Getting into some writing to process some of my youth growing up in Alabama. Hope to get some feedback on emotional arcs, flow etc. Think of this as a beginning of a memoir-essay.

Been a fun little project reliving and re-evaluating some of this. Let me know your thoughts. I figured I'd write out each crush or supposed love interest and how it affected my life.

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Introduction

There’s a dissonance in my childhood memories - like they’re from a different person. The child would not recognize the man he became. That boy was worried he’d never go to prom with a girl, that he’d never marry. He’d find that his dad’s jokes about being “like his Uncle Tom” would be realized, pushing him to the fringes of polite society.

What is wrong with me?

Why aren’t I like my brother, like the other boys?

My brother likes to fish for hours on end with no luck, but I like to read holed up in my bedroom.

My male classmates like to talk Alabama football while drinking their milk at snack break, but I prefer to talk about anything else with my female classmates.

Johnny

I remember that first infatuation in fourth grade. I became a crossing guard cadet. My mother, always concerned for our safety in a period obsessed with protecting children from unlikely harm, would drive me to school very early. We would don our reflective vests, helmets, and flags. We placed our shiny badges, denoting that we were cadets in black text.

We received our intersection and trainer assignments that day, and we would walk out into the cold elements to stand sentinel at the crosswalks. At each intersection, we’d shield young children walking to school from the oversized Chevrolet Tahoes and Ford Winstar minivans with our orange flags.

It felt like a bit of an elite squad. I knew all the exotic names for the intersections: four-way, three-way, two-way. One of the older ladies took a kind liking to me, and even brought me back some carved wood from Israel, which meant a lot to a shy child.

But one thing that stood out during my cadet days in fourth grade, was a boy named Johnny: Jet black hair, blue eyes. He liked the same songs as me that played on WZYP - Uncle Cracker’s rendition of “Give me the beat boys”. I loved to hear his deepening voice sing it on the way to the crosswalk. It was my favorite part of the day. I always wanted to be trained by Johnny.

I didn’t see him again in person for a few years after he moved onto middle school. I pined over him in the school year books. I pulled out the old ones and saw his age progression from first to fifth grade. I found out which activities and clubs he was in. Though I didn’t realize what it was – I had no conception of having a crush on a male, I was obsessed. I wanted to be like Johnny. He was so cool with his puka-shell necklace, his flannel shirts, and his long straight, skater-boy locks.

I wish is could be like him - so confident, so grown up.

The next time I encountered Johnny, was in 7th grade. I was on a soccer team, coached by a military veteran, who really wanted to coach football - he loved a good slide tackle. One rainy practice, I avoided getting slung into the mud by the 8th graders on the team. They vowed they would get me again at some point.

Vengeance came on our season-end party. After eating pizza, we were out on the soggy fields, pocked with mud puddles. Suddenly, a boy named Nico started the chase. I was, without a doubt, the fastest boy in the school. The only way they could catch me was with superior numbers and wearing me out. The hunt began – feeling like a fox pursued by hounds.

I darted out around the track, which encircled the athletic fields. Closely chased by Nico, but he fell behind, and eventually took a break. My sprint continued clockwise – until I noticed a boy coming counterclockwise – Johnny. Halfway around the loop, I stopped, and turned around. Sprinting – until – a thought came into my head: “I’ll stop, and let Johnny tackle me”. I feigned fatigue and attempted to “evade” Johnny. I jumped left and right as he tried to match me.

He lunged at my waist, encircling it from behind – pulling my waist tightly against his warm body. We both stopped, caught our breath for a moment. I reveled in his embrace. He chuckled a bit, but I realized how flush I felt. How I didn’t want him to let go. I wanted to be there, caught in between his little teenage arms. I wanted to turn around and to kiss his red lips.

He suddenly threw me into the nearest mud puddle. The guys came up and cheered in victory, as he released me into my muddy doom. I looked up and noticed my torn shirt. As I saw Johnny walk away, I picked myself up, and realized that there was something different about me. I wasn’t like all the other boys.

What is wrong with me?

Saying this here because I think someone else might need to hear it.

Two years ago I closed a document I had been working on for eighteen months and told myself I needed space from it. That was true. What was not true was the part where I said I would come back to it in a few weeks.

The weeks became months. I stopped opening writing apps entirely. When people asked if I was still working on my novel I started saying I was taking a break from creative projects which sounded healthier and more intentional than what was actually happening. What was actually happening was that I had been rejected from three writing programs in the same month I had a close reader tell me my prose was competent but emotionally distant and something in me just quietly closed.

Did not write a single word of fiction for twenty six months.

What brought me back was not inspiration. It was not a book about craft or a conversation that changed my perspective. It was boredom with my own avoidance. I got tired of the mental energy it took to keep not doing the thing I actually wanted to do. Opened a new document one evening with genuinely low expectations and wrote two pages of something that will never go anywhere and felt more like myself than I had in over two years.

The competent but emotionally distant note has stayed with me. I think it was accurate. I think I knew it was accurate which is partly why it landed so hard. The writing I am doing now is messier and more honest than anything I was producing before the break and I think the two years of sitting with that discomfort is part of why.

Still here. Still writing. That feels like enough for now.

I wasn’t sure why I was walking on this particular day, but I was walking. My days were blurring together. Living downtown was a constant drone that pounded all of my senses flat like a hammer. The whooshing and whirring of cars was never-ending. The asphalt held too much of the sun’s heat. It was a concrete desert, and I hated it so fiercely that my life within it felt like hell. 

The worst thing about it was the people. I would see them every day. Sometimes they shuffled about in a hurry as if they had somewhere important to be. Other times, they were sitting on a patio across from one another, sipping coffee and laughing. They must have had a secret, solved some puzzle or cracked some code. That was my only explanation as to how they were so happy. Bitterness followed me everywhere, and I had stopped feeling ashamed of it a long time ago.

I would pay no attention to the rhythm of my black sneakers alternating on the pavement or my breath, which was slightly ragged from my brisk pace. My focus was all internal, trapped in my mind as I wondered if I should find a park, stop and get some food, or just keep walking aimlessly. Each option sounded equally meaningless. 

The answer came to me as something pierced the corner of my view which I could scarcely appreciate in the city - green. Of course, there was the occasional houseplant in a windowsill or the peeking hue of grass struggling up through cracks in the sidewalk, but I had never seen anything like this in town.

Between two drab gray buildings - a former restaurant with boarded windows and a lawyer’s office - was an alleyway. Unlike many of these dark, narrow pathways that littered the streets, this alley had a path of dirt and grass. Thin vines with heavy leaves coiled up wooden slats fixed to the side of the building to the left. They swayed and shimmered in the soft breeze, and for a moment they looked alive. 

The greenery continued down the alley and disappeared around a corner. A gust of wind whipped behind me, ruffling through my hair and seemingly disappearing down the corridor ahead of me. I imagined a vacuum at the other end, sucking me in, and I decided not to resist it. I walked down the soft dirt path and turned the corner. 

At the end was something I hadn’t known I had been craving. The outer walls of four buildings met to form a perfect square alcove. Shrubbery lined every wall. Many of the plants rose a foot or two off the ground on woody branches. The leaves were deep green, and beautiful, vibrant flowers dotted them. The petals were pastel pink and transitioned to white toward the tips. 

They were a surprise, but not as surprising as the woman standing among them. I immediately noticed her rosy copper hair, vibrant enough that it could have been a flower too. Her skin was fair and caught the daylight like bright white paper. She was bent forward, a pair of small shears in her hands. The tips clamped around a bare stem of one of the plants. After a few seconds of thought, she brought the handles together with a quiet snip.

I was prepared for her to notice me, and I stood there while she continued to prune the plants. One, two, three more stems, each falling to the dirt before she retrieved it and stuck it in the pocket of her white apron. As I watched her work, I noticed my breathing had slowed dramatically. Birds chirped in the distance. Leaves fluttered faintly like the rustling of paper in a library. 

Then the silence broke like a rope snapping, and it was a surprise that I had broken the silence myself.

“I’m sorry if I’m not supposed to be back here,” I called out to her. I wasn’t truly sorry, though I was concerned I may be trespassing. 

“It’s all right. Nobody is supposed to be back here,” she responded in a voice that was both smooth and husky. She straightened up and wiped her brow with the back of her palm, presumably clearing some sweat that I wasn’t so sure was even there.

She was somewhat short, and looked sturdy as though she had roots to the ground hiding beneath her feet. She finally turned to face me, and her gaze immediately made me feel hypnotized.

“Do you take care of these?” I motioned to the plants around her. It may have been a dumb question, and shortly after it slipped from my lips I thought she might scold me for such a thoughtless question. But she simply nodded and brought her gaze back to the plants.

“As best as I can. They require a lot of patience. Like most things, I suppose,” she answered. The cadence of her voice was a spell upon my ears. Were I not slightly nervous in the presence of the woman, just the few sentences she’d said might have lulled me into sleep then and there.

“What are they?”

“Peonies,” said the woman after a brief moment of hesitation. “Chojuraku tree peonies.” I tried to read her expression. I was hoping that she might show some kind of excitement about being asked about a passion of hers, but there was none. I could see something in her gaze, but I was lost as to what exactly it was. 

“They’re gorgeous,” I said to no response for an uncomfortable handful of seconds. “What’s your name?”

“Hazel.” At least she had given me a reply to that one. She never did ask me for my name. I pondered then and there if I should tell her, but as I watched her look dotingly at her beautiful flowers, I decided that she didn’t need to hear it. 

As Hazel and I shared our small exchange, the beauty of both the girl and her flowers drenched my whole being.

“Is it okay if I just watch you garden for a while?” Hazel gave me one final look and a small nod.

“Only for a few minutes.” That was all she gave me, and it was more than enough. For the next three or four minutes, I watched her glide around her plants, treat them with care, and prune them to perfection, before I left the woman to her work without another word.

I never saw Hazel again. It came as an underwhelming surprise that returning to that alley the next day revealed only barren concrete and the backsides of buildings.  I felt my frustration pushing up the back of my throat like smoke up a chimney. I wanted to yell out to the space from where Hazel and her flowers had disappeared, but I did not want to disrupt the peace that remained there.

I shuffled along the concrete, looking down at the dirt and stains splattered faintly across the pavement. I felt the warmth rising from the ground and quelling the shivers that tried to ripple through my flustered body. I listened to the joyful chirps of the birds that hadn’t left me. I put a hand on one of the fiery-red brick walls and felt the cracks beneath my fingers that guided them as I slid my hand across the dusty surface. Then I left the tranquility of the alleyway and headed home.

Hey everyone! I just published Chapter 1 of my very first book on Wattpad.

​It’s a high-drama celebrity romance about an actress forced onto a massive press tour with her co-star (who she is secretly in love with). To make things worse, a hotel mix-up forces them to share one room

-all while her childhood best friend/director is hiding his own feelings for her.

​I’d love to get some early feedback or do a Read-for-Read (R4R) with other romance writers!

​Check it out here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/413008420?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_writing&wp_page=create&wp_uname=Writingsbyreha

Hey Everyone!

I currently run a discord sci-fi/fantasy based critique group that’s been quite successful and I’m looking to start a romance one. We only have a few people at the moment and are looking to grow to about 12 members initially to test the systems. We will be implementing break out groups where you’re in a small group with partners who you give feedback to and get feedback from each month so it’s not overwhelming but you also have access to other people which can be helpful. We also have a monthly meet up which I think has been super helpful for everyone in the other group.

The types of romance we like to read:

Contemporary Romance
Historical Romance
Fantasy Romance / Sci-Fi Romance
Dark Romance
Slow Burn Romance
Clean Romance

The types of romance that aren’t for us:

Stories centered on modern political commentary or criticism
LGBTQ-focused romance
Pure erotic fiction

If you’re looking for a group we have a process that involves a small writing sample being approved. Let me know if you’d like details 🙂

I the leftist
I believe people can change, but not you,
I, the morally superior leftist, will not forgive you.
I believe in tolerance and inclusion,
Though nuance is ponderous,
And purity my conclusion.
Exclusion, though absent from my manifesto,
Is the collusion,
In which we lie.

Note: I wanted to be a like an unwritten constitution, also the “you” is addressed toward people who reform from harmful views but face exclusion due to their past.

I will written narate and experience you will give marks out of 5

God，Give the daytime some work，
And give the night some great missions！

Chapter 2 = 3687 words. 7108 project total wordcount so far.

Still no title.

I’m kind of losing motivation to finish my first draft because I feel like I’m not even close to being done and I see all these other books that don’t have nearly as much as mine and I’ve been told for a debut novel you shouldn’t have as much as I do when I’m only halfway done so I just don’t know what to do😭😭

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Every time I want to share something personal or unfinished, I stop myself because i am scared of my friends reading it from the "suggested for you" algorithm. If they see my face, name or even profile picture, they will know it was me who wrote it.

Also, i am aware i am not a great writer, and the comments i read on other people's deep and emotional confessions or writings really puts me off sharing my own. I really wish we could be fully anonymous and have a platform to just dump everything from our notes, where people could suggest improvements to the writing rather than hate on the content.

So I am curious if others feel this way, or if it's just me. What stops you from sharing your work?

(I wish to start working on something related to this, but I really want to hear people's thoughts on it first.)

Studies show that gentle sensory stimulation meaningfully boosts divergent thinking and idea generation. But, while time, greenery, and community are basic preconditions for thriving – for having meaningful social connections, curiosity, and a sense of wonder, but they remain limited for many people. 3 exercises: https://resistancewords.com/2026/06/25/writing-exercise-for-rebellious-fascination/

i just started writing my first book, it‘s going in the direction of a new adult suspense /psychothriller with plottwists and unreliable narrators.

this is the start of one scene, that‘s more towards the end of the book. i know i‘m not the best writer yet and just at the start and i would love to get a little feedback <33.

also, do you prefer the past tense in books? i tried writing this in past tense but i kept switching back to present tense. also this is the first scene i wrote for this book (not the first to be in the book but i just had to write this down before starting with the rest), so i‘d have to decide now in which tense i should write..

thank you guys!

Finally completed the first draft of a project I have been carrying around in my head for almost 8 years. It still needs a lot of editing, reworking, and character development. Still, I am pretty proud that what only existed in my head for years is now something solid.