WTH!

I am an aspiring author and to put it plainly, I am totally messed up. There is so much information out there and so many blogs with advice that it is truly not hard to get lost in the plethora of information. It makes your brain want to explode. At first I read make sure you write things which you are passionate about, ok makes sense. Well, I absolutely love romance, mystery, history, music, fiction, nonfiction, and of course comedy. So I pretty much love everything except sci-fi and gore. My first essay I wrote was about going back to the small family farm I grew up on. Easy, right! I had a ton of emotion behind it, crying the entire time I wrote it, and the words just poured out onto the pages almost faster than I could type it. I have a beautiful friend who is genuinely a well established author in Canada who offered to take a look at it and give me some tips. Her critiques were well received, much needed, and I tried my very best to correct everything she suggested. I felt amazing and such pride when I completed it, sent it around to all of my family, every one of them telling me they cried the entire time they read it and could not believe I could write like that. The joy I felt and I know this sounds cliche’ but my heart was feeling so full and complete. I felt like I actually found my calling in life. I couldn’t wait to write my next essay. All day long everywhere I looked I found inspiration. Quickly I had my next essay idea. The excitement I felt while waiting to finish my “real job” so I could go home and start writing was indescribable. I smiled more throughout the day. I was giddy inside. The time arrived and I jumped on the couch in my comfy clothes, with my pups beside me and settled in to begin my writing. Again the words just flowed right out of me. Easily I wrote about a nightmare I have had continuously for over 30 years since I was a child. This time, not wanting to bother my author friend with such a trivial short story, I sent the essay to all of my family and read it to my husband. I did implement her suggestions though, one of which is reading it out loud to myself or having an app read it to me. This is so far the very best advice I have had to date. I listened to this essay so many times that I just about memorized it. When the feedback from my husband and family was satisfactory and when I no longer cringed listening to it myself I deemed it finished. My second essay completed! You know the routine by now! I won't bore you with the “excitement” details again. I experienced all of the same sense of excitement, yada, yada, yada.

At this point in reading this you are probably wondering where is she going with this? Well, here it is! It has been months now, MONTHS! I can no longer form thoughts together in my head because I have read so much advice online that it has messed me up! The latest advice I read which pushed me over the edge I found on some random blog was, the way to take your writing from amature to professional is to write not what you want to write but write what the reader wants to read. Palm to forehead! WTH! I now not only have the pressure of becoming an author but a mind reader! Definitely doable! I’ve got this! 

In the undertaking of becoming a true author and mind reader I have compiled a short story about a squirrel which will incorporate a little of all genres, mystery, history, humor, romance, and even a little gore. If you do not like squirrels or are terrified of them, then please stop reading or better yet consider this your horror! 

Tuft the squirrel was hop running through the forest in search of nuts because he was starving. (big surprise there) He spots this big beautiful tree with the most amazingly placed branches perfect for jumping around on. Already he could see himself gliding from branch to branch with ease as if he was flying like a super squirrel. Upon one of the branches sits the most gorgeous female squirrel he has ever seen. Her golden red fur sparkles in the sunlight, her whiskers are so long and luscious. He pushes his tail straight up in the sky and fluffs it as much as he can, giving it a good swish. She takes notice wiggling her nose at him. (romance) As he rushes over the leaf covered floor toward her not making even one sound. (ok maybe he just thinks he’s soundless, we all hear squirrels in the forest, they are not quiet) Tuft jumps on this stone and suddenly remembers burying some nuts under it last fall. He scurries down and starts digging, the dust causing his nose to itch. His little paws dig as fast as they can. He constantly looks over his shoulder to make sure he hasn’t been followed or spotted by prey. Tuft suddenly lets out one big huge sneeze. (squirrels sneeze? Your guess is as good as mine) His heart is now beating so fast he feels like it might just give up and stop at any second. His stomach is so empty it's starting to eat through to his spine. (how dramatic) His fingernail hits something. (Mystery) With a sense of hope and a push of adrenaline he digs faster. Now one whole paw feels the object and then the second one. He tries to pry the object out but it won’t budge. He blows on it to try to get the dirt away to see what it is. It's no use, he can't make out if it's a stone or his beloved nut. He finds a heavy duty stick next to him sticking that underneath the object he jumps on the stick, it moves a tiny bit. He clears away the top of the object until he can clearly see it’s his beloved nut. He feels such relief and is overcome with joy. His mouth starts drooling with anticipation and hunger. (thankfully not rabies) He uses his front paw to grab each side of the top of the nut and uses his back feet to stand on the stick. After many attempts he is able to get the nut free. Using his sharp teeth he cracks it open finding the seed inside. Tuft savors every second of the seed all the while looking around, his eyes constantly moving, searching for what's lurking nearby. As he enjoys the last remnants of his seed he remembers his first nut hunt with his mom when he was just a wee baby. (history) He misses his mom but he is a grown squirrel now so there is no time for such childish thoughts. He finishes the seed as fast as possible forgetting why he was even going in that direction to begin with. Tuft hears a loud bang and looks to where the noise comes from. He catches a glimpse of the human coming outside to feed him. He hop runs as fast as he can to the edge of the forest, waiting in anticipation. Why does this human always put the seeds so high up and with this metal thing blocking his way to get up there. Then he has to sit under and wait for the birds to go up there and knock some seeds down for him. If that mean old crow goes up there then forget it, he won't share it with anyone. The old hog will eat every last scrap. With another bang the human is gone and Tuft runs for the food. This time he has to look to the sky because being in the wide open brings out a whole new opportunity of dangers, especially flying ones with claws and beaks that break bones. As he hop runs while looking up he goes straight past the feeder and almost hits his face into the human’s house. Feeling a tad embarrassed (do squirrels feel embarrassment) he reverses course while whistling nonchalantly as if he meant to do that. He finds the first pieces of seeds the human spilled on the ground and starts devouring them with such a ravenous hunger as if he did not just eat a nut seed mere minutes before. The sound of a “caw” startles him and he looks up to find mister grumpy crow above him staring down. He tries to give him the most pleading, pathetic, starving looking eyes but the crow turns around and poops with the most perfect aim landing straight on Tuft’s head. Appalled, waving his fists in the air, he squeaks and scolds the crow and then uses his paws to clean himself. Once clean he tries to ignore the crows' happy pecking and eating sounds. Thinking to himself there is no stopping that guy now. Even if another one of the nicer birds comes around they won't get his big butt to move out of there. Tuft was about to give up feeling completely defeated when he felt something smack his head. He jerked his head up thinking seriously man, how can you go to the bathroom so many times. He makes eye contact with mister grumpy crow and realizes he is using his beak to push the seeds over the ledge of the feeder. Its seeds landing on his head! Overjoyed he nodded his thank you to mister crow! (yes this squirrel nods thank you) He begins to grab as much of the seeds as he can, storing some in his cheeks because there was too much to eat all at once. Suddenly a great shadow comes over him and everything is completely dark. Tuft feels a sharp pain in his chest, everything goes numb, the last thing he hears is the crow cawing in the distance and the human yelling before his world goes dark forever. (as much gore as I will write for now)

Written by Regina Velius