(no subject)
Writing exercises are kind of fun. I have a hell of a time getting started, but they can be interesting once I get something going. Since there are certain people who are impatiently waiting to see what I'm trying to churn out for my writing class, I thought I'd post some of the things we've done in class as a compromise. Also, I have nothing better to do.
For the first exercise, we were given strips of paper that our teacher had printed off of the personals section of Craigslist. Mine was:
"No time for games looking for a Friend - m4w - 45 - "
Ignoring the somehow ominous capitalization of "Friend," I opted to emphasize the "games" part of the ad. Somehow, I came up with:
His ex-wife had been a board game enthusiast. Her passions tended toward night-long games of "Monopoly" or long walks on the beach while discussing possible motivations of characters from "Clue." That had been alright; he could enjoy a game of "Scrabble" as much as the next person. It wasn't until she discovered collectible card games that they really ran into trouble. As she grew more involved in Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokemon, he found that he was less and less able to understand his wife. What the hell was a Planeswalker, and why would she want a piece of cardboard that says "Charizard" on it any more than one that says "Pikachu"? Worse, why was she so willing to spend enormous amounts of money on eBay to get the exact piece of cardboard she wanted?
For the second, we all tore up strips of paper and wrote down professions, character traits/notable items/etc, and something else that I failed to write down. Then we traded them at random and wound up with 5 in each category and put together ones that we liked. I wound up with "rock star," "pink cast," and who knows what else.
With his arm broken, he was constantly worrying about his guitar-playing skills deteriorating over the long, but unfortunately necessary break from his band. He could move his fingers a bit, but not enough to be able to form any chords. One of his critics had commented that it hardly made any difference, considering the incomprehensible noise his band usually made - but the only critics he had so far were his parents, so he couldn't take their opinion seriously. They just weren't metal enough, and anyway, all they cared about was getting their garage back.
Another issue the broken arm brought up was the cast, or more specifically, the color of the cast. "It's ironic," he still insisted. "Real men wear pink." But he was starting to think that maybe real men didn't make pink permanent additions to their wardrobe until their bones healed, especially when their reputations at school were already screwed. So maybe stage diving at their first gig (Sally Smith's Sweet Sixteen) wasn't such a good idea. So what?
And finally, for the third, we broke into groups and picked out a fairy tale, then picked out a character for each person in the group, and we all wrote a scene from the fairy tale from the perspective of that character. We ran out of time, so I don't know what anyone else wrote, but we picked Cinderella, and I got the prince. Hopefully you can figure out what the scene was.
After traveling all over the city, my energy had begun to wane. One young woman after another tried on the lost shoe, all of them convinced that I'd fallen in love with them at the ball last night and all of them wrong. It didn't matter that I'd sent out a description of the woman I was looking for; they all had to try on the shoe. The brunettes and the redheads had their shot, even though they knew I was looking for a blonde. Why hadn't I thought to ask her name?
Several times, I thought of giving up. Maybe she'd only been in town for that one night; maybe that was why she'd left so suddenly. Maybe she didn't want to be found. But then I thought of that woman, the way she smiled and almost seemed to glow when she walked in the room, and her bad posture and worse manners that were somehow charming, and the feel of her hand and her waist as we danced. And then I thought of the swarm of eager and identical brides waiting for me at home if I went back without her. There was no way I was going back alone.
He kind of came off as a little bit of a dick, didn't he? I'm not sure if he was really an asshole or just tired and grumpy, but it's not like I'm going to write any more for these things, so there you have it.
For the first exercise, we were given strips of paper that our teacher had printed off of the personals section of Craigslist. Mine was:
"No time for games looking for a Friend - m4w - 45 - "
Ignoring the somehow ominous capitalization of "Friend," I opted to emphasize the "games" part of the ad. Somehow, I came up with:
His ex-wife had been a board game enthusiast. Her passions tended toward night-long games of "Monopoly" or long walks on the beach while discussing possible motivations of characters from "Clue." That had been alright; he could enjoy a game of "Scrabble" as much as the next person. It wasn't until she discovered collectible card games that they really ran into trouble. As she grew more involved in Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokemon, he found that he was less and less able to understand his wife. What the hell was a Planeswalker, and why would she want a piece of cardboard that says "Charizard" on it any more than one that says "Pikachu"? Worse, why was she so willing to spend enormous amounts of money on eBay to get the exact piece of cardboard she wanted?
For the second, we all tore up strips of paper and wrote down professions, character traits/notable items/etc, and something else that I failed to write down. Then we traded them at random and wound up with 5 in each category and put together ones that we liked. I wound up with "rock star," "pink cast," and who knows what else.
With his arm broken, he was constantly worrying about his guitar-playing skills deteriorating over the long, but unfortunately necessary break from his band. He could move his fingers a bit, but not enough to be able to form any chords. One of his critics had commented that it hardly made any difference, considering the incomprehensible noise his band usually made - but the only critics he had so far were his parents, so he couldn't take their opinion seriously. They just weren't metal enough, and anyway, all they cared about was getting their garage back.
Another issue the broken arm brought up was the cast, or more specifically, the color of the cast. "It's ironic," he still insisted. "Real men wear pink." But he was starting to think that maybe real men didn't make pink permanent additions to their wardrobe until their bones healed, especially when their reputations at school were already screwed. So maybe stage diving at their first gig (Sally Smith's Sweet Sixteen) wasn't such a good idea. So what?
And finally, for the third, we broke into groups and picked out a fairy tale, then picked out a character for each person in the group, and we all wrote a scene from the fairy tale from the perspective of that character. We ran out of time, so I don't know what anyone else wrote, but we picked Cinderella, and I got the prince. Hopefully you can figure out what the scene was.
After traveling all over the city, my energy had begun to wane. One young woman after another tried on the lost shoe, all of them convinced that I'd fallen in love with them at the ball last night and all of them wrong. It didn't matter that I'd sent out a description of the woman I was looking for; they all had to try on the shoe. The brunettes and the redheads had their shot, even though they knew I was looking for a blonde. Why hadn't I thought to ask her name?
Several times, I thought of giving up. Maybe she'd only been in town for that one night; maybe that was why she'd left so suddenly. Maybe she didn't want to be found. But then I thought of that woman, the way she smiled and almost seemed to glow when she walked in the room, and her bad posture and worse manners that were somehow charming, and the feel of her hand and her waist as we danced. And then I thought of the swarm of eager and identical brides waiting for me at home if I went back without her. There was no way I was going back alone.
He kind of came off as a little bit of a dick, didn't he? I'm not sure if he was really an asshole or just tired and grumpy, but it's not like I'm going to write any more for these things, so there you have it.