

The first of my group answered, "We're sorry, too, that we made you feel like we didn't care and were using you."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Whew. I'm glad that's over. Even though it turned out okay, I could still feel my heart pounding and my clammy hands almost as cold as ice. But I did it. I spoke up for myself. One of the hardest things I ever have to do, but with enough determination to do so, and a little, but very little planning, I can get through it. I know it.

[Bull J. Johnson]

(Like always my stories are going to be scattered around different prompts. This is the first installment of the story...)

The Big Snowstorm (Part 1)

There was once a family of five that was stuck out in their home out in the country during a bad snowstorm. All of them were hoping to get to a fun party, but sadly this didn't seem like it was going to happen. They couldn't even open the door that was how much snow was outside there door. So instead of whine and moping they decided to watch a fun Christmas movie, but the tv wouldn't work either. So they thought about what other fun Christmas stuff they could do. Then the youngest of the lot, who was named Valerie spoke up, "I think we should try to put on a play just like y'all told me about when y'all were my age."

"That sounds boring," grumbled Jacob. "let's play a board game instead."

"But I really want to do a play," whined Valerie back at Jacob

"Oh let's do it," said Sophia who looked up from her book she was reading. "it will be so much fun just like the old days before dad walked out on us."

"Ok fine I guess I'm out voted," said Jacob as he went to the room where the old play script books were kept.

[Shadow Gaunt]

By nature I'm someone who lets people step all over her. I'm not someone who speaks up for myself because I feel bad about hurting other people. Probably the most common word in my vocabulary is 'sorry'.

And yet I'm a contradiction. I love being active and I'm quite the extrovert, I love meeting new people, especially if they love Harry Potter. That only happened once, which is one of the reasons I'm actually at HOL. And yet, usually my friendships don't stay, because of that small quirk of feeling extremely guilty about hurting others.

But this is not a story about finding HOL or how sorry became the most common word in my vocabulary. No, this is about a time (not so long ago) when I had enough and was determined to turn things around.

The day started off well, sunny and warm. I was quite happy for today was supposed to be our last Acting rehearsal and we would have our performances next. The day went by fast and Acting came upon me quite soon. Once the attendance was taken, we dispersed and got together with our groups. Once I met with my group I decided to go over the script with them. As we were going over, however, I noticed that nothing was changed. In fact, the whole script was written in my words. When I asked my group members about this they all smiled and said they didn’t have time to do the script.

I was exasperated. Every day I sent my group members an email asking them to please look over the script and highlighting important parts of today’s rehearsal. In my mind I had a question, that I wanted to ask my group members really badly. If I have time to write the script, edit the todo list, and send an email to them, why don’t they have time to just go over what I’ve written?

However, I decided to see what was going to happen today. The thing was, Winter Break was just around the corner and if we didn’t perform before it we would have to perform after it. But since the script wasn’t ready, we would forget our lines. And since we didn’t have the script we couldn’t perform tomorrow. So, I talked to my group mates and told them that the script is due tomorrow and that I don’t know their lines. They all nodded and said that they would definitely do it.

That night, I went to type up our final lines. As I looked at the script I noticed the blank spots for my group and I was enraged. I emailed all of them with an extremely angry email and yet the next morning no one did anything. And so, the next day I was determined. After class, in which we didn’t perform, I wen up to the teacher and explained what happened. Luckily, he understood, and after I showed him the history he indeed saw that I was the only one working on it.

In the end my group members did not do so well on the project and even though I felt a bit bad about what I did, I knew that it was their choice to not work on the script.