Emily Hodgson

Here are the remaining two pieces from the amazing Emily Hodgson. The first one was posted in September, titled "Boo!"
                                                 THE WOODS

I stumble through the forest. My feet are cut and bleeding. I have been weaving, and now I take a heavy breath and step up onto my hammock. I hear a noise. I try to rest, but I can't control my panic! I become very frantic. I turn around and fall face first onto the ground. When I look up, I see Death! It takes my hand and pulls me up and I get sucked in and that, in fact, is my death!

Emily wrote this piece after our discussion of famous women poets, which included the wonderful Emily Dickinson and her poems about Death. The figure of speech known as "Personification" was introduced to the club. Emily, do you remember I could only recall the first stanza of my favourite of Dickinson's poems, " Because I could not stop for Death"? Well, here it is:

Because I could not stop for Death
by Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death –  He kindly stopped for me –  The Carriage held but just Ourselves –  And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility –  We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring –  We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –  We passed the Setting Sun –  Or rather – He passed us –  The Dews drew quivering and chill –  For only Gossamer, my Gown –  My Tippet – only Tulle –  We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground –  The Roof was scarcely visible –  The Cornice – in the Ground –  Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity –

Emily's next piece:                              

"The Water"

I'm on a boat. 

Oh no! It's wet!

I slip.

I hit my head.

I think I'm dead, but how will I ever know?

I think I'm on the brink of death.

"Wake up, please!"

I hear a wail

And I get washed with water thrown over me from a pail.

"Oh my! You're so pale!"

I hear a sweet voice saying,

"I see a doctor with an evil smile on his face, and then I see him transform shape"

Her voice sounds glum.

She takes my hand and I hear a thump.

I squeal in pain.

I wonder if I'm insane.

But then she said "Dead."

It's hard to believe that Emily is only in Grade 5.

Emily, you must keep writing ...for your whole life! You have a sure talent for it. I am so impressed with these three pieces. More please!

Zeynep March

               PROLOGUE

"What about the snails?"
"They'll be okay in there," I said."It won't be the advantageous time for a few hours."
"But what if the lobbyist comes early?" Waffle asked."What if the whale rises like...like last time?"

I grimaced. Didn't Waffle know that I didn't like that subject? Shouldn't he be restraining from mentioning that to me? I put on a casual expression, and pulled the branches around the snails to conceal them. "Hurry! We'd better get back to your house before anyone realises we're gone."

In the distance, a shape rose out of the water, and a spiral of water spouted out of its head before submerging again.

Emily Hodgson

Emily whipped up three wonderful pieces of writing in one Writing Time session a couple of weeks ago. We were wringing up our personal distant memories as food for our writing, though if you read comments from the last post, you can see that some Writing Timers were digging in their Imagination gardens, rather than their Memory gardens. Read the following three peices, and let us know in which garden you think Emily might be digging!

 And don't forget our new "Spot the spelling mistake" game. The first winner to spot my spelling mistake in this post gets to be the Freeze Freak next session AND first collaborator!!! Hint: You might think "wringing" is a spelling error, but it's not! It's poetic, it's alliterative, and it's allowed!

     

                          BOO!

What's that shadow in the dark? How it is moaning from the figure of a shark? It moves quietly through the pitch black dark. A gust of wind taps me on the back, and I jump!

"Where am I?" I wonder aloud. The rain starts to pour on me directly as it is a storm cloud. I shiver in fright, and take a deep breath. I see a person, but as a cloud. At that moment, I take a step and feel the edge, and I fall just at the ring of a the bell. I couldn't tell who it was, but I heard a person shout "BOO!!!" and I died!

        There are two more fantastic pieces from Emily, to be posted very soon. She is absolutely brilliant at creating a spooky atmosphere. It wouldn't surprise me if Emily ended up an author of spooky fiction.

Thank-you, Emily, I'm really looking forward to reading more of your spine-chilling stories.

White Blanket of Silence

Today there were only five Writing Timers: Sian (who turned 11 today- congratulations!), Greta, Freya, Ingrid and Edie. It was sooooo quiet for most of the session, with heads down low to the table-tops as hands flew across the pages....inventing, describing, reporting, matching, listing, rhyming...

    Freya invented a new game, where she would list nine unrelated words at the top of her page, then write a piece based on linking all the words up into a meaningful paragraph. Edie, Ingrid and I were really into this new game, it forces the imagination to open up even wider than usual to accommodate all the words. Sian was busy collating facts on particular mammals which are usually overlooked by Australian scholars, eg. the Asiatic lion, or the wolverine. She would summarise these amazing facts from one of the Drawing Time reference books on mammals and read them to me. I learnt so much today from Sian, and all the girls. Ingrid was inspired to check out all the strange names for shark types and copy them onto the whiteboard. Did you know there was a crocodile shark?

    And Greta was very busy creating such beautiful poetry. Here is her first piece that tumbled out into her little notebook in a matter of minutes: 

    

           "Rising Wind" by Greta Jakob

A song whistling in the wind comes out of its hiding place

Oh whistling wind Oh whistling wind

Will you sing me a song?           

Greta and I collaborated on two poems also, using the "Pass it on (after one or two lines)" method.

One poem was about rain, the other about snow. This is where the white blanket of silence phrase was developed, summing up not just how snowfall appears in the night, but also how Writing Time can seem, when every girl is so engrossed in writing whatever she wants to write that the sound of a pin dropping on the carpet could be heard.

Freya Van Dyke-Goodman - I remember...

       When I was 3 months old, my family and I were in the bush on a beach in the middle of nowhere. While we were there, I don't know exactly what happened, but suddenly I couldn't breathe! My mum called a hospital, but the only hospital near us was only for adults.  But there was no choice, the people at the hospital put a huge breathing sort of thing on my mouth, and then drove me to a different hospital.

       When I got there, they gave me a pill and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew was that when I woke up, I had a new teddy next to me and a tray of food, and my mum was sitting next to me. Then my mum told me that we have to stay in hospital for two more days.

Miki Redle - UFO Theories

1. There were other life forms, except they eventually became extinct because of climate change. So we eventually will become extinct too, unless we do something!
2. There are no such things as aliens. They are made up science fiction.
3. There are other life forms. They are much more advanced than humans and are making it that humans do not have proof of their existence.
4. There are no more aliens, except for just a few of their kind left.They are trying to escape from humans because humans will lock them up in cages and study them.
5. There are no aliens in this galaxy, but there are if you go through black holes / pink holes.

6. There are aliens, but they are so advanced that humans cant find / detect them.

Edie Benjamin - I remember...

I asked the girls to write about significant events that have stuck fast in their memories. Here are three from Edie Benjamin:

1. I remember....from when I was 3, my brother punched me in the nose while I was asleep, and when I woke up, my pillow was covered in blood! Then my mom dragged him by the ear to his room, but his room was only across the hall so it didn't hurt him too much!!!

2. When I was 3, I was walking the dog, and I did a face plant on the concrete, so my brother took me home. Now I have a scar on my nose.

3. Once I was in the cinema, and just two minutes into the movie, I had to go to the bathroom for a minute. When I got out of the bathroom, the movie was finished!

" Well, that was a waste of time," I sighed, "I must have gone through a WORM HOLE!!!"

Ingrid Hollis

We are now into our fourth week of Writing Time, and I have to say that I really LOVE it!! I'm posting a  piece of poetic prose ( alliteration, girls!) from Ingrid Hollis here, as she has so cleverly painted the magic of Writing Time for us with words. I really couldn't have described it so well, and am delighted that Ingrid took it on to do so. Thanks you, Ingrid!! (Mars Drum)

My Poem    by Ingrid Hollis

"The sun is shining very brightly on me. And the people around me are very quiet, and are writing very hard. Edie has just come, but is getting in the mood very quickly! Sian has just come as well, and that makes six people here now, including Marie. It's so lovely to be able to spend time outside in the sun, and be able to write, without any distractions!

I have just finished my cordial, and so has everyone else. 

Edie has a hat that is cream-corn colour. I really like it. 

The paper I'm writing on is white. The same colour as our cordial mugs.

The sun has been shining on us for about forty minutes.

I have just seen a magpie, I expect it is looking for some food/water/sunlight. 
It has just flown away. 

I don't know why.

There are a lot of plants around me. It is a very beautiful scene! There is a very big tree next to me, I think it's a bit dried up. It is the same colour as the trees around it. The sun is slowly going down.

I have just gone inside. 

So that is the end of my poem!

Writing Time - Girls Only