The Problems of Being a Writer.

Only if you like to write will you have problems with writing one thousand word essays: except you'll have trouble keeping under the suggested word count rather than reaching it. Ah, well. Here's an excerpt from my latest essay for school; it's about marching in the Thanksgiving day Parade :3

“Wake up, Alicia! You’ve gotta get ready!” My mom says, coming into my room and switching on the lamp. I groan, pulling the covers up over my head.

It’s five-thirty in the morning and I’m awake. It might be for a good reason, but I’ve never woken up early easily.

Eventually, I unbury myself from the mountain of blankets on top of me, stumbling over to the end of the bed where my clothes lay. The layers of black clothing look drab compared to the frosting of green from the vest I’m supposed to wear. I pile the clothes onto my shivering self, and throw on the shoes and socks I’m supposed to wear too, so I don’t have to do it later.
As I shuffle my way into the kitchen, I hear my mom in the kitchen. As I plop down at the table, she plunks a banana in front of me. “Eat it,” she says, “It’ll be really good for keeping your energy up today.” I groan but consent to the yellow fruit, peeling off the skin and munching down on a bite.
“Could you braid my hair this morning?” I ask.
“Of course, go get a ponytail holder,” she replies, and I rush back down the hallway to get one from my dim room. I return to the table with the needed supplies, plus the birthday cake hat that I’m supposed to pin on. It’s a little cheesy, but hey, it’s the Girl Scouts’ 100th birthday. They have a right to be cheesy. I return to the table and my mom begins to braid my hair.
“Are you excited?” She asks me.
“yesh,” I mumble through a mouthful of banana. “Vewy.”
Today, I’m marching in America’s Thanksgiving Parade in downtown Detroit with the Girl Scouts. There were only two Youtube videos, two practices, and a dress rehearsal, but somehow all one hundred of us managed to learn a three-minute dance and be ready for the big day today.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the Fisher Building, My heart began to race. This was really happening, I would be marching in front of all those people! We had to check in first, where a couple of the directors had clipboards and the same bright green vests as all of the marchers. They weren’t hard to find. After I checked in, my mom handed my breakfast of cream cheese between bagel slices, which I attacked hungrily. i hadn’t eaten anything but the banana this morning, and I was starving.

“We go to get a spot to watch, will you be okay here by yourself?” My mom asked. My brother and dad were already getting back in the car to drive away. I nodded, my mouth still full of bagel. My mom got back into the car. “Okay then,” she said, and that was the last I saw of my parents until after the parade.

I had to wait around for awhile until my friend Marcela, a fellow Girl Scout who had been doing just as much preparation as I had been doing, pulled into the parking lot, looking identical to me in her black clothes, green vest, white gloves, and those ridiculous birthday cake hats. Not that I could say anything about it; mine looked just as silly. Her dark, springy curls tumbled out from her hat in a ponytail. A smile lit up her face when she spotted me in the crowd of excited Girl Scouts. “Hey Marcela!” I said, and she came bounding up to me, her parents trailing behind her. “Hey, Alicia,” she replied. Her mom turned to me, a quizzical look on her face. “What to we do?” She asked, her english brushed with a spanish accent. Marcela’s mom is Mexican, and English is her second language.

“Well, she needs to check in first, but then you can leave, if you want,” I told her, and a confused expression appeared on her and Marcela’s faces. “Come on, I’ll help you check in,” I told Marcela, and she nodded.

“Can you take a picture, Mama?” Marcela asked, swiveling to face her mother.

“Of course,” she answered, and pulled out her iPhone. Marcela and I leaned in close to each other, and her mother snapped a couple of pictures. “Got it,” She told us, and after Marcela had said her goodbyes to her parents, we bounded over to the coordinator ladies.

“Checking in?” The lady asked.

“My mom checked me in, she’s checking in,” I told her, gesturing to Marcela. Marcela told the lady her last name, and she consulted her clipboard, making a mark next to a name. “All ready,” She told Marcela. We wandered away from her to the outskirts of the crowd.

“It’s so cold!” I said to Marcela, dancing around to keep from freezing.

“I wish there was a way for us to keep warm,” she said, her movements similar to mine. Suddenly I had an idea.

“There’s this dance that my friends at dance do to keep warm when we have to be outside,” I told her, and I began to shake my limbs to a beat in a hopeless attempt to keep myself warm. She mimicked my movements, and soon we were jumping up and down, giggling at how silly we looked.

“It’s hopeless,” She snickered, and eventually we stopped, staring at the huge commercial buses that just pulled up to the curb to take us to the prep area of the parade where our float was. “We’re riding in those?” She asked me.

“I think so,” I replied, relieved that we would have nice, upholstered seats and heat to keep us comfortable before we began the task of not freezing while we marched. Little did I know that we would have the opposite problem: roasting in our overkill of layers.

Please leave constructive criticism in the comments! Thanks!

--BBB