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Why I Write
When I write, I draw on my experiences as a woman with a painful past, a rapturous wife and mother, a world traveler, and a spiritualist. For me, writing is an art form. Like an artist, the work becomes more than I imagined it would be. When I set out to write a story with a particular idea or character in mind, words I cannot claim as my own flow from a magical and mysterious place through me and onto paper. The work takes on a life of its own; it is living art. The process fascinates me, satiates me, and makes my life more meaningful.
Please read my stories! If you would like to offer me feedback on my work, please click here and sign up for a free membership: https://heftynicki.Writing.com
I hope to see you there!
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Blog, Blog, Blog
 
Welcome!
 In 2011, my main focus will be on writing a novel. Since I'm a novice novelist, I've decided to come at the project from different angles, exploring the genre and experimenting with its elements. This blog and its offsite sister blog will be my journals where I attack novel-writing one day at a time.
As I was creating my BlogSpot page, the inspiration for the blog solidified in my mind. I named that blog "One Significant Moment at a Time." In essence, I want to use the format as a reminder to walk through my life with my author's eyes open, taking in the details, feeling the emotions of the day. As moments unfold and I feel their affects on me as a person, a woman, a mother, a sister, a member of the world community, I'll let the writer in me talk about it.
Creative Nonfiction is the genre most fitting to describe what I envision accomplishing here, moreso than blogging or journaling. The style is best suited, I feel, for my ambitions as a novelist.
In addition, Friday entries will not be written by me. Instead, I'll turn the keyboard over to one of the characters in my novel. He or she will relate the events of the day as s/he saw them, through the filter of his or her perception.
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Thanks for reading!!
August 28, 2009 at 3:02pm August 28, 2009 at 3:02pm
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Write
A chase scene (any genre/style). Be sure to think about the verbs you use to bring it to life!
(2:37 pm)
Through the fringe of hair hanging from her bent head, she kept the man in her peripheral vision. He was still staring at her, though he hadn’t moved from his seat since the last passenger got off the subway at the previous stop, leaving the two of them alone. She cursed herself for working so late, and for taking the last train before service stopped for the night. The hairs on her arms stood on end, as if the stranger produced static energy. An automated voice announced the next stop. It wasn’t hers.
The train slowed, then jerked to a stop. The doors slid open, but she sat still, aping a bored teenager. The chimes echoed through the deserted platform and the doors began to close. With the agility of a jack rabbit, she jumped from her seat, grazing the door’s edge as she sailed through and away from the menace, real or imagined, on the train.
She must have tripped the sensor, because the doors slid back open. Over her shoulder, she saw the man walked onto the platform. In the same instant, they broke into a run.
Inadequate lungs refused to expand quick enough as she sprinted for the escalators, running up the moving tread two steps at a time. She cried out but there was no one on the level where the fare card vending machines sat in silence. Grunts reached her ears, and she knew not to stop.
Her pumps skidded on the glossy tiled floor in front of the final escalator leading to ground level. As she fell, she raised her eyes to the square of hazy nighttime sky, feeling the freedom it promised slip farther from her reach. Her scream was muffled by a rough hand clapped over her mouth; a small static shock discharged at his touch.
(3:00 pm)
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Blah.
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August 28, 2009 at 9:32am August 28, 2009 at 9:32am
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I'll never forget the day I received the large white envelope in the mail. It'd been a year since I'd mailed off the manuscript-size Peace Corps application, and though during the ensuing six months I'd been asked in for two extensive interviews, I still feared I wouldn't be accepted into the program. I imagined rejection letters came in business-sized envelopes, so holding this 8½x11-inch monster's heft in my hands and staring at the Peace Corps logo printed in the return address corner had my heart slamming against my ribcage.
I tore the envelope open and read the first sentence of the cover letter over and over. "Congratulations, you have received an invitation to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Central African Rebublic." My hands shook so badly I had trouble dialing the phone, but I finally got through to my then-boyfriend. He was less excited than I was to hear the news, and then he asked a question to which I didn't know the answer: "Where the hell is the Central African Republic?"
I later learned, intimately, that the Central African Republic (CAR) is a land-locked country located dead center on the African continent. It shares borders to the north with Chad and to the south with The People's Republic of the Congo, which was known when I was there as Zaire.
My time in CAR was fascinating, heartwrenching, challenging, life-altering, and dangerous. I kept extensive journals while I was there, and I referred to them this month while writing a new short story about an experience I had which would be the climactic scene, if my two years in CAR were a novel. 
I would love to hear what you think about this story, especially since it is entered in "Show Off Your Best at the Bee Hive " which closes on Monday. There's an auto-reward of 2,250 gps for reviews!
I also scanned some of my photos from Africa, and uploaded them to this photo album:
My group was evacuated when the Peace Corps pulled out of CAR in 1996, when war broke out between the national Army and then-president Patasse's private, presidential guard. There has now been thirteen years of fighting and political unrest in the CAR, and the fabric of its society is in tatters. The CAR in the seventh poorest nation on the planet. War has devastated the country, AIDS has left millions of orphaned children, and banditry and rape are everyday realities. Writing my story has brought back memories, and I wonder how the Central Africans who touched my heart are faring today.
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It's been a while since I wrote anything I'm proud of. Working hard right now so I won't be able to say that anymore! Hope your week's off to a great start. Thinking of you!!! 
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~Noelle 
~
Where'd Ashy go??)~
