My First Solo..

[Jakemaster]

..no, it hasnt happened yet, but I wrote a story of what it might be like for my english homework (thus the vocabulary) and thought you guys might like it!

     It was a pacific day.  I had spent the past few weeks working on my Pilots License, and I had taken numerous lessons.   This day I was flying in the little red conveyance of the local flight school, a nice Cessna 150.  My instructor was in the right seat, and we were doing patterns, flying around the airport and the surrounding area making countless touch and gos.  I knew in the back of my mind that this day would come, but I didn

[beefhole]

I like the blatantly obvious vocab words sprinkled throughout

Good piece... and good luck with your solo!  Nothing to be nervous about when you're flying the pattern, you can let your legs shake on your first xcountry (I knew how to, and did use the GPS so I wasn't even nervous on my first solo xcountry either )

[beaky]

LOL... good idea, bringing your thesaurus along to compensate for the instructor's missing weight... "pacific"... "abstruse"... "emetic"... LOL!!


You're not far off the mark, though- that's pretty much what it's like for everybody.
And yes, the important thing to remember as a student facing that first solo is that you've already done it without the CFI touching anything or even coaching you, or you wouldn't be getting the green light to go solo.

[Jakemaster]

Thanks guys.  Still waiting for Flight Lessons, hopefully Ill find a way to get them when I go off to college in a few years (fall 2007).  Yeah, normally I could get those vocab words a little less obvious, but for some reason all of our words are always "bad" so its really hard sometimes.  I could always go back and take them out to fix the story up.

[beaky]

Thanks guys.  Still waiting for Flight Lessons, hopefully Ill find a way to get them when I go off to college in a few years (fall 2007).  Yeah, normally I could get those vocab words a little less obvious, but for some reason all of our words are always "bad" so its really hard sometimes.  I could always go back and take them out to fix the story up.

I think I get it now: you had a list of "five dollar words" that you had to use in the story, right?
Been so long since I was saddled with that nearly-impossible task that it didn't occur to me..
However, the thing I see that really makes those cumbersome words  stick out ("cumbersome"; nice word there) is that when you seem unsure of such a word, you set it in a very minimal, unsupportive sentence. "It was a pacific day" is tough, because hardly anybody uses that adjective anymore, especially to describe the weather. One more sentence or phrase that elaborates on that would make better use of the word... and get you closer to the minimum number of words or pages.
For example: "It was a pacific day, with gentle winds and scattered small clouds. The sun beamed benignly in the deep blue sky..."
"Benignly"... another good one...
You see what Imean... unusual or archaic words usually require a little window-dressing, or they just sort of lay down and die, instead of leaping off the page. An important goal is to convince the reader that even if they[i/] have no clue what the word means, at least [i]you do...

Hang in there; soon enough you'll be done with school, then you can really learn how to write.

[TacitBlue]

Hang in there; soon enough you'll be done with school, then you can really learn how to write.

I couldn't have put it better myself. I never had an interest in writing until a few years after highschool. For a while, I was working on a "book" but I have to be in the right mood to write, and I haven't been in a long time. It's amazing what you can do with a story when you have no limitations or requirments. The only tip I can give you for writing is this: Don't just tell a story, create a story.