That Old Hat
That old hat turned up on the bus driver’s head on the same day he slammed his fist into some lady’s burgundy briefcase. I’ve seen that old hat before, I thought.
The Totally Cliche Ending You Must Fix
It was as if Clarissa had known this moment would come. Everything was against it—her family, his family, the simmering feud that had been going on for years over a failed business partnership, even geography. Damon lived in a townhouse in Georgetown; she had a one-room apartment in Oakland she could barely afford on her salary as a barista. Good thing she had a scholarship or Berkeley would have been out of the question. But suddenly he was here, at her door, with roses and a ring, his Maserati idling at the curb. God, he looked good. Maybe the past could be overcome. His smile said so; her answering heart echoed yes, and then they were one. [Aauuggh! Barf! Ick! Save them if you can!]
Writer’s Warm-Up Head Slap
TODAY’S MENU Appetizers Foggy Rotini with Singing Tips Purple Cheese Sneaker Crisps Soup or Salad Portly Orange Chunks with Sour Glue Vinaigrette Shower Drain Fritters with Simplistic Sparklers Entrees Awkward Anchovy Steak Dryer Pizza Broasted Brazilian Perch Legs Six Bottom Feeder Deli Pedals Birch Slices with Sobriety Sauce Desserts Caramelized Cement Cones Crunchy Catalog Chews Assorted Nutty and Cutting Remarks What are you serving?
A Creative Writing Challenge for You
Winslow wakes up, lying on a cement floor. He blinks, not sure where he is. The room he’s in is round, about twelve feet in diameter. The cement walls are white, and the light seems to be coming from a circular disc slightly lower than the nine foot ceiling.. He finds that he’s wearing black sweat pants and sweat shirt, white socks, and running shoes. A plastic bottle of water rests next to him, unopened, no label. His last memory is of going to bed in his own room, in his Denver apartment, after a full day working as a coder for a website company. The only feature in the room, other than a hole the size of a pop can in the middle of the mildly slanting floor, is a five inch long, two inch tall slot about knee high on the curving wall. He sticks his finger in the slot, but cannot feel anything. It’s black inside. What will Winslow do next?
Writing Colleagues!
I am in the process of taking my now-defunct Ed2Go course, Beginning Writers Workshop, and turning it into a Beginning Writers WorkBOOK. I hope to upload it onto Amazon this fall. Before then, I was wondering if any of you (if any of you are still out there!) would mind writing me a blurb of one or two sentences that I can include on an inside page or the back cover, mentioning that you found my course helpful. I would want to use your name and short description, such as “Well-known blogger from Moosejaw, Alaska” or “Intrepid writer/librarian from Appleton, Wisconsin.” You get the drift. The workbook will be sold at a very low price (I don’t really need the money; I just like to teach and write) so, as always, consider this a chance to have fun, be creative, and appear once more, in writing. I hope you will post your ideas here. Multiple submissions are fine! Miss you guys. Ann
Icons
I just listened to Miranda Lambert’s song, “Tin Man” and it reminded me how powerful it can be to take a cultural icon and use it to build a personal narrative or poem around. Some years back I heard Kathy Griffin’s song about Peter Pan and used that icon to craft my own poem about the flying young man who refused to grow up. (It’s here on my blog somewhere.) Now it’s your turn. Icons are all around us—from the 1957 Chevy to Marilyn Monroe to Indian Summer. Let one speak to you. Close your eyes and write.
Hello Old Friends!
Yes, I’m here. Life has gotten complicated (my husband is ill), forcing me to drop the online course, Beginning Writers Workshop. The main reason for this was that it was getting too successful. My enrollments kept going up, and, well, you can imagine responding to 60 candle descriptions every day for two weeks. Part of this is my own fault. I really liked working with everyone. I kept trying to limit responses, cut back on the scope of assignments, and hire help. But none of this worked. I couldn’t keep up. So I have kept the two other online courses–Effective Business Writing and Writing Essentials (a back-to-basics review). They’re easier to keep up with. I’m hanging in, still working. Ed2go offered to buy the content of Beginning Writers Workshop, and the offer was a good one. But I said no. (You don’t sell your children!) Instead, I am revising the course into a workbook. It needs at least two more revisions and then we’ll see how publishing goes. Amazon is the easy option, and I may go that way. If I do, I will email everyone to let you know it’s available. I thank you ALL for how you helped me revise that material until it was as helpful as I could make it. To answer Gullible’s question, yes I got tired of John and Martha, but only to the extent that John’s name is now Bert. Martha is still her feisty self. If you’ve taken Writing Essentials, you will have found that she shot John in the toe and had to serve time. (He was having an affair.) She trained in jail to be a firefighter. She just keeps on going. Other news: I put my other novel (prequel to The Glory Rites) up on Amazon. It’s called The Old Powers. It’s a good read (paperback or Kindle), and since I’m stubborn, there are no dragons or magical creatures in either. (Okay, there is a sorcerer or two.) The good guys are flawed, and the bad guys at least have understandable motivation. Between the two novels, it gave me a chance to examine the fuzzy lines between magic and religion and also humanism and the urge to power. I miss you all! We’ve had a lot of fun. We even had roller skating parties with famous literary figures! Here’s hoping I can climb out of my many ruts and keep this blog alive. Let me hear from you!
Where the Blip am I?
My heartfelt apologies to all who love to write and visit this site. Let me set aside excuses: life traumas, experiences of the dull mind, the attraction of pouting, and all the usual reasons for not writing. Ugh. It gets tiresome, and we ALL have been there. The struggle continues. I’m here, not at my best surely, but still kicking. Learning does not fade. I CAN, and I need to DO. I hope to post more challenges for you, but only when I’m sure they are worthy of the many stellar writers you have shown up online in past. I wish I could mention you all by name. My imagination conjures all of you. We shall keep going.
The Blanks are Calling You!
Just before I _______, the __________ and my ________ arrived to deliver a large __________. I couldn’t believe the way it ____________ my _______________. My neighbor, ______________heard me ______________ and came over to give me a hand ________________. Little did I know that s/he secretly _____________ my ______________. What a _____________! The only thing I could think to do was ______________ the _____________. _____________!
The Window, the Widow, the Wig, and the Wolf
The widow, Althea, put her false teeth in a glass of Mosel wine, wondering if the alcohol might burn off the yellow stains. Althea refused to use Polident, preferring to eschew all symbols of old age. Except the wig (horrible hair was her inheritance from her late father’s side), which she stubbornly wore in shades of hot pink champagne. At 86 she no longer cared what people thought, in fact, she enjoyed the whispered comments–it was her way of socializing. Most times she sat at her first floor bedroom window, in her favorite comfy chair, covered with her white chennelle throw, waiting to see if any animals emerged from the woods that edged her lot. She tossed leftovers up close to the woods, but while the raccoons, squirrels, and birds liked most of it, none of them would eat her lasagna. It sat there, rejected, refused, and rotting. Hopeless. The momma wolf took pity on Althea, knowing the many ways the old were stuck coping with the crummy outlook of their last days. The momma wolf had recently been shoved aside by a younger female plus that pink wig in the window was rather intriguing. Momma took a dainty bite of old lasagna and gagged. She walked up to Althea’s window and shook her head. Althea toasted the wolf with a glass of white wine, wondering if she invite the wolf in. Althea opened the window and set out a bowl of wine for the wolf. Momma moved closer and took a sniff. Fruit? She lapped up the whole bowl, giggled, ran in a circle, and burped. Althea put her pink wig on the momma’s head and poured more wine for both.