The Writer's Craft Padlet by https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft en-us 2017-03-19 21:24:10 UTC 2020-09-07 00:44:52 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707633334 Upon brisk and chill gales, bid by only a night of late December, lay cozy in a bed of bridling warmth, a young girl. Ella, they called her. Despite the embrace of her pillow, she wept late into the night, each tear clearing a trail of grime from her cheeks. Her pillow became sodden as the night stretched on, her room illuminated by a dim light from upon her desktop. Accompanying these periodic flashes was a cacophony of chimes.
Her father was a wealthy man, but always busy at work, inscribing some scrawl at length or absent for long stretches of time. 
Therefore, Ella was left to her own devices. Initially, this brought a certain appeal. Her heart fluttered and swelled with pride at the thought of independence. Her nights were late, and her days fleeting as she lay in bed deep into the noon. However, she had no affinity for her solitude. 
Deep into the night it was not the howls of prowling creatures or the gales of mighty wind that stirred her from slumber, but the chimes. The unrelenting chimes. 
Each chime brought with it a crude witticism, an exploit of self-doubt. Each chime was a growing weight upon Ella’s shoulders, a deeper burden to carry. 
They persisted for hours on end, persisted for days on end, persisted for weeks on end. She would quiet the source of her anxiety, and yet somehow the audible silence grew too great to bare.
She would distance herself, remove herself from the room and yet its aura was inescapable.  
As each chime illuminated her room she could see the crude smirks and cold eyes in every shadow.
At surface, each face was sculpted and beautiful, an object of deep envy. 
Despite Ella’s own beauty, a beauty of heart, her eyes betrayed her, and saw only imperfections.
It seemed these growing shadows, insinuated by the inexorable chimes grew in stature until their gaze and insults became ineluctable. 
Ella eventually grew tired of the frustration and planned to consult someone with authority. To do so she opened the device of her angst, the screen illustrating pieces of crude dialogue. 
She placed her finger unto a button; as it depressed the screen opened into a deep, and ominous shade. 
Ignore it and call father, ignore it and call father. 
Her mind pleaded desperately.
However, Ella’s index moved independent from her mind. Despite her apprehension and her now blurry and slick vision, she began to indulge in the discourse that obscured her night’s sleep for so long. There were two “shadows.” Their names were arbitrary and only elucidated anonymity. 
Step sister #1
Step sister # 2
Ella’s mind was teetering on the precipice of collapse. Drowning under emotional waves in ceaseless high tide. However, in this dark storm and recurring cycle of downpour a hand clasped her own. 
Atop her list of “friends” was another name. 
“Prince”
The name was an oddity in of itself, but it emanated hope, something fleeting from Ella’s mind. 
She grew trepidatious. What if this was but another siren, attractive and flirtatious but ugly and crooked at heart. With a trembling index, she tapped the screen.
Tension built as the screen spun in a typical fashion denoting loading, before reading a fateful message. This dialogue was a deciding factor for Ella, who now felt as though she had been pulled from beneath black waters.
Respite from the ignominy that had grown heavy on her conscience. He called her nice things and was kind to her. 
In the following weeks the chimes belched their ugly tune, but amidst contempt from her ominous aggressors was now a delightful, high pitched “ding”’ that betokened hope. This beaconed, and it became second nature to dismiss any other person.
“Prince” taught Ella that the anonymous step sisters were speaking not from a place of hate, but from envy and insecurity. This in turn helped Ella remove herself from the toxicity that permeated through her life. In the coming weeks, she met prince in real life. Their relationship grew, all the while the anonymous and daunting figures that nestled in her mind for so long lost their attractive figures and face, their looks finally congruent with their ugly hearts.  

]]> 2020-08-30 23:51:54 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707633334 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707635798 2020-08-30 23:54:41 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707635798 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707639124 There once was a girl named Cindy who lived as an orphan from a very young age. One day, a mother and her two daughters were hanging up posters across the town in search for a maid for their new lavish house. Cindy applied for the job and was hired out of pity from the mother. She was very excited and hopeful for the future, expecting she would be welcomed by her new family.
Over time, the daughters became very jealous of Cindy. They noticed how their mother took a liking to her, and decided to play some cruel pranks. Every morning they would turn off her alarms so she would be late to cook breakfast. The mother would reply with, “I did not hire you to be lazy in this house.” Then they would pour bleach in the washing machine to ruin their mother’s clothes. The mother would reply with, “I did not hire you to ruin my best material.” To top it all off, they would then pour ashes from the oven into Cindy’s bed so she looked dirty and unattractive. The mother would reply with, “I did not hire you to look like a disgrace.” Cindy’s high spirits quickly dropped down from this ongoing torment from the daughters and criticism from the mother. 
Every night, after everyone in the house was asleep, Cindy would make her way to the backyard to see a stray cat. Cindy wept and sobbed to the cat explaining everything that the daughters would do to her. This made her feel better, the stray cat always came back and listened to what Cindy had to say. 
After a few months of living at their house, Cindy was invited to a local party that was held by a boy’s parents. There was gossip throughout the neighbourhood about the boy looking for a girlfriend. All the local girls swooned over this boy and where eager to attend the party. The daughters were confident that they would become his girlfriend.

]]> 2020-08-30 23:58:19 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707639124 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707641335 Since the day of her mother's passing, Cinderella had  been going through a slow death herself. They had overworked her to the brim causing her to forget a time where she once was treated well. The memory of her mother lingers in her head, the only thing keeping her motivated. Cinderella was tired of all this, especially tired of her farther, for not making her happy like he once promised. 
 
As Cinderella was dusting the tall glass windows she saw a man walking up to their doorstep, she stopped working and started looking. It was the mailman, as usual. But it was Saturday? The mail does not come on Saturdays, it must be urgent Cinderella thought to herself.
 
 Her stepmother rushed to the door from the corridors of the house and opened the door. Cinderella went back to her work before the woman would scold her. Her stepmother was given one single envelope, with the blue crest of the palace printed on the side. As tempting as it was to question her, Cinderella knew better.
 
Later that evening Cinderella is serving out supper she cooked for the family.
"Would you like to tell what we got in the mail today" Her stepmother said to her daughters.
They giggled with each other. Cinderella thought of all the possibilities of that letter could contain, all of them irrelevant to her. 
"There's a festival happening tomorrow, Prince is looking for the bride" one of them said.
" And we need dresses, don’t you have many hidden in that broken closet of yours?" another remarked.
 
 The dresses in Cinderella's closet were no ordinary dresses, they were her mother's and grandmother's. Light silk and ranging from sky blues to deep greens. She cherished them with everything, she didn't wear them in case they would tear due to their age. They were the only thing she could keep away from everyone else, now it is being taken away from her. She gave her farther an unhappy glare, he knew that she loved them, he knew she didn't have anything else of her own. Cinderella hoped that this time he would say something, something to stop this, anything-
 
He didn't meet her glare, on purpose. 
]]> 2020-08-31 00:00:40 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707641335 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707641920 There are branches stacked upon branches, high enough to escape the boundless boundaries of reality. There are sleepy clouds and hapless hopes, painted gold in the afternoon sun. There is a girl, dressed in rags and quiet-wept misery. The tree cradles her. She cradles her journal. Up amongst the leaves, the whole world unfolds like a puzzle: the cemetery below slotted in the middle, her father’s house placed further away. She is the mismatching piece, always the anomaly – a wildcard never to be played. And yet she fits so perfectly to her tree, her dreams, her words. 

A sentence is suspended from her pen when she realises the time. The little white bird that lives on her tree had warned her of the setting sun, streaks of orange and red brewing in the horizon. Startled, the girl slips down. Mourning branches creak, begging her to return to their calloused embrace. She hesitates. Below the tree, her mother’s grave lies silent, a familiar lavender smell weaving into the air, singing of warmth and love and half-forgotten kisses. But the girl cannot stay. Soon, her stepmother will wake and her stepsisters will point out the unswept floor, the uncooked dinner, and a thousand other things left undone. “Cinderella isn’t home,” they’ll say, and revel in the festering storm. The girl knows this, so she runs, journal clutched tightly. She is followed by a flock of worried birds and a never-ending ache within. 

]]> 2020-08-31 00:01:18 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707641920 Modern Cinderella: There was a rich man, where his wife was lying sick on a bed, due to her debilitating disease. When she felt that the time was coming for her death, she called to her one daughter, to come near her, and said, “My dear daughter, be a good and pious girl, and God will always take care of you, and I will look down at you from the stars, and I will be with you always.” She closed her eyes and breathed her last. From then on, the young girl went every day to her mother’ grave and wept for her, and she had kept her promise as a good and pious person. When winter arrived, the mother’ grave was covered by a blanket of dead leaves, and by the time the sun shone its rays on the earth in the early spring, the wind had carried them away. The rich father of the maiden married another woman. This new wife brought two of her daughters to home with her. They were beautiful and good-looking in appearance, yet, they were mean and unpleasant people. Because of this, their poor step-daughter, Cinderella, suffered from their evil ways. “Does this stupid girl want to sit in the same room with us?” said the step-daughters; “those who want to eat food must earn it. She is only a kitchen-maid!” They took away Cinderella’s pretty dresses, and replaced them with an old, grey gown, and they gave her wooden shoes to wear. “Just look at her, how nicely she’s dressed!” they cried and laughed, and they sent her into the kitchen. She was forced to do lots of work from morning to night, wake up early in the morning, draw water, make the fires, cook and wash. Other than that, her stepsisters tried their hardest to torture her, mock her, and strew peas and lentils among ashes, and ordering Cinderella to pick them up. https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707648245 2020-08-31 00:07:11 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707648245 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707649373 Cinderella and her younger sister, Cindy lived in a castle in a small town where the weather was always fine. She lived with her mother and her father. The father has been extremely unwell for the past few days. Her father was laying on the antique bed in distress. His wife was sat next to him holding his hand tightly, begging for him to survive. He calls out for Cinderella and Cindy’s hands weakly, as he reaches out for their hand. However Cinderella and Cindy both firmly denies her hand and keeps it to themselves. The father bellowed at them, but his voice was very hollow. Cinderella and Cindy both ignored the father’s wish and left the room. Hours later the father had deeply gone to sleep.

For the past few months, the mother has felt like the extinction of human beings. She wanted someone to stay by her sides, but Cinderella and Cindy wasn’t too keen about having a step dad.

]]> 2020-08-31 00:08:17 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707649373 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707657900 As the leaves of the weeping willow rustled in the wind, a devastated young girl was weeping under. The only place she could cry before making her way back from college. 

Her mum had passed away a few days ago and her dad was in hospital. All she was left with was her cruel sisters.

As she was walking past the arcade a sort of invitation or flyer flies in her face.]]> 2020-08-31 00:17:03 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707657900 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707663412 2020-08-31 00:22:19 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707663412 grace https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707663567 The sun didn’t shine today. Or rather, the smoke was too thick to see its rays. The streets were illuminated by harsh neon glow of street lights and billboards. The purple and yellow bled in my vision as I walked swiftly through the streets, featureless people jostling me from either side. I gripped the small cogs harder, feeling their sharp edges press into my palm. Turning the corner suddenly, I jogged down a side street. Tall buildings loomed over me from either side, staring me down with their menacing glare. I reached for a door handle, but it opened, revealing my step sister standing behind it, arms on her hips.

“Where were you? You should have been home hours ago.”

Despite the smoggy heat, I shivered. I unattached my mask “Oh, Saxe, I was just”-

She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside roughly, causing me to stumble and my forearm to detach. Saxe growled in disgust and threw it away from her, as if it was hot. The cheap metal and wires twisted, but it was incomparable to the twisting of my stomach.

“Get out of my sight. I need you to prep me a bath for the subway party tonight. Carmine will be back tomorrow morning from her trip. And you’ll be staying home.

-

I stared up the black sky in despair, absentmindedly tinkering with my arm. What makes my sisters any better than me? I stood up and walked to the sheet of polished metal bolted to my wall. My grime and tear stained face stared me back. My black curly hair was matted against my scalp, and my body was thin, hip and collar bones protruding disgustingly through my brassy skin. I didn’t have half an idea what to do to improve my looks, I was only allowed to bathe once a fortnight, and It’s not like my sisters bought me any makeup.

I stared wistfully at the sky again, through my massive window. I wanted to pray, beg to a higher being for help. But I’ve seen the streets, the sides not many people see. The brutality, the inequality, the hate. I know God left us long ago.

I walked back to my desk, reattaching my arm and opening a draw and rummaging through metal scraps until I found what I needed. I lifted a shiny grey blade out, the neon lights from outside reflecting on its smooth surface.

In order to fix things, you have to take matters into your own hands. 

-

The blue weightless material of the dress rushed against my ankles as I walked towards the subway. Saxe’s heeled shoes were inconspicuously loud, clicking against the asphalt with my every step. Similarly dressed individuals eyed my warily out as I approached them. I ran my fingers through my hair and gulped, preparing myself for the party. I slid open the subway door to the sound of blasting music, and walked through the crowd, getting many odd looks and snickers from the other party go-ers.

“I don’t think you belong here, cyborg.” A woman approached me out of nowhere, grabbing my hand tenderly and leading me away. 

“Who are you?” I yelled over the sound of thumping bass. She didn’t respond, just lead me further down the massive subway, until the crowds thinned out. She pushed me against a wall, her eyes peering into mine

“It’s very bold of someone like you to come to a party. I like bold”

-

Butterflies fluttered in my chest as I lay in bed the next morning, hours after the party had ended. No one had ever treated me this way before. She kept on talking, her voice like a silvery lark, I never wanted it to end. She showed me how to dance, how to sing, she made me feel comfortable with my robotic limbs.

I never wanted it to end.

I pulled back my covers and stood up. Except I fell. And screamed. Where my feet used to be were mangled stumps of flesh and wire.

Carmine entered my room and glared down on me, sobbing like a baby. 

“That’s what you get for killing my sister, you pig”

She lifted a gun to my eyes.
]]> 2020-08-31 00:22:28 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707663567 https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707715651 There laid the wife of a wealthy man on her death bed, daughter at her beckoned call, “Do well and all that is good will come to you” was the last wish to her daughter before she gracefully closed he eyes and passed away. That was the day Ella had lost her mother. Every day, she visited her mother’s grave, weeping every time. Over the seasons, the man took to himself to wed another woman.
Along with her, she brought her two daughters. Both beautiful in appearance, but with a rotten core. Then began Ella’s hardest times given by the step-sisters. 
 
Harmless insults then progressed to stealing. They took away all her pretty dresses and gave her a grey tunic. Ella went from sleeping in her soft bed to on the wood by the fireplace. Day by day, ashes and parts of burnt wood and coal gathered onto her tunic. This is where she earns herself the name, Cinderella. Not only that, but she was now obliged to get up early in the morning, draw water, make the fires, cook, and wash. There had not been a moment since they have arrived that they have left Cinderella alone without being mocked, insulted or demanding her to do things. 
]]> 2020-08-31 01:04:01 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/707715651 gpr https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/723737312 2020-09-06 23:42:11 UTC https://padlet.com/gpr/writerscraft/wish/723737312