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Right, I wasn't going to post this originally but when I mentioned this to Will he was determined that I should; basically, it's a poem inspired by Doctor Who (for anyone living under a rock, it's the Sci-Fi drama on BBC1) . I don't know what made me write it, but write it I did.

You turn back to time
And to where she'll take you next.

You're the lonely traveler,
A man with no finish point

Just the journey,
Saving Earth from our next enemy.

A twitch of a bow tie,
And a manic disposition.

Diamond eyes,
Are you gone again?

Leaving me to wait again,
Because it's getting old.

But I suppose I should've know;
I could never land a Doctor.

Vimy Ridge

I wrote this poem in 2010's Summer as a response to a college trip to the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge. The whole trip was amazing and changed my whole persepective on the First World War. If anyone get's the chance to travel to Belgium and see the war memorial's and graveyards, I highly recommend it.


Marching.
The soldiers’ feet pounding
Through the catacomb of Tunnels,
Marching in the shared land
Of their comrades’ graves.

And for six and thirty hours
They wait. Tin soldiers, tall and stiff
Waiting underground to march
Through all that white
That cold, that snow.
It rains on them like confetti,
Pouring from God’s hand.

The Fritz is there-
Do they scream as they fall?

And the fallen do not
See the sandbags piled in
Broken ground. They run along
Like mice.
Like the rats that creep alongside them.

And the sounds!
What could not be heard, is loud
The sound of death, and yet…
The sound of birds, singing.

The beaks dusted with snow,
Flying out of death’s hands into a
Dying tree.

It is still white in Vimy Ridge.
That immense headstone,
That all of France and all of
Canada can see.
The names that stretch across
Pass on the torch to their brothers
And in past and future,
Canada is still weeping
For her lost sons.

Characters

I know it's a popular topic to write about, but it's always interesting to hear about other people's work on their characters.

Characters are usually very personal, or at least they are to me. The majority of mine often have some aspect of myself; my temper, my belief's, nearly always my sense of humour or one of my favourite hobbies, just to name a few things I can give them of me. One of my friends said that in every character of mine she sees, she recognises part of me in them.

I also find that a character is usually the basis for any story I wish to write. They walk into my head and nag me until I write them in something. Currently, I have two characters who won't stop bugging me whenever I write anything. I always find the hardest part is trying to write them a story that justifies them because- to me, if no one else- they seem so real to me. I know their likes, dislikes, their secrets and dreams. They walk into my head and tell me what genre they belong to, like my two current characters seem determined to be in Science-Fiction/Fantasy, despite the fact that I've never written in that genre before (even though I quite enjoy these two genres).

In this way, I suppose, the story for me is alive before it's even written purely because my characters are alive. I can't ever abandon a character, I can write them down and 'leave them on the shelf' so to speak, until I've found them a new home and indeed, at the moment, while I haven't had enough life experiences to properly create a world for them, this is where most of my characters end up. But I could never leave them.

I don't know if this is the same for any other budding writers to be, but I feel completely responsible for my characters. It doesn't matter if I ruin their lives, as long as I put them somewhere; they are not just 'on the shelf'. So, I very much hope, that all the characters I create can come off the shelf sooner rather than later.

'Paths'

So... what to do?

That seems to be a recurring theme to life, doesn't it? Everytime you hear a conversation of people passing-by, they always seem to be confused about the direction their life is headed in. I can't help but feel a kinship to such people simply because at the age of seventeen, I am expected to know what it is that I want to do with the next fifty or sixty (hopefully!) years of my life. Being a teenager has never been more stressful.

Everywhere you look, information is being shoved at you about what path is the right path. And like most people my age, I'm realising that the 'right path' simply does not exist- and if it does, someone is hiding it very well. And it's a rather worrying truth. It kind of makes sense now, that depression rates are highest in teenagers and young adults.

I think of my friends at times like this and I wonder how we went from the small wide-eyed children we were six (or more so) years ago, to the unique people we are today. I also can't help but think, did we have a path already set for us, even back then? I know since I joined my current place of education, where I met the majority of my wacky and wonderful friends, I have changed my mind so many times about my 'path' that if I got a pound for every 'path' I'd chosen, I wouldn't have to worry about this because I'd be set for life.

And, unfortuantely, this brings me to the subject of fate, which people either nod feverently at or shake their heads with surpressed laughter. And it might be rather naive to think so, but I'm starting to believe it. And I think that is the conclusion to this strange mixture of thoughts, that even though we all worry about our 'path' and what is it that will lead us right in the end, somehow we'll end up on that right path. Somehow, we're going to get back on track.

So.... what to do?

Hope for the best and at some point, you'll be where you're supposed to be.