Sentences

Tom loved his sisters but their prying into his personal life was getting out of hand.

1.     His truth was soon to be realized if his snoopy sisters continued their search.  He loved them too much to let them get that close.  He had to stop them somehow. 

2.     He had always felt like they were searching for something.  Something to use against him, something that would condemn him.  This sibling rivalry was turning into a nightmare.

3.     An intervention they call it?  Feels more like an attack.

4.     I humor them, but they play me like a pawn.  I’m not ready to meet someone again.  It’s too soon.  I wish they would mind their own business. 

5.     Why couldn’t I be an only child?

He held his nose in disgust as he walked past the overflowing rubbish bin for the third time that day.

1.     When did taking the garbage out become my responsibility?  It is her turn.

2.     Plugging my nose couldn’t disguise the poisonous smell that lingered; the rot of our last meal together tangled amidst stories of strangers.

3.     Motivation was missing, desire gone, the papers would stay there and the garbage would continue to rise.

4.     How could only two people make so much trash, I refuse to take the trash out a second time today.

5.     “What is that smell?”  Alex said in disgust.  “Mostly tuna fish a hint of diaper with some rotten milk on the side” Jane said in reply.   “It is part of your chores you have still not finished.” 

 

October prompt

So I figure that October is as good a time as any to start being a better member of the blog. :)

She hardly ever went home anymore--she couldn't stand the silence.

1. The deafening silence was too much to bear; she had to get out of the house.

2. "It hurts to much to be there. Don't you understand?! ! She was my best friend, I know that, but...it's just too much. I can't go back. I won't."

3. The feelings and visions of warmth and comfort, laughter and silliness, had now been replaced by loneliness and longing. She knew this would be the last time she would be able to bring herself to step over this threshold.

4. She watched her go with tears in her eyes, wondering how long Alyson would stay away this time?

5. Sick. Empty. Useless. This was no way to build a home for herself.



She smelled the half-empty bottle of baby powder with longing and regret.

1. As she opened the bottle, she felt the sharp pain of regret pulsing through her.

2. Tossing the bottle into the empty diaper pail, thoughts of what should have been flooded her memory.

3. "He would have loved the diaper changing and bathing.", she sadly thought to herself while wrapping Simon in a towel.

SERIOUSLY ERIN! FIVE!!! COME ON!!

4. The smell of baby powder flooded her nostrils. A sharp gasped escaped her lips. What was she thinking? This was no life for a child, or for her.

5. Margo was silent for a moment and then replied, "I'd have liked a child of my own, of course, but I missed the boat on that one a long time ago." Embarrassed, Julie quickly looked away as she put the baby powder back on the shelf.

Practice Sentences

Thank you so much for the short prompt, Erin.  I realized tonight as I tried to face cleaning my kitchen after getting my kids to bed, that I was really trying to draw water from an empty well.  I decided to leave my dishes for the morning (gasp!) and do this prompt instead.  I'm afraid I didn't have a lot of creativity left in me after the day I've had, so hope these are not too silly or bizarre, but it certainly helped me end my day on a more lighthearted note than I would have if I had opted for dishes.

My favorite snack in the world is pretzels with chocolate.

1. These pretzels are making me thirsty.  (sorry--stole this one from Seinfeld--couldn't help myself)
   
2. I put the morsel to my tongue and let the heat of my mouth melt the chocolate slowly, anticipating the surprising tingle of the first grain of salt to reach my taste buds.
   
3. As I lay on my back on the island we had just washed up on, I thought to myself, "what I could really use right now is some pretzels with chocolate."
4. "Your request, please," the computer console prompted me in a pleasant tone.  I smirked to myself and said, "pretzels with chocolate, please."  I was answered by a long hum, and then a repeat of the original prompt, "Your request, please."  With a sigh I gave the usual response, "fortified nutrition," and watched as the thin gray liquid trickled into my glass.
5. From his pocket, the four-year-old drew out a handful of something sticky and brown.  "Do you want some pretzels with chocolate?" he asked me as he held out the melted clump.  I took a deep breath and answered, "don't mind if I do."

Sadly, Robert was never the same after that.

1. And that, my friends, is why Robert now paces slowly back and forth along the same fourteen tiles on the floor of his padded cell.
2. The experience had changed Robert, created in him the ability to finally truly give himself to a woman, even though no other woman would ever fill the place that she had left.
3. Sadly, Robert was never the same after that, and not just because of the extensive physical scarring.
4. Robert knew that life would never be the same for him again.  "Call me Roberta," he said as he greeted the woman that only yesterday had been his wife."
5. "Here's to our local hero, Robert McGregor!" roared the mayor, and the town responded with echoing cheers and applause.  Robert lowered his gaze, but out of shame, not humility.  He was no hero and  he knew it, and no amount of praise would make him proud of what he had just done.

some writing practice

So I realized today that October is slowly beginning to slip away from me and I haven't even started my writing assignment for the month. I still have the ideas swirling around in there, but ideas don't do us any good if they stay swirling around in our heads! They just get moldy and start to smell bad and before you know it you've got to double-bag those rotten ideas and get them to the trash bin before the neighbors start to complain. Or something like that. But I did manage to get some writing practice done in the shower (not something you hear every day) and thought I would share with you in case anyone else needed some jump starts for their brain as well.

I was standing in a luke warm shower wishing it would get steamy and the following sentence came to my head: "Me + cold showers = no fun." It dawned on me, though, that this sentence could be re-written in any number of ways to fit a different scenario/character/voice/plot and so I thought of three different ways to say that sentence:
1. To say that I disliked cold showers would be an understatement.
2. The muscles in my shoulders tensed painfully as I braced for the jet of ice water to stream from the wall.
3. Nobody ever said cold showers were fun. And if somebody did, then that somebody is stupid.

OK, so they're not Pulitzer-winning, but you see what I mean? There are an infinite number of ways to express one single idea. If you took an auditorium full of people and asked them to write in their own words a sentence expressing "I love music" you would get a uniquely different response from every single person in that room. Just think of the possibilities for your writing!!! Don't like that last paragraph you wrote in your story? Take it apart, choose sentences that act as major arteries and change their voice! Such a simple way to spruce up your writing.

So here's your mini-assignment for the weekend: Pick 2 of the following sentences and re-write them 5 times each in a variety of voices. Yes, five. We want the creative juices flowing. Just imagine two of these sentences are in your story somewhere and you think they're absolutely horrid and want to change them somehow. What would you do to them? (Some are purposefully vague so they'll be easier to manipulate to your liking.)

1. She hardly ever went home anymore--she couldn't stand the silence.
2. Tom loved his sisters but their prying into his personal life was getting out of hand.
3. Annie sat spellbound by the haunting oboe solo.
4. He held his nose in disgust as he walked past the overflowing rubbish bin for the third time that day.
5. Sadly, Robert was never the same after that.
6. My favorite snack in the world is pretzels with chocolate.
7. She smelled the half-empty bottle of baby powder with longing and regret.

OK, so I have no idea how this practice will work, so I'm interested to see if it helps anyone at all. It helped me but...to each his own. Even if you don't like it, I still insist that you post your sentences. It will be good motivation for all of us to see that other people are working on this stuff.