Wednesday, April 8, 2009

MySixWriMo Day 8

*****

Today marks the start of our second week. Are we still having fun or has this metamorphosed into work?

It’s a little bit of both for me, but I can’t complain over the results. I already have four winners and two with potential, if I rough them up a bit and make them step into line. Not bad for seven days worth of work.

As of this writing, the prompt from Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides wasn’t available yet. I’ll check on it after my morning outing. Here’s the link to the blog, if you want to follow up yourselves:

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/


And here’s today’s selection from The Writer’s Book of Matches (Writer’s Digest Books):

“Well, he said he was pretty drunk at the time.”


Write your six sentences. I’ll do the same. See you in the comments later.

6 comments:

Stephen said...

I won't even wait for the poet's prompt.

Bright Ideas

“Well, he said he was pretty drunk at the time.”

I looked down at the mangled corpse and asked, “Who said it?”

“The other one did,” the patrolman said, “not admitting that he was drunk of course, since he was driving and all, but that his buddy, uh let’s see… Leonard Connors, the presently deceased, was the one who was drunk.”

I looked back at the beat-up Dodge at the side of the road, a set of skids on the asphalt where the idiot locked up his wheels to avoid a deer and was lucky enough not to roll the damn thing and kill himself as well. This was the second one in a month, the first one being some redneck out of Plainview who thought he could stand on the roof his buddy’s truck and ride it like it was a surfboard while singing “Dust in the Wind,” and now this second guy, who had apparently climbed through the cab’s sliding-glass window, saying he was “gonna take care of business,” and then stood out next to the open tailgate with his fly unzipped.

I shook my head, wondering where these guys got their bright ideas.

Greta Igl said...

Felt that one, Stephen. A high school kid died just around the corner from my house last summer, doing that surfing the car thing. What a tragedy.

I went for Brewer's Routine prompt. Don't look too close. You may see my life :) I want to retitle this. Any ideas?

Same Old

When Amanda was a baby, Carrie yearned for routine, for knowing when to wake and when to sleep. In the chaos of new motherhood, she longed for a slot to cook dinner, to exercise, to breathe, to make love.

The routine came all too soon, the daily activities that varied little from week to week: Mondays, the park; Tuesday, play at home; Wednesday, story hour; Thursday, lunch at Grandma’s; Friday, playdate. And in each of those days, their own aching subroutines, the three meals a day with the handful of tolerated menus, the same three movies, two books, one cry.

Mommy.

She returned: to her friends, her hobbies, her work, to some semblance of the girl she’d been before Amanda, but always with the understanding that everything must fit, no matter how large and unwieldy, inside the tight buckets of routine-- a time to play blocks, a time to read books, and even a tiny golden sliver to remember her freedom.

Stephen said...

No recommendations on a new title. I think the one you've got works just fine. Excellent piece BTW. Being parents, I wonder how my wife and I will adapt once the kiddos are grown. Fortunately, we've got time to plan for that.

Jane Banning said...

Nice job, Greta.
Adjusting to the upheaval is huge, then the routines get stifling, then everything changes again, and on and on.
At 18, Tyler is hardly home, but when he is, my routine changes to accommodate. And now the girlfriend comes here too and I feel my routines must shift in a different way.
OH! There's my story! I had not come up with a dang thing yet tonight.
Just a minute, I'll get back to you!
jb

Jane Banning said...

What came out was not about routine, so it's off-topic, but rather about the writing process. It's probably a mixed-metaphor mess, but something might come of it later.

Story Threads
Fleece and wool and words wind around me. I seek, write, delete. Ideas warm and form curving lines. The minutes twine, uncurl and shine, unbidden, unbroken. Then, finally, the open stretch. I reach and the story comes.

Greta Igl said...

I like the images in this, Jane. I like the idea of reaching for the story. Nice.