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 The feelings and visions of warmth and comfort, laughter and silliness, had now been replaced by loneliness and longing.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.

October Challenge

Hey, writing people...I changed the settings on our blog to have new posts emailed to each person. We're allowed 10 email addresses and right now there are 10 of us, so it seemed like a good idea. If there are more people that want to join...well, I'll have to get back to you on that. But right now we have some writing to do! OK, so I heard back from enough people that it seems the fairy tale idea doesn't sound too horrible, so let's begin with a challenge for the month of October: you are hereby assigned to create a fairy-tale character!

Now, that can mean creating an entirely new story where this character can reside or you can take a "supporting cast" character from an existing fairy tale and fluff them up, make them into the starring role, or at least give them some more depth than is usually done. Just to give you an example, I plan to be doing a Cinderella story based on the point of view of the wicked stepmother, so I'll probably spend October creating a character sketch and putting her into a few scenes where the reader sees the events unfolding from her point of view. I have no idea if I can make it work, but I think it's worth a shot. Feel free to steal my idea but I really would much rather read what other people come up with because other people's creative ideas make me all warm and tingly inside.

So let the month of October begin! (Just a few days early) and lets say we get these done sometime before Halloween. You know you'll be too busy the last few days of the month so the sooner the better. And feel free to post any thoughts, questions, or writing samples on the blog in the meantime. If anyone has any great writing sites or quotes feel free to post those as well, or pass them on to me and I'll compile them on the sidebar. If I see anything particularly inspiring I may make a few posts this month. So if you're too busy sorting through the weight loss offers and get-rich-quick-schemes in your inboxes and you'd rather not receive these posts by email just let me know and I'll take you off. You'll remain an author (able to post) on here, you just won't be automatically emailed whenever someone posts something to the blog. Hope that made sense. It's almost 11:30pm and there have been fireworks going off all night here from Muslims getting excited to end Ramadan (wow, a really loud one just went off that literally almost made me jump off the couch) and my brain is full of the Ugly Betty re-runs I've been watching all night so I really should go to bed. Can't wait to read your stuff!

(A Very Late) Writing Prompt #3

So I apologize for not getting a writing prompt up before this. I've had quite a few people email and ask what it was and I had no idea because I haven't had time to think about it. I've been writing an article for a local publication that was supposed to be some easy cash and has turned into a month-long nightmare that still isn't over. Hopefully it will be soon. However, I have turned in a rough draft for that so I finally have some time to post on our blog. I've been mulling over some ideas for the writing prompt, but it seemed to be consensus last month that things would work better if we were working on continuous stories rather than bits of ones here and there. That way we can get a feeling for each other's writing styles and be in a better place to give helpful critiques.

With that in mind, I am going to keep it simple...the assignment this month is to take something you've written for the blog and keep writing! You can flesh it out with more background, even writing about the events leading up to your last post, or you can continue with your story. Granted, there haven't been a ton of people posting, but that's OK...if you haven't posted anything yet, take something you've written in the past (preferrably something you already have saved somewhere in your computer) and put up 2 posts simultaneously--first the original writing, and then the stuff you've added this month. Does that make sense? Then we still get an idea of how each other's writing is progressing.

So I know the summertime is busiest for most of us (including the 3 of you who either just had babies or are expecting one soon) but please do what you can to keep our blog alive! Let's say word count should vaguely fall somewhere between 500-1,000 words.

Sorry for the delay :(

Okay, so I am new at this blogging thing and very new at sharing my writing but I am so excited to get feedback and learn from everybody, thanks for letting me be a part of this, sorry I didn't post last month, I will try to be better! And here it is . . . (hopefully it isn't too painful for you guys! :) I hope I wasn't too vague with the ending, I tried to stay to the word limit and thought it would be fun to let people decide on their own what they think happened. Let me know what you think.)

It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet grey paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night. All these years I had been terrified of it. Never did I imagine that I would be standing in the entrance, preparing myself for its magnificence. I compose myself as completely as I can and push my foot forward with the adrenaline that is now flushing through my system. What is happening? I need to get to him. The house seemed to double in size. Tears began to blur my vision.

I turned into the kitchen; beautiful white marble everywhere was coated with layers of dust making it seem like granite, my fingers made prints on the counter tops, letting the stone shine through and bringing a thread of light into the house. He wasn’t there. The kitchen ended at the dining room where the table was set for 12 but the crystal glasses had webs in them instead of wine. Old candles that once had been lit lie broken on the lace tablecloth. How could something so remarkable be so endlessly frightening? I passed the elevators hoping I was headed in the right direction. I saw a hall. It went on forever, but in which direction, I wasn’t sure.

I felt as though I were walking on the ceiling, the pressure building in my head as the walls tightened and swiveled. Winding through the darkness, I used my hands as guides, not feeling any doors, not knowing where I would end and what I would find when I got there, I only hoped it would be him and it wouldn’t be too late. It was difficult to breathe now as I found the door and realized it was. I begged them without success. There was nothing else I, as a weak human, could do. I joined them, not understanding but giving myself to their power anyway so I could be with him. It was my only option. Things have never been the same since.

Better late than never...

Finding a minute to write in the summertime, when all of my children are out of school, has been nearly impossible! The fact that four of the six of us are on antibiotics for strep throat (including me) hasn't helped matters either. I was so excited for this month's topic, too. The lesson I've learned is to start earlier in the month next time. Here is my submission--completely free-written and unedited, but I like how it turned out. Too tired ot write more, unfortunately.


I have one green eye and one blue eye. The green eye sees truth, and the blue eye sees much, much more. I sit outside my misty mountain home and cast my blue eye across the expanse before me. Its sight reaches beyond the miles of olive trees beneath my mountains—a vast forest whose grey-green trees climb hills and fall into valleys and move with the earth, looking more like a swelling sea than anything else. My glance extends past this verdant ocean to the true sea, skipping across the shallows like a smooth stone, and then on, skimming the white tips of the waves. When my sight reaches the shore of an island kingdom, all that I see has an azure tint; and at the edge of my vision, all is lost in deep blue mist.

The palace of the island kingdom is not beyond the limits of my vision, and I can look easily through the stone walls. I see a tall room hung in tapestries and a massive bed decked in fine velvet bedclothes. The room is bustling with the movements of a dozen servant women. Their queen reclines in the bed, beads of perspiration on her brow and a look of relieved joy on her face. In her arms her naked newborn daughter studies her mother’s face.

Just outside the queen’s chamber, a nervous young king is still unaware that his wife has given birth. He stands at a narrow window and gazes on my mountains—if he had an eye like mine he would be staring me in the face.

I have watched the king and queen prepare for the arrival of this little princess. Her parents have such splendid plans for her future that I feel almost sorry to deprive them. But this little one is special, and I have plans of my own.

My sharp claws grate on the craggy ground below me as I ease myself to the edge of the cliff. I stretch my neck out into the abyss before me and let the weight of my head pull me off the mountain. I dive sharply, then open my wings and begin to fly.

I'm sorry...

I have been so preoccupied this past month(with a new born) that I haven't written any of the prompts. I'm sorry for this and I will do my best to get next months done. I haven't forgotten Erin. I've enjoyed reading the stories that people have posted. Thanks for being patient with me.

Prompt #2: The Secret House

(This was a fun one. Thanks Heather! I don't know about everyone else, but I did complete freewriting...which means this hasn't been edited at all. Hope it makes sense, seeing as how my "20 minutes" was really about an hour that was interspersed with nursing a baby and trying to play with whiny children.)

*****

It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet gray paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night. When people passed they unthinkingly spoke in hushed tones, fearful of waking the unknown power that lay over the house, that gave it a sense of constant muted humming, as if plugged into dangerously high voltage. For that same reason, no one ever went near the house, never even dawdling on the sidewalk in front for more than a few moments to wonder about its inhabitants. And that is why it was the perfect hiding place.

I had been tracing the worn pathways of the mysterious house on Amelia Street for over a year. Being unable to sleep, due to my unfortunate condition, I had been forced to find other amusements during the witching hours, ones that catered to solitude. I was wary of wandering the streets, still stinging from my encounter with One-Eyed Bob in the mostly deserted alley behind the mini-mart last summer, and had been anxious to confine my wanderings indoors. The quiet house was precisely what I had been looking for. I had noticed it, of course, in passing during regular daytime hours when everything assumed a sense of normalcy and I greeted neighbors on the street cordially, smiling and laughing gayly at the children racing their bikes down the smooth asphalt on Amelia Street. But I had never felt the same sense of trepidation I was conscious of in others. It had instead seemed to great me warmly, as if it understood my nighttime ailments and its the broken timbers of fence that surrounded it stretched out in embrace to enfold me in its secrets.

A house of secrets-- that's what I found the first time I entered through a side door I found unlocked though had to stubbornly force open. Time seemed to have worn its frame down as an old man, causing it to lean lamely on itself from tiredness and lack of strength. Its dusty interiors calmed my usually heightened senses at night and instead weaved a blanket of serenity over everything, easing my nerves and warming the ache in my mind. Often I would lie on a small cot that sat in one of the upstairs bedrooms, a small but sturdy thing that sighed comfortably with my weight. It was my favorite room in the old house, sparsely decorated with a small washbin in one corner and a large ornate mirror placed above it on the wall. A three-legged table stood next to the cot, its only contents were a pot of plastic yellow flowers and a worn copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which had now kept me company for many nights. I would often lay there, conscious only of the fall wind creaking in the branches outside, wanting the dust of the house to envelope me, too, to encase me as one of its secrets, a mummy of shadow and dust and sleep.

The only other thing in the small room was a large trunk sitting below a lace curtain-framed window. The trunk was probably large enough to fit two grown men inside. Its main body had been covered in a dark ebony leather, with two iron bands running around each end, like giant rubberbands holding the lid in place. Although I had spent most of my time in this tomb of a room I had never once opened the secret trunk. Not wanting to know more about the tenants of my private cave, not wanting to disturb the fantasy I had created for my midnight wanderings, I cringed at the thought of what I might discover inside. I liked that about this room, that there was a secret I didn't know.

Reminder--2 days left!

Just wanted to post a reminder to all (including myself) that there are two days left for this month's writing prompt.  I know summer is a crazy time, but I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with in twenty minutes of freewriting.  

Writing Post #2

I don't know if the rest of you are Stephenie Meyer fans like me, but I just finished reading her new novel, The Host, and I am itching for some more good fantasy writing.  One of my favorite fantasy authors is Gail Carson Levine who wrote Ella Enchanted.  This prompt comes from her book on writing (Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly).  

Pick one of the following introductory sentences and free write for twenty minutes.  You are welcome to change the sentences in any way that you like.  After twenty minutes you can keep going, revise what you wrote, or try a new prompt if you feel like it.  Anything goes--but try to keep the length of your submission to not much longer than 1000 words.  Deadline is June 25.

1.  I have one green eye and one brown eye.  The green eye sees truth, but the brown eye sees much, much more.

2.  The ghost was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

3.  "Be nice," my father said.  "After all, he's your brother."

4.  I am the most famous twelve-year-old in the United States.

5.  Jason had never felt so foolish before, and he hoped he'd never feel so foolish again.

6.  If somebody didn't do something soon, they were going to have a catastrophe on their hands.

7.  Alison was the runt of the family, born small and ill-favored, and by the time she was fourteen, she was still small and ill-favored.

8.  It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet gray paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night.

9.  The first time I saw Stephen, he painted a hex sign on my right arm and I couldn't move my fingers for three hours.

10.  Ms. Fleming's wig had gone missing.

Unwanted Visitors

(Another entry I am posting for someone else...this one is for Bebe. If anyone else is having problems posting, please email me. Thanks! -ern)

As a teenager I could control my dreams to some extent and was fascinated by those that could arrange to meet up with others in dreams and then both independently recount adventures they had shared when they met up. As such, I have always listened to my dreams and self-analysed, when you look within, it’s usually easy to see a trigger or answer to a question. Said the person that isn’t an analyst.

I have 3 dreams in my life, one is a reoccurring fever driven dream, one a pregnancy hormone nightmare and the other changed my life. Below is the other.

Unwanted Visitors

Sitting crossed legged in my armchair the TV illuminates the darkness as it plays my favourite show. Sipping steaming tea from a China cup, laughing out loud at the log lady, my entertainment is interrupted by a bare knuckle rat a ta tat on my front door. Strange, no buzzer. Putting down the cup, squeezing my tired toes into moccasins I wrap my cardigan around me as I walk down the cool hallway towards the front door. Stretching out my hand above the barely warm storage heaters as I pass, time to change the setting to winter.

Who was it? It had to be a neighbour as the flats had an expensive security system; an unwritten rule agreed by all 6 residents said that if you didn’t know the person buzzing you didn’t let them in. We had a footballer and his wife living on the top floor and he had been hassled a few times by fans so we had a good system installed to protect us all.

In heels I could barely see through the spy hole, in slippers it wasn’t even worth a try and I didn’t put the safety chain on the door, pulling it towards me, I expected to see a friend.

As the door was half way open the metal handle was wrenched out of my hand. Shocked by the force I let go. I tried to see who was on the other side but the door was quickly thrown back at me, a battering ram. It hit my chin, nose and hard in the chest. Tasting blood I was thrown back against the wall. Winded and for a moment unable to move. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. The only sound was my heart pounding in my ears as the pendulum of the Grandfather clock swung from side to side it’s usually proud song mute. Something warm and wet ran down my face freely.

There was a crack and blackness surrounded me as this dark shadow grabbed my shoulders and dragged me, slamming my body into each stretch of magnolia wall, a rag doll, towards the open door of the sitting room. With each body blow a sound emitted from this person, a pained low rumble, like an injured animal.

“Who are you?” I screamed. “You are making a mistake, why are you doing this?”

If I knew who it was, I would know why they were here, maybe calm them down.

In the sitting room playing a game of push and pull our clammy fingers locked together. I had to get to the light switch; had to see whom this intruder was. I would understand then. Bending his fingers back until a snap came and a cry of pain, flying towards the light switch, as it flicked on I turned to face this shadow. He swung a wooden chair at the ceiling smashing the light and returning us to his blackness that threatened to engulf me.

He grabbed me again, I grabbed back and started to pull him towards the front door. I don’t know where the strength came from. I was fighting for my life and I wasn’t giving in.

“Who are you?” I screamed, pulling, dragging, towards the door.

His feet slid on the carpet as I continued to scream.

“Who are you?” I shook him as hard as I could.

The light was on in the hallway, glowing through the cracks around the door, slightly ajar. Not far now, understanding would come.

I yanked the door open and pulled him closer, closer to the light, his face was turned away. Grabbing at his face my fingernails cut in to his flesh, twisting his face to the light. I would see.

Deflated, nauseous, my arms fell to my sides.

Then came the fatal blow.

My killer was me.



This is 16 years old and I can still feel the cold metal door handle being pulled from my hand and the taste of blood in my mouth.

I don’t know if this is too much or too personal or if I should invent things that aren’t true then I am not giving too much of myself. It would be interesting to hear how others approach writing they post on the internet.

The stuff that dreams are made of.

(This is being posted by ern on behalf of Laural, another member of the group)

For all the non-film buffs out there, this is the closing line to one of Bogart’s greatest, The Maltese Falcon. After a tense 101 minutes of betrayal, deceit, murder, and passion (not to mention the longing for Peter Lorre to slither out just one “yessss, massssster”), the final conclusion is that the pursuit was all for a dream; the manifestation of something only seen in the mind’s eye.

If I watched The Maltese Falcon right before I laid my weary head on my old feathered pillow, it really is what my dreams would be made of. Turns out, whatever I’ve been watching last becomes the stage for my subconscious. And I watch entirely too much television because that’s all I dream about. To those who know me best, this comes as no great surprise. I’ve skipped many a college class for a good Moonlighting marathon or nerve-wracking Price is Right episode (I mean, who really leaves in the middle of a good Plinko game?? It’s darn near impossible.) I’m not sure if it was the appeal of losing myself in another world or the purposeful avoidance of daily duties, but all it takes is one strain of “thank you for being a friend” and the mere glimpse of Bea Arthur, and I’m booked for the rest of the day.

Sadly, this is nothing new. One of the first dreams I can remember is being kidnapped by Paul Reiser. That’s right, the neurotic half of My Two Dads. I also remember being chased by some crazy monster and my legs traveling like windmills a la Scooby Doo. Now that I’m older, it’s competing in America’s Next Top Model (apparently my subconscious would let me pose topless, who knew?) or accompanying the minstrel in Star’s Hollow (if only I could really be friends with Lauren Graham…).

Maybe I’m just not creative enough to conjure my own dream world, I’ve got to borrow from screenwriters and production sets. Maybe it’s that my conscious dreams are so realistically achievable, my brain’s only left with the Saved By the Bell reruns to pull from. Then again, if a “black bird” can be the stuff that dreams are made of, why can’t the Fonz’s jacket make an appearance in mine?