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I’m currently cloistered in my apartment watching my car get buried in that white powder better known as back-breaking labor. As usual, I want to write an article, but don’t know what to talk about. It’s been a slow week. I’ve already tapped the usual sources of inspiration, the news, a handful of books I check daily, the word of the day. All pretty mundane.

Horoscope is interesting though. I wonder if I can find a story there…I could do with a day of brainstorming. Horoscope Brainstorming…?

I’m a Pieces:
“Being blunt can be liberating — give yourself a break and just speak the truth.

Someone offers you a great deal, which might be complicated by a debt they or someone else owes you. Try not to think about it too much — if it feels right, go for it and if not, then say no.”

James, stares out the window watching the snow pile up on his car. A recent feud with his neighbors/landlord means there won’t be any snowplow coming today. That’s what you get for complaining about midnight sessions of rock-band being played a wall away. So much for being blunt.
The phone rings. James picks it up lazily. He’s tired and not expecting anyone. It’s David, a coworker.

“How’s the weather at your place?”
“Snowy. A few inches.”
“Weather channel says it’s going to continue tomorrow.”
“I know. I might be late for work.”
“How about you don’t come in at all.”
“Work from home?”
“Not quite. Check your email.”

The man hangs up abruptly. James shakes his head and logs into his computer. “I wonder if I got fired. David said if I screwed up one more time…”
James pulls up his email. He was BBC’d on a message from management.

“Senior Managers: Due to cost-cutting and efficiency measures we are asking all employers to do an immediate review on all employees. One member of each department is slated for occupational minimization before the end of the quarter. We expect reviews to be turned in by Thursday.”

A moment later his email beeps. There’s a message from his coworker.

“James: read the message from senior management. I sent to all the other technicians. I’ll make you a deal: you stay at home this week. Just stay home. You’ll get fired, but I’ll pay you 50% of my salary. I’ll get to keep the health care that I need for my kids. My wife’s work-at-home business will cover the rest of my bills. You won’t have work so you can do freelance or whatever to make the rest of your bills. Think about it!”

James closes the laptop and goes to make coffee. As James sips from his cracked mug he looks outside. It’s nearly a whiteout and his car looks like a burial mound soon to be dissolved into the land.
“I don’t want to go in tomorrow and I don’t really like work. Something is weird though. Why would David be worried about getting fired?”

Just a short story idea. A bit of practice. I would need to flesh everything out a lot more, make real paragraphs. It’s winter and it’s cold, but I the weather needs to be really bad for this to make sense. Maybe it’s not the storm. The wind took out a bridge so the commute is now an hour longer. This car is really just a rental from a friend. His commuter car has a broken axle on a highway somewhere, a remnant of the last time he tried getting to work in the snow.
David shouldn’t just be a coworker. He should have a title, something senior. Maybe David is the department head. The whole conflict should be a bit larger anyway. It can’t just be “not driving to work/getting fired/healthcare”. There should be someone else at work. There’s a new person angling for the boss position. A recent hire from a good school, well liked by senior management. “On the fast-track for sure.” Maybe James is part of the car-pool that picks the new guy up because he doesn’t have a driver’s license. David is trying to sabotage him as well?

Just a few thoughts to get myself warmed up today. I, for one, wouldn’t mind not having to shovel for 50% of the salary. Ha!

Lucullan: adj, (esp. of banquets, parties, etc.) marked by lavishness and richness; sumptuous.

Welcome, good sir to the House of Licinius Luccullus. It’s not for nothing that feasts these days are described as Lucullan, or not. Would you like to see what is meant by that? Come, I will show you. And here, have some bread. You may choose a wine from any continent in the empire, as well.

In that dish there we have caviar, brought in by the general’s own fisherman. Delicious and fresh and I assure you. Beside that is the honeyed formice, fattened conger eels, camel’s foot and more. Giraffe and Flamingo will be brought out later.

And this, this is not to be missed. Lemons, apples, plums, pears, quinces, grapes, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, and cherries. Beside the artichokes and carrots are bowls of almonds, pistachios, and walnuts.

You are perhaps thinking this is too mundane for the great Luccullus and his feasts of renown? Yes. It is true. This is a very middling feast so far. He would perhaps serve this if a lesser diplomat of little repute and unpleasant demeanor was visiting, but today is quite special. I assure you the cranes, grouse, ducks, geese, and, the general’s favorite peacock, are all being cooked as we speak.

The general also greatly enjoys fish. They are being caught. The general demands his fish be as fresh as possible. The boats are likely arriving as we speak.

No, there are no other guests arriving. It is most unfortunate that you are not here during an actual feast. Today you will not be offered anything. It is true this is likely the finest feast you have ever seen. Pssht, likely. It is for my master, Luccullus has made it so. This is the finest of even his own fine feasts, but tonight he dines alone. Tonight Luccullus is to host Luccullus.

Another Word of the Day Story: Bivouac

noun:
1. An encampment for the night, usually under little or no shelter.

intransitive verb:
1. To encamp for the night, usually under little or no shelter.

Van Morrison is crooning another round of “Moondance”. It’s been playing on repeat for hours. The damn CD player is broke. What can you expect from a second-rate beater purchased from a chop shop in Tucson. It was damn lucky the car has even made it this far.
I’m turning out of the parking lot. Another day of work done, some freelance ‘jack-of-all-tradesing’ that has kept the car full of gas, my landlord off my ass, and enough change to buy Saltines and tequila. Bad habits both of them.
I’m not much used to the forest. Taller than builders, but none of the glass. Don’t really care for it. I always speed until I get to the lights of the town. During the day it’s small and not worth caring about, barely more than a gas station and a Home Depot, but at night it almost looks like Phoenix. No Carl’s Jr., though. It’s a damn shame, but I guess it doesn’t matter. That shit’s too expensive anyway.
Highway is always crowded. I’m not a fan. Can’t speed, can’t lag about, can’t even flash my brights when the signs are too small to read. It’s better past Newburgh. Not that many people go past that. It’s usually just me and a few 18-wheelers with Quebec plates. What the hell are the Canucks transporting all the time, anyway?
My exit. Last one before a long drive north. I’ll head that way one of these days. Me and my car will bivouac in Quebec for a bit, pretend we got the Oregon trail backwards. Probably wait till summer first. Car already grumbles about the cold. Landlord thinks he’s got me in a lease too. Whatever.
Not sure where I’d go after that. Keep going farther, one bridge at a time. We’ll see how that goes. Right now I’m just gonna enjoy the last few city lights. Might as well. Never know when you might not make it outta the forest.

A few of my writing notes on the town of New Paltz, New York.

Two hours north of New York City hides a village with cosmopolitan aspirations as great as the Gotham city itself. On the map New Paltz is noteworthy only as the closest exit to Poughkeepsie on the Thruway and the home of a McDonalds on the drive north to Albany. Despite its outward obscurity, it’s single crowded main street could be called the home of humanity. A college town, academic and optimistic. A hippie enclave, anachronistic, spiritual, lethargic. A farmtown, simple, peaceful, quiet, dull. An art community, pretentious, educated, cultured. A single street, as old as America and then some, is home to all the world and a population barely over 12,000. We don’t even have a Subway.

What a small, rainy little town. A few intersections and you’ve run yourself right out the gate. Corralled between a bridge, a school, and a highway, a handful of small-town bars, tourist-trap new age stories, and a dozen pizza places carve out a living, mostly at the largesse of the resident college population. Summertime restores the recession and colonial charm, at least until the weekend when the town again overflows with gawkers and tourists looking for the charm their own towns sold to Walmart decades ago.

I nearly ran drove into a cluster of wobbly pedestrians at the crossroad of 32 and 299. Friday and Saturday night bring out the town. These students wander about lackadaisical, tired, often inenbriated, and with a bad habit of crossing against the walk-signs. It doesn’t help that my destination is the same parking lot shared by the local frat houses and that Friday night always features a beer pong tournament in my spot. Hrmph.

From the lookout at the top of Minniwaska and the Mohonk range you can see Hudson Valley as a patchwork of farms and forest. A quick jaunt down the roller-coaster inspired Highway 44/55 leads to a well-regarded German restaurant. A left turn from there connects to Highway 299 which, after a charming vignette of pumpkin patches, apple orchards, and corn fields, becomes the main street of New Paltz, a small college town featuring the charm of a vibrant artist community and the convenience of Thruway 87 (North to Albany, South to Newburgh, Harriman, and New York City).
Water Street Market, a cosmopolite collection of shops featuring jewelry, clothing, a cheese shop, and a quaint upstairs restaurant can be found immediately upon entering New Paltz. Beyond that the shops on either side of the town center are especially entertaining. Especially noteworthy are The Gilded Otter, a restaurant that brews its own beer, The Bistro, a highly regarded stop for breakfast and lunch, P&Gs, a local sports bar loved by college students and locals alike, and, much farther down the road, Rocco’s Pizza which is a national treasure.

The snow becomes sludge at the end of the sidewalk. The wind blows down from the mountains with little care that my jacket has holes, my gloves are covered in frost, and my boots are sitting in the trash four miles back. What a wretched state of affairs this little Podunk hick-town is. It’s only saving grace is a pizza place every 50 feet and a few good bars.

Any visit to New Paltz requires at least a casual tour of the Campus. SUNY New Paltz, a liberal arts college of approximately 6,000 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students. Voted hottest small state school by 2008 Kaplan/Newsweek, it well-regarded especially for students pursuing careers in teaching and education. Also noteworthy is the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art which hosts a vibrant collection of photography and world art.

Word of the Day is a little writing exercise I occasionally task myself with. I log into dictionary.com, go to the word of the day, and then write something using or about that word. Sometimes it’s a poem, sometimes a short story, sometimes just a little vignette. It’s been a useful exercise and tends to be a lot of fun. I wrote this particular article long before it got onto WordPress, but the word of the day for this post is:

Limn: –verb (used with object)

1. to represent in drawing or painting.
2. to portray in words; describe.
3. Obsolete. to illuminate (manuscripts).

An interesting word.

The student sat beside the man-made pond and watched the geese sail aimlessly around the green algae that covered the surface. A stack of well-worn books sat precariously beside him, threatening with each gelid breeze to crumble onto the ground and crush the frosted grass. The student ignored them with frigid indifference.
He cautiously grabbed a drawing pad from the top and conjured a pencil out of his curly hair. His fingers limned the ducks and their irreverence, crafting beaks from parchment and sketching ruffled feathers with the side of the pencil. He moved onto the algae.
Flickers of crystal began to strike the page, leaving moist stains and faded charcoal. The student looked up. His cheek fizzled and he was retreat from the blizzard. Slowly and with a heavy sigh, the student closed his tablet, bowed to the ducks, and walked to class.

Hopefully this will be the first of many examples. Enjoy!