Creative Writing. I have always enjoyed writing, but it is only in the last few years that I allow my self time for this expression. To start writing it is always helpful to Journal. This helps with creative flow and journalling can be therapeutic and used well can be a tool to learn more about yourself. Here is a short story, from my early creative writing course, it is an exercise where you pick out something from a newspaper or magazine, that inspires something in you. Then write what you can about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michaela McGrath

My character is a turtle whose journey was being tracked by a device which plotted maps of where she had been. I was taken with the story and the images of her off the coast of Brazil, after travelling from Africa.  I enjoyed writing the description of her, but, now having written the story I feel I couldnt go far with it.  I didnt want to start making up conversations with sharks and being caught by nets. Mainly because I felt this would mean staying  under the water for too long in one story or it could end up being a childrens story which wasnt what I was aiming for. I am conscious this might be either too watery, wishy washy or just not very eventful for some readers.

 

 

The story.

 

Tika, the sea turtle.

 

I am lying on a deep shelf of warm sea.  Its not so deep, that I cannot see the brightness of the sun, dazzling the outer surface of my world. 

Where the golden light is drenching the air, is the other world:  the world that holds the sun.

The sun, now held high,   in time it will sink down, following ancient pathways.... and disappear  for a while, before answering ageless calling where it returns to its place.

Once high, it sprays out gold beams to dazzle the surface of  my world. 

Out there, it is a different place, another world, one in which I cannot float and  rise, turn and glide.

 

Here, in my world, I can drift, floating and turning and gliding. I can see and feel the colours all around me. I am warm, supported and snug. I am wrapped up in these waters, swathed and bathed and cocooned in my water throne. I am held high but I can drop down too,  if I choose to go deep into inky blackness and cool, then I dive. It pleases me to be who I am and where I am.

 

Those far off waters,  my home territories, are calling me..... calling me to return. It is a distant call, rippling through  the space all around me. I can feel the call which gets clearer each day.

 As I float, the memories of moving through millions of irridessant sparkles of transparent fish, the memories of moving through oceans and oceans of sea, are folding happily away into my skin and bones.  Each feat: another acomplishment in my own domain. I am stronger, I am older, I am queen of all that I see. I am one with the mother of creation.

 

Treading the waterways swiftly, directed by navigation that cannot be seen, I arrived here.  My feast of jellyfish was my tremendous joy. I swallowed and gulped and ate greedily. Each jellyfish a trophy for me, each feast is memorised and absorbed into my growing form. My intention, my plot, my plan is not written down on a sandybed for all to read.  It is my story.  I am driven by my attention to who and what I am.  I am a sea turtle.

 

Hidden somewhere amid the creases and patterns of my shell, is a small stone. The soft leather yields just enough to allow it, it is not uncomfortable, it is just there with me. I have memory of it being planted in my shell by those who inhabit the sun world.  It seems they seek to learn of my ways. They spoke to me in language I cannot hear, but like all creatures, we read and hear anothers intention towards us on our own personal radar. The stone is reading the story of my journey. The stone tells my story in a language I cannot hear but I have given my story a spectacular journey. Its not finished yet.

 

I will go home soon....not yet...another while or so in my turtle time. I will know when its time, my skin and bones send me messages, my form will just decide when the messages are complete. I will find myself on my way home to the sandy bed that is at the end of this ride.

 

But for now, I just rest and feast. I float supported on a deep shelf of warm sea.