Inspiration comes from everything I see or hear or do.  I might not see or hear or do something that immediately gives me a brilliant idea, but everything that does wind up as some form of idea (brilliant or otherwise) started out as something as mundane as a boy climbing a rock in late December.

Rants
This section contains most of my older pieces – short, to-the-point, often borderline bitchy pieces that are now either outdated or terribly immature sounding. If you want to know how I felt about something in middle school, go look. If you want to know how I feel about something now, ask me.

Hannah and Deborah
These two sisters originally appeared in a short piece for my ninth grade English class. Since then, they’ve sort of become my catch-all characters: when I have an idea but no setting, I drop-kick it into the lives of this pair. Even though I’ve aged, they haven’t; Deborah is still a high school senior, Hannah two years younger. They’re fun to mess with when I’m out of other character ideas.

Senior Year Writing
Over the course of my senior year, I took four English classes: Language and Composition, The Hebrew Bible as Literature, Social and Political Essays, and American Pastoral (baseball in lit). I wrote probably between twenty and thirty essays, and I think some of them are pretty damn good. Topics range from self-evaluation essays to self-satisfaction essays to self-indulgent essays, and I like ‘em all.

Otherwise Known As
This is an exercise in dialogue that I messed with one day and rather liked. It’s become something of an offhanded space for snatches of conversation I hear or imagine I hear that have nowhere else to go. It’s fun because I don’t have to explain the words; just write them and let the reader imagine the scene. It’s kind of like acting that way.

Religion
I do a lot of thinking about religion, and a lot of writing about it, too. It’s more adventures into self-discovery; what I believe and why I believe it. My intention is not to offend, so please don’t get upset and hate me because of my thoughts. They are only mine, and I don’t think anyone should think like me; I just like to talk about stuff.

Journals
I like to talk about myself, and I like to go back and read about myself when I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ve got several journals: one is my on-site, day-to-day activities, one is on teenopendiary (because opendiary was full) and it’s more sporadic; kind of a keeping-place for random thoughts and anecdotes, and the third is a journal where I keep thoughts on religion.

Academic Essays
The stuff that did in school ninth through eleventh grades (and if I write anything in college I like, it’ll go here too). These are mainly self-evaluations and more academic papers like analyses of Hamlet (but it’s a cool one, I swear) and a synopsis of the birth of Christianity. It sounds nerdy, but they’re quite rad.

Miscellany and Nonsense
The things that weren’t opinions, didn’t involve Hannah and Deborah, combined action and dialogue, and weren’t written for school. That’s all. Go read ‘em.