Category: Daily

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Day 134: Paradise Theatre Overhaul

I’m really in my office. Thirty-four floors above the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, Colorado. I feel as if I am in a Polaroid from the 70’s. The blues faded, the reds indistinct, and the blacks turned a sickly green. The “Welcome Back Kotter” t-shirt I’m wearing is an iron-on and the collar isn’t the same color as the shirt. I have on that first round of Nikes: blue with a yellow trademark. I’m twelve, but the look on my face is veteran. I’ve been effected by what I’m seeing, but I don’t care.

There is no such photograph.

In the memory that follows I don’t wear those clothes but pretend I do because they are the only ones I can recall from that era.

[a whole buncha stuff here]

From that summer there is a single recording of me. Its corners rounded in the style of the day; it’s format clearly 110. I’m on the back of a motorcycle, t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops, and a helmet–“Gotta protect your head.”

Word count: 187 

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Day 133: Three Plots for My Redemption

I am writing in the morning for the first time in several weeks. Even if the content sucks, I am already ten time happier about this that I was with last night’s efforts.

I’ve discovered it’s hard for me to not write in the first person. This surprises me. I don’t read much first person work–as far as I recall. Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy comes to mind, but nothing else. Maybe it’s easier since I don’t have to think up names for characters and I can hide in ‘my’ head with thoughts rather than coming up with a plot.

Ha! There’s me circling back to my plot avoidance strategies. For a guy that so readily identifies his problem, I’m sure sucktastic at tackling it. Plotophobia. Let’s try my little plot exercise again this morning:

A green faerie, ousted from court, seeks the respect and love of the newest regent in order to return to the life she once had. While eavesdropping she discovers an ancient tome of power and that the new regent isn’t who he seems to be. In order to save her country, she must carry the book to where it may be safely opened or destroy it before the regent gets it back.

Eesh that sounds like some ‘generator’ tool was involved. Let’s try another…

A mother whose prescience has abandoned her since her teens suddenly starts seeing her own daughter’s future. It’s not good. Without revealing her curse, the mother’s actions come off as meddling and only serve to push her college-bound daughter further away.

I’ll stop with number three for today since it’s the top of the hour…

Remarkably after having reported his digital camera stolen a man’s camera is recovered by the police. The police find photographs of a crime on the camera. Somehow the context point to the owner’s involvement rather than the thief’s. The owner’s attempts to exonerate himself make him look more guilty. Pushed to the limit by the legal system he goes underground to hunt for the criminal instead. If he can’t have justice, he’ll settle for revenge.

There is a legal-crime thriller I couldn’t hope to know enough to write.

Word count: 373

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Day 132: The Day After 131

He liked this kind of magic. It’s precision and predictability comforted him.  He felt more like his grandmother knitting a shawl or a mason erecting a cathedral.  Before the first dowel was laid he announced a goal.  With the placement of each successive dowel he built toward that end.

Eventually I’ll be able to convince myself that a single word on a page is writing at this rate.  Damn you big screen TV and brain jelling HD reception.  And stupid crappy championship football game with teams I don’t follow that sucked anyway.

At least I’m efficient enough to skip right to the part where I don’t do anything new or good in the new year rather than the speedbump making resolutions might have been.

Word count: meh