Exercise #1

• Who knew leaving home would hurt this much, because I sure didn’t. I’ve lived in the same town and the same home my entire life. Moving three hours away and not being able to see my friends, sleep in my own bed, but most of all not see my parents every single day. 

The transition from high school to college was crazy! In highschool I had the same schedule, saw the same people everyday, and saw all the same teachers. Then starting college with a different class and new teachers everyday was a new experience to me. 

The thing that has affected me the most would have to be living with someone. I shared a room with my sister until I was about twelve or thirteen years old, so I know what sharing a room is like, but not with someone i don’t work well with. Don’t get me wrong I love my roommate, but we don’t work well together for sharing a room. And that has to be the biggest struggle of this transition.

• Let the adventure begin.  Lia was only nineteen years old when she decided to take on the trip of her life, hiking one of the seven summits, Mount Kilimanjaro. Lia has done her research, she has loved hiking ever since she was little. She knows just about everything to do with the seven summits. 

Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest  mountain in Africa with three volcanic cones. The elevation of the mountain is 19,308 ft. and it has been known with many scientific studies due to the shrinking glaciers. 

Lia has trained for this moment and is prepared to do anything. This has been her dream ever since she found out about the seven summits. She wants to climb as many as she can, and today is the day, where the adventure begins.

• Kleo, Emma, and Rickie weren’t considered the popular girls at school but that didn’t matter to them, as long as they were together nothing could stop them. They met Freshman year highschool, they all had english together and became the best of friends. 

“Emma, Kleo,” Rickie yelled across the cafeteria, “I’m over here.” Kelo and Emma walked over to Rickie with their lunches, all the girls made their own lunches. Lunch was the girls favorite part of the day – besides english of course – because they all got to sit and talk with one another.

The three girls were inseparable, they were always together no matter what. Everyone thought they were sisters they were so close, they always slept over at each other’s houses whenever they could. They even had similar hobbies such as music, writing, and of course shopping!

Exercise #2

It was freshman year of high school, Lia was walking into class when she saw her best friend Abby.

“Hey Abby,” she yells.

“Lia, hey what’s up,” Abby yells.

“Do you wanna walk to our lockers together?” Lia asks knowing she’ll say yes because they are right next to each other.

“You know it,” she replies.

They get to their lockers and Lia opens hers up, a note falls out. She bends down to pick it up. As Abby starts to ask what it is the warning bell rings and they say goodbye to each other. Lia starts walking to science class with the note in hand. Once she arrives to science she sits in her normal seat next to some of her friends.

She decides to open up the note, it’s from Abby’s boyfriend Jason. 

“Dear Lia, I know this may be weird and I didn’t know how else to tell you, but I really like you Lia. I know I’m dating Abby but if you want to I wanted to break up with her and date you. You just make my heart so warm and you always bring a smile to my face.”

And it was signed by Jason, it also said to meet him behind the bleachers after school at 3:00. I fold the note back up and think about it in my head. I have never thought about Jason like that. I knew I had to meet with him and explain to him that this wasn’t going to work.

School gets out and I head towards the bleachers, I don’t see Jason but I see his best friend Stewart, also known as my crush. 

“Hey Lia, I know you’re probably looking for Jason but something came up and he couldn’t make it,” Stewart says as I see him holding a piece of paper.

“Oh okay, I guess I’m just wondering what this note is about?”I ask him hoping he might have a clue.

“Yeah about that, one of the guys just did it as a joke, it means nothing. If you wouldn’t mind just switching this is the real note you were supposed to get,” he hands out the piece of paper. 

I switched with him and as I start to say something Stewart starts talking, “So just read this when you have a chance, I gotta run but I’ll see you around,” he says this and starts walking away, to fast for me to say anything.

 I decided to open the note and read what it says. As soon as I did I folded it back up and started walking home. That was the day everything changed. 

Exercise #3 

• Add more tension between the parents and Lia.
• Add more details about the notes.
• Add an ending.
• Edit details about flashbacks.

I decided to revise a few things from the list but i also decided to not do some of the things on my list. A member of my peer mentor group thought I should add more detail about the notes, but I decided not to because for this story I liked the mystery of the reader not knowing every detail of the note, it was only Lia that knew.

I tried to add more tension between Lia and her parents but I am not sure if I fully completed that task. I knew I was missing something story but I didn’t know what until the peer mentor group. My partners and I bounced ideas around and we concluded that the story just needed more tension overall. I feel like I didn;t add as much tension as I should have, I have a hard time with writing tension, so if I could go back I would try to add more.

During our conference you mentioned about taking some points / details out of the flashbacks were probably not necessary. After leaving the conference I read over my story and agreed that there was a little to much. I read the flashbacks through several times before deciding what should be taken out. I cut things out, added them back and then cut other things out, until I came up with what I think works.

And lastly, adding an ending. I always thought I needed to add an ending, but while I was editing the details of the flashback I read what I had as the “end” and started to like the way I had it. I am still unsure if I should add anything else to the end or leave it the way it is.

I decided to revise a few things from the list but i also decided to not do some of the things on my list. A member of my peer mentor group thought I should add more detail about the notes, but I decided not to because for this story I liked the mystery of the reader not knowing every detail of the note, it was only Lia that knew.

I tried to add more tension between Lia and her parents but I am not sure if I fully completed that task. I knew I was missing something story but I didn’t know what until the peer mentor group. My partners and I bounced ideas around and we concluded that the story just needed more tension overall. I feel like I didn;t add as much tension as I should have, I have a hard time with writing tension, so if I could go back I would try to add more.

During our conference you mentioned about taking some points / details out of the flashbacks were probably not necessary. After leaving the conference I read over my story and agreed that there was a little to much. I read the flashbacks through several times before deciding what should be taken out. I cut things out, added them back and then cut other things out, until I came up with what I think works.

And lastly, adding an ending. I always thought I needed to add an ending, but while I was editing the details of the flashback I read what I had as the “end” and started to like the way I had it. I am still unsure if I should add anything else to the end or leave it the way it is.