A Brief Break to Talk About, Well....Writing Prompts

     Abstracts are an interesting form of writing. One could argue that they're essentially summaries, but I think that they're far more aggressive than that. When a work is set to have an abstract written about it, it first must be thoroughly examined. Once the absolute key points are identified, all the other information can be deemed unnecessary and removed. Abstracts basically glean all the fat (extra or otherwise) off of papers and leave nothing but the facts. This makes abstract a perfect writing form for the conclusion portion of our paper. In the conclusion, we're expected to write what all we've gathered from our research and, as the name implies, the conclusions we've gathered from it. By using the abstract form, we can cut away any extraneous details of the paper and leave behind the bare facts and let them establish the credibility of our research for us.

Tales from Postapocalyptia Pt. 2

"Fine but..." I said reluctantly as we shuffled out of the old shack, "I wanna see mom before we go into town."


     As we stepped outside the old shack, I immediately smelled the burning wood emanating from the watch fires lit all around the town. Up from the hill where my house is, you can see for miles around; not that there's anything really worth looking at. I don't know much about how the world ended, but I can tell from the black and desolate landscape that there was a lot of fire. Everywhere I look I'm greeted by stretches black char with occasional patches of brown earth scattered about like spots on an animal. The few trees that are left are either burned remnants of their former splendor, or useless stumps chopped down for fire wood; courtesy of humanity. Somehow, though, humanity still finds a way to live. Even from up here I can hear people bustling about, parents calling for their children, wives yelling at husbands, and merchants trying to hock the last of their wares before they close down. It's amazing seeing how this town I call home has managed to survive in this hell we call a planet.

     I say "our town" because it doesn't actually have an official name according to the Council of Seven, our post-apocalyptic excuse of a government. Stationed in the city of New Eden, about fifteen miles or so outside of town, the Council rules the surrounding region through the consensus of the (as the name implies) the word of the 7 Councilors. Their decrees are, of course, enforced by a substantial military group known as the Coven. I personally don't know too much about them, just that they've got a huge stockpile of old weapons and tech. We're out here in the wilderness reduced to rotating watches while New Eden still has a functioning security network. How's that for a fair and just leadership?

"You're thinking about the Council again, Ian. Stop it," Alice said, jarring me from my thoughts.

"Oh, uhh...huh? How did you know?" I asked.

"I know you, kid. You should know that by now, Mr. Genius man."

"Al, I really wish you'd stop calling me kid. I'm older than you for god's sake," I said as we made our way down the blackened hillside to the town below.

Tales from Postapocalyptia Pt. 1: In which a story is introduced

     The Great Calamity. The Final Days. The Event. The End. All of these are quaint, little names we gave to the end of our world. We give names to it, we try to put reason to it, but none of us except the old people actually remember how it happened. All I know is that it, obviously, sucked. My name is Ian. I'd tell you my last name if I knew it, but you'd be surprised how many formalities go out the window when the world ends.

     Although I was born before everything went downhill, there are some younger kids that we call first-gen Apocalypse babies. This is a pretty big deal when you factor in our total lack of health care facilities. Not a lot of hospitals were left standing after what happened, and none of them are up and running... yet. Most of the men and women with the know-how to repair the old buildings, or build new ones, are either dead or too old to do much more than teach. Things like architecture, engineering, medicine, science- things that were commonplace before the end- fit into one of two categories of arts: lost or dying.

    Now by this point you may be wondering how a kid like me (even though I'm 17, which is hardly young enough to still be considered a kid thankyouverymuch) knows so much about these things if they're supposedly "lost knowledge." Well, that's a funny story. You see, when I was little my mom just knew that I was special. Genius. That's what they call me. I don't really see why they think I'm special for doing something that comes to me like breathing, but apparently it's a pretty rare thing.

     I'm not really even sure where all this knowledge comes from to be honest. I just seem to know things. A few of the old "scholars" in the town brought me their old book collections to read and study. I had books from all over the academic world; Shakespeare, Calculus, Biology, Engineering, you name it I had a book for it. I knew them all by heart, too. Cover-to-cover without fail I could recite those books by heart.

"Ian, what the hell are you doing wasting my lamp oil?" asked the woman in the doorway.

"If you must know, Alice, I'm writing my autobiography."

"Don't you pull that high and mighty I'm-an-all-powerful-genius stuff with me, kid. I've been your best friend since we were little, and if there's anyone who doesn't have to put up with it, it's me," she said as she made her way to my makeshift writing desk at the other end of the room. "Besides, you're 17, Ian. What in God's name do you have to write about?"

     After reading my paper, Alice laughed and said "Who are you writing this for? It's not like anyone outside of here even knows who you are, much less gives a damn." I rolled my eyes at her and snatched the paper from her hands. God, her skin is soft, I thought to myself before coming to my senses.

"I dunno Al, it just makes me feel better knowing that if something happens to me, my memory won't just turn to dust."

"Ugh," she said as she huffed and pulled me up from the chair, "c'mon, Ian. The Chairman wants to have a word with you."  

An Idea

So I've been giving some thought as to how to make these one-a-week blog posts we have to do entertaining, not just for me the writer, but for you the reader (assuming there are any of you out there), and I think I've come up with an idea. I want to write a story in parts, one (or maybe more depending on my free time) part a week about a pair of kids surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. I'm not an author, by any means, but I figured that a little creativity might make this whole thing a little less droll. The basic theme of the story is that some time in the future, a power-hungry dictator decides that he doesn't like the world he's controlling. So, like all mad-scientist leaders, he decides to create his own apocalypse. This particular brand of end-times consists of a chaotic world that the leader, Dr. Martin Zion, created based around a book he loved to read as a child, Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. In the first few posts, I'll set up the story and whatnot, and once we actually start reading in our groups, that's when I'll introduce the part of the story where the main character Ian, actually finds a long-lost copy of the book and begins to use it as a sort of survival guide, and eventually, a means to stop Zion from further destroying the world. Before I really get into the story, I'd love to hear what you all think about this idea! Feedback, protests, what have you. I'd really like to get a feel for my audience here so all 4 of you who are unfortunate enough to be following my blog, comment away! You'll get to play a part in a short story, and fulfill your homework requirements all in one go.

A Nice Little Analysis Of The Road

With Cormac Mcarthy's book The Road, life in a post-apocalyptic world is duller and bleaker than ever. Never have I seen a book with a sense of barrenness, isolation, or hopelessness be such a prevalent theme, even in a book about the end of the world. Page for page, the reader is almost consistently bombarded with new ways to feel hopeless for the characters. Usually, books like this instill a hastened sense of survival; they have an almost hurried pace to them as the characters scramble to survive. The Road, however, is far from hurried. Each page seems to drag on as the characters are in no apparent rush as though they have nothing to fear: no one to avoid or flee from.

Even when the pair find themselves in an old grocery store, a place with more than a few places for people to set up traps for scavengers, they take the time to look through each individual isle and shelf, seemingly unaware they they could be in danger (22). After a while of anticipating some kind of surprise attack on the father and son, I finally realized that they weren't too concerned because there were very few, if any, other survivors. This isolation, I think, is a recurring theme throughout the book or at least the portion I've read already. As I continue reading the book, I sincerely hope (but hardly expect) to be presented with a break, even if a brief one, from the isolation and perhaps even the introduction of a new character.