Today, “Project 105” found its way back to me after being away for several, several months (I’m being overly dramatic, I sent it in December of last year).
Sometimes people ask me what it’s like to be a writer, and this is the perfect example. One morning, you wake up hating the process, can’t remember how to spell, and type a sentence, delete it, then type it word-for-word all over again. The next morning, you wake up with the feeling that today is the day you write an International Bestseller.
And some mornings, fairy godmother shows up in the form of a little brown box on your doorstep, and *poof* I was suddenly transformed into the memory that a long long time ago, I found myself bleeding from the fingertips as I wrote my soul out.
What was this foreign little white book in my hands? Surely this couldn’t be the same thing… there’s no way that… wait, this is my book? Mine?
Sure enough, “Project 105“, a task I had spent most of my senior year of high school writing, illustrating, planning, and processing, was complete. And I forgot about how exciting this whole thing was.
So in this already very long post, I’m going to tell you a little more about my second book:
What is it?
“Project 105” is a collection of poetry, prose, and sketches created through styles of free verse, rhyming, repetition, and rhythm. It is heartfelt, symbolic, deep, and ideal for the upcoming generation, or anyone looking for life inspiration. Through the wholehearted and feverishly passionate age group of today’s teenagers and beyond, my only hope is that these pages will be falling apart at the seams, filled with highlights, dog-eared pages, teardrops, and spilled coffee. I want this book to be a life changer, an eye opener, and a glorious epiphany. I write for my own soul, but mostly for yours.
Ushering out the white elephant in the room, to those of you who will pick up this book and think that it’s about you… it is. And it isn’t. This book is about me, thank you very much. In the wise words of Anne Lamott, “If people wanted you to write more warmly of them, they should’ve behaved better.
What does the title mean?
In March of 2017, I got my second tattoo: “Messenger”. This word is personal to me, and with a math trick based on the 26 letters of the alphabet, the word “messenger” adds up to 105. I did the math when I began writing this book, and viewing my tattoo has helped aid the flow of the project, which totaled up to be 105 poems.
What was your inspiration?
My inspiration for writing continues to be one infinite word: life. I write about my family, my friends, my enemies, my school, my community, my country, and the world. My inspiration also stems from the an inner hurricane of overflowing love, overwhelming anger, deep sadness, and abounding joy. Being a teenager can be a dramatic series of highs and lows, and I did my best to capture a year’s worth of emotions into a single piece of work, and “Project 105” was born.
As I mentioned, one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, says it best:
“If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly of them, they should’ve behaved better. You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up one day and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart. Your stories, memories, visions, and songs. Your truth, your version of things, in your own voice. That’s really all you have to offer us and that’s why you were born.”
Why did you chose the name “M. Rheinheimer”?
The definition of a pen name according to Wikipedia is: “a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of his or her works in place of their “real” name. A pen name may be used to make the author’s name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her previous works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her writings, to combine more than one author into a single author, or for any of a number of reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_name)”
So, in choosing “M. Rheinheimer” as my pen name, it was a way to distance myself from my previous book “Undefined”.
Why would I do this? Simply because “Undefined” is a children’s book, while “Project 105” has adult themes, and I wouldn’t want my two books to get confused or accidentally associated. While the work in both pieces is strictly mine, the topics of the two are very contrasting.
Which poem is your favorite?
That’s nearly unanswerable, it’s like asking your parent to choose their favorite child (they all have one though). There were more than 105 poems written for this collection, and even the ones I had to narrow down to the final pages was a tough decision… but notable poems certainly include the evolving trilogy of: “Blue Eyes” “Favorite Color” and “He Was A Hurricane”.
Where can I find it?
“Project 105” is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Lulu.com, (my publisher’s online bookstore, listed below) coming in at around $13.99. If you live locally, shoot me an email and I can also provide you a copy.
What’s next?
Around this time last year my first book was in the process of publication, so this marks the second anniversary of the beginning of my career. Hopefully, as I journey into my freshman year of college, I continue writing about my beautiful, fun, exhausting, silly life. My plans for the future are the same as they’ve always been: write, write, and write some more. I follow where the pages take me.
That just about sums it up… “Project 105” is truly my heart wrapped into a tiny white cover. If this post caught your attention or you’ve been following my life and work for a while now, please share this with your brother, cousin, neighbor, and great-aunt Mary.
Without further ado I present to you, dear reader: “Project 105“.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/m-rheinheimer/project-105/paperback/product-23264977.html
Euphoric and teary-eyed,
M. Rheinheimer
illiterateblondes 