Tag: prompt

Gender Bender

I’m not everyone8837096895_81577a234b_q‘s cup of tea, and one of those reasons is because I don’t understand or desire to have gender confines. While I do consider myself female, the confinements that we put on infants, children, teenagers, adults are unacceptable to me. I consider myself bisexual, but by that I mean that I don’t see gender or sex when I look at a person. It is completely irrelevant to who that person is.

Gender is a category. And while humanity loves categories, they are not generally used to uplift of make our society better. They are used to separate and distance one person from another. “What do women think?” “What do men think?” What difference does that honestly make? Is there even a difference or is it more what the individual thinks? Often times I’ve been told that I react differently than people expect. They look at me and see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed curvy woman and they think that I have to be ditzy and girly. The fact is I’m not. I love to lounge in basketball shorts and tanks. I sometimes like to put makeup on and curl my hair.

Why do we confine people to categories that we ourselves think can’t encompass a whole person? Meaning, how can we define a person only on one category while we would never describe ourselves in only that ONE category. I am not only just a female; I am a writer, a lover, compassionate. There are so many other ways that define us and who we are that it seems stupid and pointless to put such “static” categories or confines onto individuals.

Change is the only constant. If we lock people into groupings that don’t allow change, what does that do to their psyche? Is it not enough to accept people for who they are? Simply people? More over, since I write, this comes into language. In English we only have two pronouns, male and female, there isn’t really a gender neutral or a third option. We’ve certainly created them now, but they’re not common to the language.

I recently co-write a novel with a sex-shifting (and yes, sex-shifting, not gender-shifting) alien. Zhe and the other main character, Jane from the planet Earth, have a long discussion about gender and sex and the confines that humans put on others.

There’s an episode of the X-files called “Gender Bender.” It in there’s an alien or something or another, that switches “gender” (it’s actually them switching both gender and sex, btw, but I’ll let it slide). It is so unexpected that this could happen that it shocks a man who goes into a car with a woman and finds out that she also has a penis. Well…I get that it matters, that when someone is expecting one thing and gets another that they don’t know what to do except freak out. However, it doesn’t make sense to me. A person is a person, they are not a gender nor a sex, they are not male nor female, Jew nor Gentile. They are who they are, and that is the meaning behind it all.

No one is completely defined by their gender. So why do we care so much about it?

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If you would like to join in the Creative Buzz Hop, all you have to do is post on the topic (gender, if you didn’t figure that out), add the awesome picture to it, and go to this blog to link up to everyone’s. Have fun with it.

Gman Mondays 6/17

My writing group on Monday’s that I run has decided to have writing prompts for the weeks that we meet (NaNo months excluded, so that means July will be excluded). We met for the first time on June 17th with our writing prompts in hand, and I have to say it was one of the best experiences ever. The point of the writing prompts is to keep them limited and to inspire. One such person was inspired to write a short story from the prompt.

I will share my prompts here: note that they will all be unedited, un-critiqued and so on and so forth. But I want to share them with you! They’re fabulously fun.

If you want to join in, take the prompt, write something on it and add the link in the comments part of whichever prompt you choose to write on. I’ll edit this document with links to your writings. The point is to have fun and to grow! So here we go.

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PROMPT: 500 words on “Under the Sea” or “Merfolk”

The water above him was clear and dark; the night sky casting shadows through the liquid floating around his slick body. He glided along just underneath the surface and opened his eyes, staring at the stars as they flew past with his speed. Flapping his tail, he moved faster to the other side of the large lake. Jameson hadn’t known why he wanted to take the stroll that night, but it had felt pleasing to move toward the surface of the water and stare at the world just on the other side.

There was so much to it that he couldn’t see. He took a deep breath, the water filling his lungs before leaving quickly in a sigh. He licked his lips and folded his body in half before barreling toward the floor of the lake. Jameson dodged two trout swimming in the opposite direction as he was, barely missing them as he avoided their immeasurable size.

He took another quick breath and went further into the water, deeper into the lake that was his home. The rock at the bottom that harbored his entire race was in sight, and he maintained his pace, having no reason to get there any faster. Jameson slid under the side and found his best friend waiting for him with a grim smile on his face.

“Thought you weren’t coming back this time.”

Jameson shrugged and moved to the lump of mud that was his residence. His friend followed and plopped down on the hill of dirt, resting back.

“Thought you might stay out until it was light.”

“You know I can’t. It’s instant death.” Jameson risked a glance at his friend before taking a school of the soggy mud into his hand and sliding it between his lips, sucking the nutrients from it before spitting out the excess minerals.

Maybe he should go out into the light. Jameson bit his lip and stared at the entrance of their community that he could just see the corner of from where he sat. With no more conversation going on, his friend left without another word, going on his way. Pulling up another scoop of mud, Jameson sucked on it before he made his final decision. He wanted to see the light.

Swimming back to the entrance of their community, he moved his tail up and down to propel him forward. The light should come soon—their community had to be home before it started to break the surface and reach them.

His breath came in short rasps as he swam hard toward the surface of the clear water. Risking a glance down, Jameson could still see the rock that they all hid under. Cowards. The word ricocheted around his head as he swam under a fish blocking his path. He would breach the surface.

He got there just as light started to shine through. Looking down at his hand, the dark skin started to glimmer and shine, sparkling in the faint light as it hit him. Jameson furrowed his brow as cold took over and froze him until he felt nothing more.

Creative Buzz Hop: The betrayal of emotions

8837096895_81577a234b_qThis weeks Creative Buzz Hop is on the topic of infidelity. Join in and write something! You have until next Wednesday to do it. It can be a personal story, a definition, a creative definition, a short story, a long story, a poem, a haiku, anything you want it to be so long as it stays on topic, which is infidelity by the way.

Once you write it, link it up on this blog and go read some others. Everyone has interesting POV’s.

So, without further delay…I give you mine!

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She slapped her hands onto the desk and let all the energy she had left move from her body into the stagnant wood. Tension started to ebb of her like waves receding from the shoreline as the tide went out, only about a hundred times faster. Exhausted started to take over, working into each muscle and lingering in each crevice until she gave up and plopped down into the chair. Trying to ignore the tears ticking and itching at the back of her eyes, she stared blankly out the window, seeing nothing as it passed by.

The sharp breath took her by surprise, but she managed to suppress it under pure determination. She would not cry. Drawing in a deep breath of air, she set about cleaning her desk until it shined from the polish. With that done, there was nothing else to do. She rocked her head back before decided to curl into a ball. Lifting her feet into her chair, after shedding her shoes, she wound both of her arms together and pressed her forehead to her skin.

The day had taken the worst turn possible. There was no feeling of justification, of a job well done, of having anything complete and all she could do was sit there and wallow in the betrayal and hurt that she felt. Her job had been sold to another company, and while they had promised to keep everyone on staff, she had just been informed by her new prissy little boss that she would not have a job come the end of the month. Downsizing. New leadership. Fresh meat. It was all the same—she was laid off because she had been around from the start. Shouldn’t it be the opposite.

And to top it all off, her girlfriend had called and started talking to her about the date they were going on later that evening. Except they weren’t going on a date. Heartbreak number two in the span of thirty minutes. He only thing that could have been worse would be if her car stopped working and refused to bring her home, to a newly empty house. No one and nothing cared about loyalty or responsibility. The marks of time or perhaps the marks of humanity refused to allow fidelity to surpass the desires of the individual.

The sob tore through her chest and she looked up in time to see the legs and back of a co-worker walk by her door. Racing to the offending object, she shut and lock it, dropping back into her chair. Tears tore down her cheeks, leaving angry red lines and wet spots in their wake. Snot filled her nose and forced her to breathe through her mouth, letting another wail through her lips. Nothing could go right. She couldn’t even control her body to the point where crying didn’t happen. Except this wasn’t crying, this was an all-out sob-fest, one of which she hadn’t had since her cat and companion of twenty years died in the middle of the night.

Wiping her hands fiercely under her eyes, she sniffled and swallowed the mucus as it was brought up. Nothing better than tearing up in front of the new boss or locking herself alone in her office to let it all out—against her will. She shuddered and drew in a ragged breath as another tortured cry ripped from her. God, maybe the worst thing wouldn’t be the betrayal of her car that evening on her ride home. Maybe it would be the infidelity of her body to her mind.