Prologue

There are some things in life you can just never be ready for. There’s riding a two-wheel bike for the first time; you know that you’ll never ever be ready to climb on that unbalanced cycle of death, but you know it has to be done sooner or later. Once you just plunge in, you feel like you’ve been at it your whole life. Your legs move by themselves, the bike stays upright, you stay alive, and everything works naturally. There are bumps in the road, but if you fall, you just have to pick yourself up again and try not to look at the little bit of blood on your knee. And in the end, you are glad with everything in you that you got on the bike for the first time, because you have started an adventure.

 

That’s how it is with love. Nobody’s ever ready for it, but it’s one of those things that you just have to jump on and ride.

 

What is love, anyways? There’s that definition in the dictionary that dully announces that love is “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” But love is so much more than that. It’s a wonderful friendship. It’s not feeling alone for once. It’s feeling like you’re part of someone else. It’s laughter, tears, anger, and joy all wrapped together in an overwhelming bundle. I never really understood love. Being in love for the first time didn’t help me understand it at all, either. I did so many stupid things because of love. Why did I want to abandon everything just so I could sit and smile like an idiot and think about him? Why did I feel like screaming and laughing all at the same time? What about him made me glow just knowing he was mine? And why did I feel like I died when we broke up?

 

When first laid eyes on him, I never imagined how I’d view him. Sure, he was cute, but I didn’t think I’d end up devoting every page of three diaries to him, or every particle of my thoughts to him. I never would have thought I could be so stupid, so weak, so exhilarated, and so upset all because of one silly boy. And I never ever, in my wildest dreams, imagined that I would use the word “love” on him. But if I could have known what would happen to me because of that boy in three years, maybe I would have understood.

 

Or maybe I would have done the rational thing and laughed at myself for all of my foolishness.

***

 

 

Reviews

[Carmalou]

Very intriguing! I like the last sentence, it was a good place to break off. Just watch for small errors like in the first line of the fourth paragraph
'When first laid eyes on him...' did you mean 'When I first laid eyes on him...' ?

Other than that, well done! Hope to see more soon.

[The Language of Birds]

This prologue is well suited in its form. It seems like you are ramping up, getting ready to jump in to the writing of what took 3 diaries to fill. For purely creative purposes, let me give you one piece of feedback that I hope will guide you toward success in this project.

Be gentle with the speaker in those diary pages, and when you write her experience down in prose, don't have the large distance of a future (and wiser) version of herself judging her as she makes her choices and lives her life. Some books work great that way, but I'm sensing that your story will be even stronger if you let us, your readers, experience her life choices with the pure, and unjudged reality of it unfolding before us. We may cringe in recognition at some of her choices, which will be some of the power of this piece. It will allow your readers to be invested in your character as a breathing young woman with a pulse.

The distant voice may provide the temptation to view her as a dissected museum piece instead. Give me a pulse any day.

Good luck on this courageous venture in front of you.

Bless you,

Jim Churchill-Dicks

[Farrah Grahm]

I wish you would continue!
This is a very good start. And I know how you feel. oh those diary pages. Good lord, and then in the end it just feels like a horrible waste of ink, but look at what it is instead. A writer's fodder.
*waiting for more*