Paper Trees

Welcome to the base of our publishing project: Paper Trees! Here we'll be putting together multiple of works and creating a book of innovative writings! But not only that, we'll also have fun thoughts and prompts that we think should be shared. This blog will be the canvas that we draw our thoughts on, be inspired! Feel free to follow along in our journey of not only publishing a book, but in bringing together great literary arts!

[papiertrees]

Maybe?

What is the difference between expression with words and expression without words?

Words and writing are a form of art. They can be created and manipulated to portray what the artist wants them to illustrate. But to what extent can they convey what is meant to be understood? Emotion is of the tricky sorts. How can simple words take color the true meaning of an emotion? Can someone truly describe the feeling of losing a lost one - without utilizing empathy? Sometimes people become so emotional that words only bind their movement of expression. I can paint a mural with feverish splatters of shades of red, and feel far more satisfied than if I were to try and put my emotion into words. As said before, In the book “The Catcher in the Rye” our main character Holden Caulfield is in a complicated limbo of discovery in life. His confusion and morality integrates with each other, sometimes causing a stir in his language - or rather, his lack of language. Throughout the novel we see repetition of certain adjectives and an overall downplay of the scenario being described. It rhetorically screenplays his confusion in his priorities as well as life as a whole. We’ll never truly understand what Holden was trying to find - or to show, but whatever it was, we know how everything that happened to him affected his outlook on life.

There are important things in my life that made me who I am today. But for the life of me, I can’t describe one event to its fullest potential. I can’t write about something that’ll spark the same feeling I had in the past. I can talk about how the sunset that day warmed my skin and closed all train of thought, but that will never portray my brimming sense of tranquility and closure I felt that day. I can never describe the death of my mother in words easy to understand. Because how can you portray anger, hatred, love, despair, pain, longing, desire, depression, and even more words I can’t think of - in a paragraph of lines? How? How? How? If I could express myself in ink then may it bleed from my skin and present itself so I myself can understand it.

~Catherine

[heels24andfood]

it be like that sometimes

[papiertrees]

This is me almost ALL THE TIME. Whenever I get really stressed, all I want to do is roll up in a ball, and cry myself to sleep. I definitely need to get away from this mentality that there is no hope left even when I hit rock bottom. But trust me, it is really hard to say avoid this when 99% of what I do revolves around my schoolwork. Someday. Someday.

[papiertrees]

pc: Ted Chang

I can’t believe it. It’s surreal that I’ll soon be embarking on a two-month U.S. tour performing in front of people every night. And that picture? Yep. That’s where I’ll be sleeping every night. In high school gyms. Leaving high school for the summer to only go back to high school. Wonderful! I have already gotten a little of taste of what drum corps is like. Cold leaky showers. Sleeping on air mattresses in the gym. Ridiculously hot weather. People think I’m crazy to be paying $3000 for these conditions. The idea of drum corps is insane. I can’t even put it into words. When I tell my teachers I need to take finals early so I could be released early to do drum corps, almost ALL of them say, “What’s drum corps?” My response is a clueless shrug. Being in a drum corps requires such a keen sense of musicality and an insane amount of musical chops. The staff members push your limits, so that you are being challenged every single day. Drum corps is not only built on a foundation of music and marching, but also teamwork.

I first learned about drum corps through a couple marching band friends who were horn players. I was really curious and decided to type “drum corps” in the search bar on YouTube. I was definitely surprised at the amount of videos that showed up. It’s like opening a whole other world I was never exposed to. My first video was of the Blue Devils 2011 pit. Watching the performers engage in the music made me want to be just like them. Showing my friends how enthusiastic I was about drum corps, they encouraged me to attend the December experience camp. Just going for the experience, I was completely unaware that I was capable of getting a spot in the corps with only about 2 years of experience with mallets. 

Over the past couple weekends, I’ve learned to admire the little moments such as chatting and laughing during lunch breaks. Or the person next to me freaking out during a rep because of a bee. I learned that it’s these moments that we’ll remember and cherish 10 years down the road. In only a couple weekends of rehearsal so far, I’ve already learned so much and hope to learn so much more over the summer. But first, I gotta pack. 

-Chelsea

[inspirationalquotes-blog]

for more motivational quotes: http://inspirationalquotes-blog.tumblr.com/

[papiertrees]

I love this quote. It’s like learning from your mistakes and succeeding from them. Be brave everyone. 

[papiertrees]

Expression?

Write, write, write... what are the words we write? How much value do we put in them? 

There are many things that we feel, touch - experience that can’t be summarized into black letters on paper. 

I thought of Holden from the Catcher in the Rye. There are two certain characters that readers categorize Holden as: a boy who is lazy and hypocritical or a person of deeper innocence. I happen to believe the latter. In the book, Holden is always barking out things that go against his perspective on life. In my interpretation of the narrative aspects, I see Holden as a person in search of something unknown to him. He is a person in seek of something true in life, but he doesn’t exactly know that. Holden is confused and can’t describe what he wants and what life shows him into definite words. He is stuck in a state where there is confusion mentally, physically, emotionally, and all there’s left is a gathering of nonsensical words that only helps him to manage the situation at hand. I also think that the reason he is hypocritical is because he is trying to weed out something greater in life despite being a part of the status quo. 

Sadly enough, I relate to Holden. There are just some things that can’t be expressed enough - no matter how many words and rhetorical strategies there are.

~Catherine

[austinkleon]

On silence and mystery

Nick Cave (via):  

I like art because I can express exactly how I feel while still keeping it to myself. As long as what I’m saying is in a drawing, others can only interpret what I’m trying to say, but only I will know what I’m really saying. 

[papiertrees]

Flower

I wonder if flowers know how beautiful they are. I wonder if they know are loved. At first glance, it seems that flowers are just born into the world to be pretty, and then die. But flowers are so much more. Flowers can be love, laughing and twirling around on Valentine’s Day. Flowers can be happiness, walking down the aisle on a wedding day. Flowers can be hope, bringing life and color to a dull, gray hospital room. Flowers can be grief, solemnly lying on a quiet grave. Flowers can be the golden sun kissed glow of a summer afternoon. 

We are all flowers. We weren’t born into this world to just stand there and be pretty. We crave much more. Some people want fame. Some people want success. Some want fulfillment. Some want love, happiness. Some people want to leave their mark on the world. Others want to live quietly and die with a whisper. 

We are flowers. We are ever-changing, influenced by the people that wander around in our lives. We are flowers, leaving a small piece of ourselves in the lives of everyone we encounter. We are flowers: beautiful, meaningful. Maybe one day we’ll be loved, laughing and twirling around on Valentine’s Day. Maybe one day we’ll be happy, walking down the aisle with tear stained cheeks, Maybe one day we’ll bring the cries of a new life out in a warm, comfortable hospital room. And definitely one day we’ll be grieved, sleeping peacefully inside the earth in which we were born from. 

~Annie

[br-e-a-t-h-e]

[papiertrees]

I can’t put into words how much I believe this quote. There are just some things that can’t be put into words...

[papiertrees]

How We Heal.

The mind is detrimental to us all.

We subconsciously desire happiness, and our bodies will move according to it. 

There is depression. Where your body is sluggish and exhausted 24/7. Yet limbs still move. We still breathe. Everything just keeps on moving.

We continue to move, sometimes against our will, because the soul of our beings still seek to heal - even if the mind seeks a suicidal eradication.

The process is slow. It’s agonizing. And the internal battle between mental and physical numbs your eyes. 

Suddenly every question turns into poison gas. The ink we voice becomes ingrained in our skin. 

Why am I doing this?  

Do I matter? 

Of course you matter.

But those words of comfort doesn't help. At least... until your body meets the top of the incline. 

Those jaded movements, and dragging of legs start to pick up. Your feet picks up the pace as you move down from the climax and into the falling action.

The questions that once haunted our beings are decreasing - still there - but decreasing. We begin to manipulate ourselves. We manipulate our minds into thinking another way, a way that compliments how we move. And the way we move compliments our mental state.

This is the process of healing. 

~Catherine

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.

Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters (via noirsyndrome)

The first thing that came to mind was Holden Caulfield. Every chapter, it is almost weird to not see Jane or Phoebe mentioned. He holds them so close to him and we could tell he is always thinking about him when he mentions their name out of nowhere. He is always at a loss of words or cannot form his thoughts when talking about them. I think many can relate in that we always have someone we are constantly thinking about, whether it’d be someone who passed away or a close friend. 

[austinkleon]

[papiertrees]

I don’t think art is ever really completely original. It’s all just a mix of things you’ve seen in your life, things that inspired you, things that probably already existed, and you just added a twist and made it your own. 

[papiertrees]

Permanent Ink

My life is a story, written in permanent ink. Every step I take, every action, every thought is inscribed onto the page. Sometimes I write tentatively, sometimes recklessly, sometimes unwillingly. But no matter how slowly, how cautiously I write, I will inevitably make mistakes. Maybe I’ll misspell a word or two. Maybe my “o” will be lopsided, or maybe I won’t like the way my “e” looks. Maybe I’ll run out of room in the middle of a word and will have to continue it on the next line. Maybe I’ll be listening to a song and will subconsciously start writing down the lyrics instead of what I was intending to write. Maybe I’ll drop the pen and cause a thick, jagged scar to tear across the page. Then I’ll pick up an eraser and frantically drag it back and forth across the mistake. But soon I’ll realize that I was writing in permanent ink. If I keep erasing, I’d only rip the page. If I try to scribble the mistake out, to disguise it, to make it unreadable, I’d only make a bigger mess. If I scrutinize and agonize over the mistake, I’d only waste my time. It was written in permanent ink. It can’t be undone. It will always remain. I can only cross it out and rewrite it or ignore it and keep writing. Maybe I’ll make the same mistake again, maybe I won’t. But I can’t let a tiny mistake, or even a large mistake, stop me from enjoying the story that I had worked so hard to create. 

~Annie

[wnq-writers]

there’s ink in my veins, I bleed in poetry and scream in stanzas

philosophically-poetic (via wnq-writers)

We say poetry on our day to day lives: in ink. Don’t say something needed to be taken back.

[papiertrees]

Let’s not be books.

Photo by Theen Moy, November 18, 2014

What are books?

Thousands of words – even MILLIONS. Each processed by people in the same repeating steps. Write. Read. Scrap. Repeat. Write. Read. Scrap. Repeat.

Until finally they are bounded by a spine with string and glue. Books goes through the minds of thousands of people. Invoking thought, prescribing presence. But only to be put back onto the shelf to be read again. Nothing - without being read again.

It’s dusty there on the shelf. Cold even. It’s boring. Books wait and wait. Creative and thoughtful – but still continuing to wait.

Books live to be read.

So let’s not be books. Let’s not wait for people to read into our lives. Or be forced to be strong through damaging situations. Let’s not be bound to whoever dictates our lives. Let’s not wait for our message to be received. Let’s not be people who live on the ability to be known and influential.

Let’s be words written in secrecy, and shown in privacy. The place where we don’t have to worry about red correction lines, hypocritical critics, and subjective opinions. Let’s be an individual who seeks no attention and no renewal of script. For we are the stories written by, and for us.

Let’s not be books.

~Catherine

[austinkleon]

Artists frequently hide the steps that lead to their masterpieces. They want their work and their career to be shrouded in the mystery that it all came out at once. It’s called hiding the brushstrokes, and those who do it are doing a disservice to people who admire their work and seek to emulate them. If you don’t get to see the notes, the rewrites, and the steps, it’s easy to look at a finished product and be under the illusion that it just came pouring out of someone’s head like that. People who are young, or still struggling, can get easily discouraged, because they can’t do it like they thought it was done. An artwork is a finished product, and it should be, but I always swore to myself that I would not hide my brushstrokes.

“Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner on why you should show your work, from the book, Getting There (via austinkleon)

But part of the reason I love art because the thought of going from a blank canvas to a colorful masterpiece makes it seems so magical. An artist showing her brushstrokes would be like a magician revealing his tricks. 

[papiertrees]

Writing

I used to like writing. It was a way to escape the harsh reality when I was down. It was a way for me to get my creativity out, even if it wasn’t completely original, even if others had written it before. Grammar mistakes didn’t matter because no one would see it. i could ignore capitalization punctuation and speling and i could write as many run on sentences as i wanted without blaring red ink screaming “RUN ON SENTENCE” at me. And I was allowed to start sentences with “and”. Or even write sentence fragments. I could even laugh to myself haha or draw little (: faces or use LOL and omg. It was like having a conversation with myself outside of my head. I used to write for fun. I used to write for me.

That was before I was told I had to write for an “audience”. Now I’m tied down by all these rules. I have to capitalize the word “I” whether it be at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle of the sentence and I don’t even know why. I can’t start sentences with “and” or “but” or “because” because they would be considered sentence fragments. I have to use commas, or else they would be run on. I have to make my writing interesting and original and beautiful, but I’m not allowed to compare blue eyes to the ocean because that would be cliche. One may not even use “I” to refer to oneself because it’s too informal and “unacademic”. My writing has to demonstrate a higher level of thinking and a deep analysis of why it matters or it’s irrelevant. And I have to do all this in order to make my writing appealing to an audience. 

And now I don’t like writing anymore because it’s never good enough. Because it’s never fluid enough or I’m not smart enough. Because it’s hard for me to articulates my thoughts clearly and eloquently at the same time. Because it’s suffocating. 

~Annie 

[austinkleon]

How to draw a novel 

Mexican writer Martin Solares likes to draw the shapes of novels—describe the plot, in a literal sense. 

See also: Vonnegut’s story shapes

[papiertrees]

This really shows the artistic value in books! Everything can be art.