The Possum (Exergesis)

The Possum is a story that almost wrote itself. I didn’t really know what I was writing until I started. It was a story that started with the writing instead of the idea. I began with the first sentence and that led me to the next idea. As I started to write I pictured the place in my head and although I did not include in the story all the details of the place, I chose some and they became the story. The place had a life of its own once I let myself imagine it.

The idea of an underground house is something that interests me and has interested me ever since I heard about it years ago. In Coober Pedy (in the Australian outback) there are people liveing in ‘dugouts’ old mines that have been converted into modern homes. The temperatures outside can be extreme but the underground home stay at a comfortable temperature. The story is not based there but the idea of the underground home came from hearing about this.

 

Waking Up With Wings (Exergesis)

Waking Up With Wings is a story about something I used to dream about a lot. It is about flying and about falling. I used to dream and daydream about flying and I used to dream about falling and still do regularly. I never actually dreamt about having wings or wished for wings. Although if that was a way I would be able to fly that I would have gone for it. I usually imagined flying being able to swim in the air, or float.

It didn’t occur to me that flying might be dangerous when I was little. However as I got older I started to think of problems associated with the ability to fly. People would see me and I would get lots of unwanted attention. Or if everyone could suddenly fly they sky would become crowded. More recently I worried about the physical dangers such as wind, injury and death.

When I was in primary school. I had a dream I could fly and at school the next day, I tried and tried to fly. I even jumped off things. I thought if I could believe hard enough it would work. I didn’t jump off anything much more than a meter off the ground fortunately. I may have believed I could fly, I just didn’t trust that it would work every time and I was too scared. Not such a bad thing really

It’s funny that me, someone who is scared of heights would want to fly. Maybe I want to be able to fly so I will no longer have to fear heights.