What Is Important About My Short Story?

I’ve been asked to write a short story about something an important event that has touched me or something so memorable that I will never forget. I have chosen to write about my ten day trip to Nicaragua in the beginning of June. Nicaragua is something I hold dear to my heart because I have learned a lot of new things I did not know before. The Nicaraguan people have taught me so much about love, patience, and how to overcome your fears.

One thing I remember most is meeting one lady, I can’t remember her name, but I do remember what her house looked like, what she looked like, and the landscape around her house. I remembered every detail about that day. The reason why I remember a lot about that day is because her house was empty and she told us a story I will never forget. There was no furniture, no clothes scattered across the floor, no pictures or decorations hanging on the wall except for two small pictures hanging in the corner of the small family room. She told the story to my mom, my brother, and me. She said that she went to work in another city called Managua for three days. When she came back, everything was stolen. I remember feeling so sad for her; I remember that she was still smiling. She said that she was still happy because the two small pictures hanging on the wall and gospel weren't taken away from her. She wasn’t selfish and I looked up to her. Before traveling to Nicaragua, I asked for a lot of things such as new phone, new car, and others things. I was focused on myself and didn’t even think about the people around the world who needed things that we have but they can’t afford. I hope one day I can do some donations to help the needy in Nicaragua because Nicaragua was the 2nd poorest country in the American continents after Haiti.

Through my short story, I want the people who live in America to know that they should be grateful for their safety and protection in America. There are scary times that I had to face in my fast ten days trip. I was walking with my brother and my mom in a town called Chinandega. I was smiling at everyone I met; I love making people feel good about themselves. Basically all the guys were speaking Spanish to Justin and Justin made sure I stayed by him. I kept on smiling not knowing what’s going on. Justin told me this, “Brooklyn do me a favor, look down and do not smile. These guys want you. They want to take you home with them. They offered to pay for you.” I freaked out and I was scared. That is when I start to see another side of Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a beautiful town but it can also be dangerous. All the houses that I passed don’t really have doors or glass windows. They have bars on doors and windows to protect themselves from the gangs. We came across one gang incident. We were talking at a family’s house and there was a gang of about 20 boys running down our street, screaming, and throwing rocks. The family ushered us in as fast as they could. I was scared, praying in my heart we would be safe. Luckily, my prayer was answered. Two police cars showed up and they fit 20 boys into their small vehicles. I heard from the family that it happened almost every day. I loved the food there for the first three days. All they served was beans, rices, fried bananas, eggs, and bread the whole ten days for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The last seven days, I became very sick and threw up. All the time we have to be to careful with what we drank and ate. The only water Nicaraguans can afford is water from a lake where they wash their clothes, pigs bathe there, and people do their business there. I accidently drank their water and my stomach was in pain and it was terrible. I am grateful for the clean water and many opportunities of food here in America.

I absolutely love the people there; they are full of love, kindness, compassion, joy, caring, and full of happiness. I met a family who can sing all night long and dance, I felt like I belonged there. I met a boy there; he was with us for the last three days of the trip. We fell in love, but that is a whole different story. Nicaragua has my heart. Whether that place was dangerous or not, I would go back and visit the place again, because I love the people.

Shitty First Draft

Have you ever struggle writing a paper, or a story? Anne Lamott had wrote this short article called, "Shitty First Draft." She expressed her feeling that we are not all perfect on the first draft we wrote. She also said that we can come up with billions of idea and we don't know how to write it down. She told us to let it go and just do it, just write it down on a piece of paper. Many of us want to be the most successful writer, we just have to work hard to get there. Few of us dream of writing down the most perfect words in perfect sentences in perfect paragraphs into creating a perfect story. But they can not all happen in a shitty first draft you wrote. Once you finish a paper, it need to go through few processes. You need to read what you wrote or let others read it and see if there any editing that needs to be done, or you have created more ideas you want to put into your story or delete some sentences. After that process is done, then you do the third draft and have few touch ups and then your paper is perfecto and done. When then next time you need to work on another paper, the process starts all over again. Anne used to write food reviews for California magazine. She would go to few different restaurants with few of her friends. Her friends pick a meal off the menu and Anne would write down what her friends' opinion were after they taste the meal. She would write down quotes, their expression when they tasted it, were they happy with it or not happy with it, and all kinds of questions. After that was done, she would look down at her paper and see her shitty first draft. She then would sit at her desk and write and make few touch ups and editing on her second draft and third draft. And then her reviews were nicely done. She advice us that we all need to take a break from our writing. We don't want our mind to get all to crammed up or too tiring. We want to be excited about writing a paper, and when you're excited, the paper will look wonderful and yourself will feel good about about the accomplish you have done.

I absolutely agree with Anne Lamott, "Shitty First Draft" article. There are million times that I have a lot of different ideas I have but don't know how to write it down or want to make my paper perfect the first time I write it. After I read the article, I knew we would make few mistakes along the way when writing a paper. I have others to help me edit my first draft or telling me their opinion of the paper to me. I have learned my mistakes from reading the first draft and fixing it in the second draft and third draft. I do believe that if we go through the process of writing, editing, creating more ideas or deleting some words or sentences, our paper would be a perfect third draft rather than a shitty first draft.