Hearts Parade of a Lyrical Life

Testing Trials of all Types

Monday, October 9th

I paid more attention in class today. I sat next to Ryan and we both quietly wrote out notes, I could feel him smiling down my neck at my sudden growing interest in actually succeeding in classes, as if he had been right the whole time. Despite him clearly still not knowing what his plans for after college were he remained to be the top academic performer in our class, though Grace was among the best writers, when it came to analysis and understanding, Ryan had that wrapped around his little finger.

My issues, as I had found, were having the self-discipline to write effective notes and study outside of lessons, as well as structuring was a major hurdle for me. I could get words to flow out easily but as soon as a structure were to get involved I'd be stunted, it's like it stifled my creative process.

Working with Grace on our poem had been a huge help in that sense, she had provided the main theme and ideas, it was my job to structure her thoughts effectively (with her help), then we would come up with metaphors together, asking questions about what else meant a lot to her that she has since lost, or what someone could theoretically lose. Then after writing it, I did all the editing. It really forced me to look closely at structure, as the writing itself was impeccable in form, so to bring it to the next level I thought to cage the reader in some stanzas by adding a repetitive meter and commas at the end of each line, caging the reader in the narrative just as our protagonist was caged in their own feelings at first, denial. Before wavering and starting to move the structure around more. It was a really good writing exercise and I looked forward to showing it to the class tomorrow, I especially wondered what Ryan might think.

Regardless of my practices with Grace, I still felt that my writing could use more work, so I brought my laptop with me to Eden and did some writing there. Being outside of class in a beautiful garden would be a great source of inspiration. I googled different techniques and made my attempts at copying them into my notebook, carefully planning out my poem as I went.

Lucy sat next to me to watch what I was typing, "I like this one." She pointed to one of the poems in my notebook, there were about five first drafts sprawled about on the page. She had pointed to one of my previous works, a freeform.

"Thanks Lucy, I'm working on structure right now though, that one isn't the best example." I lamented gently, Grace looked over.

"No no, Lucy is right, that one is your best of the five, your writing when you focus on structure is awful." Grace spoke behind her hand as she munched on her food.

I tried not to be offended, "Then how do you suppose I get better at structure?" I crossed my arms in a lighthearted huff.

Grace laughed, "You work best when your first drafts are freeform and you add in the structure later, like we did with our assignment. I work the other way around but I knew that wouldn't work with your style." Grace spoke without even looking at me, treating her comment as if it weren't of significance. She had managed to change her form and write a good poem in a different style to her usual? I had thought her first draft was better than any of mine, the mere fact she wasn't accustomed to freeform came as a shock, it was once again a reminder of her skills as a writer. "Y/N, we have to go to the appeal soon, are you all ready to go?"

I had forgotten about the appeal, Lucy looked worried but I had my statement printed out and neatly packed into my binder with me. I nodded yes to Grace and we got up to head over to the Deans office where they would oversee the informal trial. I held Lucy's hand before I left, offering some words of affirmation that it'd be okay. She tearfully nodded and fell into the comfort of the others while Grace and I left.

----

We walked into what looked like a very spacious office, perfect to house multiple people for meetings, and essential for intimidating those small groups that were intended to sit opposite the desk. On this occasion there were a few people present. The Professor had called two students to make accounts on his behalf, one was from Eden though we didn't hold it against her as she likely had no say in the matter. The other I didn't recognise, I presumed him to be a star student of the professors. Kayla was standing on the right-hand side where Grace and I joined her, and there were two additional members of staff on either side of the dean, one being Professor Duke, which I found to be quite unfortunate as he had proved to be a spiteful man, and the other was a member of staff I hadn't seen before.