I used the following as an opener to a story I'm writing outside of our creative writing class. I just want to know what everyone thinks of it. The story is titled "Deserted" and I think it has the potential to be one of my better stories. I haven't written it in a few weeks since I've been so busy, but with Thanksgiving break coming up, hopefully I'll have time to finish it. Anyway, feel free to critique and offer suggestions! Enjoy...           

 I walked down an empty alleyway. On either side of me was a plain, brick wall glowing yellow from the dim lights above. My feet walked on a typical sidewalk, littered with street trash and dried gum. I soon found myself surrounded by familiar faces. On either side of me, the brick walls suddenly had portraits of seemingly everyone I knew. As I continued on, I saw snapshots of me with these people, a captured memory, and I noticed they were all different sizes. The bigger the photos were, the more I remembered about them. The smaller ones I remembered as well, but the memories were not as clear. I walked for what felt like hours and hours in the alley that now seemed never ending. But it did end, because eventually I reached a plain brick wall much like the ones surrounding it, only it had a lone door in the middle. On it, a neon “Open” sign blinked steadily below a window. I pressed my face in the window in an attempt to look in, but all I saw was white. I reached for the knob and turned it, only to find it was locked. I sighed and turned around, only to shake my head in disbelief. The alley I had just walked down was gone; I was surrounded by three walls. A claustrophobic feeling washed over me as I turned to bang on the door, but as I did, I came to realize the door was gone as well…

My Writing

I find myself writing a lot more lately, so I think it would be fitting to do a blog post where I give my opinion on my own writing. I like to write about my problems, but I take them to the complete extreme. I use it as a venting source I guess, where I can complain about my problems without actually talking to anyone, where I can say what I want to say but don't have the guts to actually admit. I feel like that's when I write the best, so in a sense when my life absolutely sucks the most, I have the most potential. I like writing in first person because I try to connect the reader as best as I can to the character and because I make it easier to relate myself to the character. I don't like naming anyone and I try to avoid it as much as possible. My point of view is that the character's names aren't as important as the message I'm trying to make clear, plus I don't like using the names of people I know and I can't think of too many more names. I like making everyone die in the end; happy endings piss me off. In life, most endings aren't happy, so I think that's how it should be in literature. More people need to know and understand that sometimes sad things happen that are out of your control. The only happy ending I wrote was a part of a dual ending, where I gave the reader the option of which ending they want. I didn't want to do it, and the only reason I did is because I didn't want people who read it to think I was suicidal. I made the main character move to a new neighborhood and not like it, just as I had, but he eventually kills himself. I want that to be the ending everyone gets, but I split the endings to keep my family and friends at ease. I'm definitely my biggest critic and I'm a perfectionist when I write. I hate first drafts, so I always try to perfect it while I write and I'm always telling myself it's not good enough. Whenever people read my stories they tell me they like them and I always feel like they do it out of courtesy. I can never tell if they truly mean it or not, and that bothers me. I'd rather be told by someone the truth, whether that be negative or not.