1000 Days

Let’s see what muse-phlegm this thing coughs up tonight:

“What vehicle did you sit in?  Write a story or memory that takes place at a drive-in movie theater.”

“Did you study?  Write about a time when you were taking some type of test.”

“How long until it broke?  Write about a toy you didn’t play with properly.”

“What would it be made out of?  Write about a monument you wished you could build to honor someone you know or knew.”

“Why didn’t you want to believe them?  Even if you don’t believe in fortune telling, write about a fictional (or true) experience where you visit someone who knows something about your future.”

Cripes.  This one didn’t make me cringe too much.

Oh.  And to finish up the last one for my friend Fred:  blah blah blah.  She got cold feet.

Sr. Antonio de Silva snugged the theodolite into it’s wooden case.  Pocketed the key.  And stood.  The sudden movement dropped his blood pressure shivering him to an unsteady balance between consciousness and unconcious.  The moment the blackness thinned and he could see the tripod, he snatched out an arm to steady himself.

The project plan neatly curled in a tube at his feet and his whole weak body told him he’d not live to see this monstrosity fly.  His brain and his heart—not the organ in his chest—rebuked his frame with a question: who could take up the chore if he passed?  De Silva went to sleep with this question and chewed on it over breakfast when he rose.

Before I write a third four line graph I’m gonna cut off here.

Day 265

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After abandonning four random prompts I’m going with this one:

“Where were your shoes?  Write about an interesting time when you happened to be barefoot.  Begin and end your writing with a description of your feet.”

Amy smiled at the shape of her feet.  Singley or paired their profile presented an authentic feminine appearance: petite, but not too narrow; distinct toes that neither blended into a mob near the pinkie nor highlighted the one that went to town as an overbearing brute; neatly trimmed nails; and most importantly a slender approach through the ankle.

She’d have to kill herself if she had cankles.  There were plenty of things Amy would have to kill herself over.  Cankles would surely fall in the first ten if she bothered to list them out.

“Come on Amy Baimy!” Jack called to her.  Amy’s thoughts swept back a two years or so when they first came to the beach together.  He tied his tounge trying to say ‘Amy Baby’.  Each time he tried and failed they laughed more until he gave up.

“Come on,” Jack pleaded from the waves.  Amy stood and brushed the sand from her bottom and adjusted her hair better in her big floppy hat.  She wished for her shorts so she could stomp in the water with Jack, but these white capris with their v-notched cuffs added a dynamic she couldn’t explain and she chose them instead.  Today would be about romance, not splashing anyway.

I’m just going to end there.

Day 264

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I’m not a fan of writing prompts because I don’t find them compelling.  All prompts are contrived.  An anonymous composer, should I say contriver, distilled a a drop or two of essence from a particularly rewarding writing session.  They packaged it as a question or situation or evocative eliptical.  That half-teaspoon of muse soaked into the page of a student writing workbook or a random generator on the Internet.  Here is sits before me.

Why the hell should this matter to me?  Obviously I wipe it away before I begin typing.

Wait.  A real writer, a professional writer, could compose a 1000 words from any featureless request.  Couldn’t they?  Shouldn’t I at least try?

In High School I tried because I didn’t have a choice.  Mr. Brainard—he said he could see me becoming a pro—gave us a prompt and expected results before the end of the hour.  He didn’t grade on quantity or quality or creativity.  I’m sure he prised those things, but he didn’t mark against a lack of any of those.  He marked against nothing.  He didn’t grade on the relationship to the prompt either.  As I recall, at least once I refused the prompt and wrote what I wanted to write.

As I write this, it comes to mind that writing to a prompt gave me the freedom not to worry over the output.  I blamed the prompt for uninteresting results.

Still, I find it difficult to treat prompts as if they were a workout, a training regimine.  Prompts don’t parallel free throws and layups as much as they do a game of HORSE.  I guess shooting more baskets is better than shooting less regardless of the scenario, but adding nine other guys to the court, a second basket, a ref, and a time clock is not a linear progression of difficulty.

This week I’ll work from prompts despite my thin enthusiasm for them.  I will try really really hard not to waste my time clicking through the bad ones to find less bad ones hoping to find good ones.

http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/dailypromptgenerator.htm

Day 263

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