Exercise 48
Internal Obsession with an Imagined Simultaneous Event…
If Sasha left a message, it would his fifth over seven calls after six rings each in the last nine minutes. He couldn’t fathom what Angela would be doing which wouldn’t allow her the luxury to pick up her phone. She always had it turned on. Class? Not on Sunday. With friends? They wouldn’t care. Another man? His past girlfriends maybe, but not Angela. They unquestioningly, unabashedly, unequivocally loved one another. Driving? No. She dangerously answered calls swerving through ice-covered highways. Oh god. There had been a snowstorm in Poughkeepsie the night before. Here he was ice fishing with buddies in Vancouver, and she was frozen in a ditch somewhere. Her car was white! No one would find her. No one would know she was missing. No one else would sensibly be on the road. He loved her nonchalance, her devil-may-care attitude, and now it finally caught up with her. She had probably been on her cell. Why did he ever let her pick up the phone behind the wheel?
Exercise 56
What If…
I wrote a story a couple months ago that I really like, but it’s definitely stuck. I’m very happy with the barebones, but it’s very rough, and I can’t decide what to do with it. The basic gist of it so far is that it takes place in a vaguely different time and place from our modern America, and some women are meeting for coffee. They are all pregnant, and their leader is helping everyone decide the specifics of their daughters’ births when we find out that one woman is pregnant with a boy. It goes from there.
What if…
1. the leader wound up having a boy?
2. some of the women stood up for themselves?
3. one of the women killed herself?
4. the woman who was having a boy actually had a girl?
5. one of the husbands intervened?
I’m still not sure. I think this is one of those stories where I just have to let it sit a while longer.
Exercise 66
A Short (short) story of one-syllable words...
Dirk caught the dog at last. It had been two full days since Dot had made haste out the back gate like a croc whose eggs get et. Dirk was none to kind in the way he leashed her neck, tight and with force. They both knew the walk home would be swift, sans stops to sniff and pee at shrubs. What Dot knew, and Dirk did not, though, was the trick clasp on the leash. One jerk just so, and she could be free. But no need. She had missed this Dirk, dumb as a rock, but rich as could be with a home full of food, warmth, and love.
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I enjoy this idea. It seems at first that it would be easy, but the more I thought about it, the more difficult it became for me to try and create something off the top of my head. Very creative idea. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteI loved your obsessive writing example. I have internally wrestled with why someone hasn't called but never to the extent in which you detailed it in your prompt. I love how you brought in how she answered the phone in all of these dangerous situations and then automatically built up this explanation for why she hadn't called which assumed the worst, when, what it might have come down to is that she was busy, or her cell phone battery was dead or something. Or maybe it will really turn out to be what you said, an accident. Will you go on with this one?
ReplyDeleteAnd then your one syllable story building, yikes!! I do a one word per student story building activity with my kids in my class and it is SO difficult for them and I can't imagine having to do a story with one syllable words. Ugh!!
I'm also interested in the story about the women having the girl babies. It reminds me a bit of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaiden (that's what it's called, right?) just in the weirdly regemented structure. It really intrigues me and I'd definately read that story! Hope you keep working on it.
ReplyDeleteStructure of society, that is.
ReplyDelete