Nahno McLein

The next few posts I want to share the process of creating my most recent short story, as it explores the dangers of social media. For those who have read my blog recently, it will be quite obvious that the idea came from my own experience, because I've previously published similar entries as my main character Amelie.

However, it’s a fictional story, for I integrated many aspects that didn’t happen to me. For instance, I didn’t have a stalker, but one of my blogger friends Apfelicious, whose blogger name inspired me for Amelie’s online identity, had one and was forced to change her URL. Initially, I just wanted to write a girl-meets-boy story and grabbed the plot from my recent encounter that was quite magical due to strange coincidences. My tutor Deborah said to us that using real events can help to start off and I proved that to myself with my last piece in Writing Place. It was immediate due to its real place and happenings.

Multiple reasons triggered the stalker-media design, one I mentioned already. In our module Writing Context, we explored New Media this year and I wanted to combine this knowledge with a normal short story. Then our tutors keep telling us how important using social media as a writer can be, especially as part of our careers week, but they miss lecturing us in detail about the risks involved. A visiting professional writer told us last year that she finds ideas by asking herself “What if?”. In this short story, I wondered what if I unwillingly invite a stalker with my blog? Tomorrow I will tell you more about the writing process.

The next 26 days we will go through the alphabet as part of the A-Z challenge.

As this is the beginning, I want to start with an unfinished poem a là work in progress. What do you think? Where does the Ode not serve the overall piece? What did you like?
Ode to Apple

A magical sound
like bells on a tree.
This is your juicy cacophony
from the branches of excess.

We all want to eat you.
I’d kill just to feel you,
I want you – bad.

It makes me so sad,
when I wonder what it’s like 
to explore your world
from the out- and the inside.

I need to take a bite.

An Apple is lustrous and hard on the shell,
But open the cover and flimsy glimmers a light
On erratic lines – my fingers wild.

Varieties in shape and taste,
an Apple is a legend to the eye,
so Adam got one right away.

Delicious Apple
There’s only one way
to savour your sweet vitamins.