Blogger Blather

I promised to share some of the writing exercises I participated in during my 2-day workshop at SCAD. The writing I produced is pretty sucky, but the fact that I wrote anything is what was so useful.

So far, I’ve only gotten around to sharing one excerpt, so here is another…

We were given the following list of words and instructed to use as many as possible in a poem:

PILLOW, SURPRISE, FROG, SHARP, LEMON, WAVERING, KISS, CURVE, DRUM, ORANGE, RUIN, SLAP, STAND

The words in bold are the ones I used. The poem was supposed to be 3 stanzas of 6 lines each, but I kind of disregarded that part. Also, it was not supposed to make sense, but mine kinda does.  I can’t do 100% nonsense.  Just 90%.

Sidestepping the frogs,
I followed the path to his bed.
The curve of his bottom lip tasted tart —
like lemon and raspberry.

His head lifted.
The pillow still holding his impression —
and the kiss still holding me.
A frog jumped on his chest and slapped me.

Like a steady rhythm,
unwavering and intense,
reality rang hollow like a broken drum.

The blog post “It was a dark and stormy write” discussed my quest to be named the most outstandingly awful writer in America.  In response, I received the following Bulwer-Lytton lampoons:

Facebook post from my “friend” Drew in Atlanta
I’m afraid to congratulate you for being such a sucky writer… I mean, it feels suspiciously like a trap that compliments simply can’t negotiate… you know, like one of those sticky, mosquito-festooned strips of brown death that slowly sag under the withering heat of the sin-soaked southern skies in the deep, deep hate of a summertime that compassion never knew and civility only visited on a bi-monthly basis due to a court order.

Email from my “friend” John in New Orleans
Like a Corp of Engineers flood wall, I needed to get her to slowly release the pain – then she can finally flow to my arms… 

How humiliating!  Their awful prose seems effortless and it took me several hours to come up with my bad entries…

“The Spellman Files” by Lisa Lutz — an example of good writing.  I’m currently reading the third book in this series.

To my right:

To my left:

I wish I could blame this pathetic Saturday night on Baton Rouge, but I actually did have something to do tonight — I just chose not to do it.  Instead I am about to pour myself a glass of wine and watch a couple of episodes of Angel (Season 2) on DVD.

I know what you’re all thinking – what a fun gal!  And she has cats!  I wanna date/friend/be just like her!  Right?

For the past year I’ve been carrying around a newspaper clipping about the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest sponsored by San Jose State University.  Named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, the windbag writer who originated the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night”, the contest lauds bad writing and challenges would-be novelists to come up with the world’s worst opening line.

On my calendar I had Friday (tomorrow) listed as the entry deadline.  Of course, I haven’t written a single word and I was so mad at myself for not coming up with anything.  Well, I just visited the contest website and learned the deadline isn’t actually until next week.  Now I seem to remember marking the early entry date on my calendar so I had some wiggle room in case I procrastinated for too long (which is exactly what happened).  So, I’m excited to have a second chance at being recognized as one of America’s worst writers! Although, I don’t know if I can top the brilliantly bad winning entry from last year, check it out:

“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”

Garrison Spik, Washington, D.C.

“It was a dark and stormy night;  the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

As promised, here is one of the exercises from my writing class this past weekend.

The prompt was to fill in the following blank “What the __________ says” and then write a vignette from that point of view.  So here it is…

The flower says, I am the seedling you bought for a dollar at the flea market.
So proud of your bargain.
Brought home and nurtured in a little clay pot decorated with blue polka dots.

I am the bush you planted in your garden.
Protected from the cold with a special cover
and nourished with fertilizer.

I am the bloom you cut from the stem.
Placed in a vase and put on display.
Tell your cat to stop nibbling me.

New pic of Orange Cat courtesy of Tom.  When he sent it to me the caption read, “curses!! another escape to freedom foiled!!”

Ugh!  I’m sick!  I slept 13 hours last night and I still feel awful.

I usually don’t suffer from allergies, so I don’t know if it’s the pollen, the flu, or just being run down in general (you know, from all the hard work I’ve been doing).

This weekend, I was in a two-day writing class at SCAD.  I’m not sure how effective I thought the brainstorming technique was that we learned, but I did enjoy the writing exercises and the diversity of people in the class.

My brain was full of Nyquil/Dayquil when I left for the coffee shop this morning, and I forgot my class journal.  I wanted to share some of the (somewhat dreadful) things I wrote.

So, tune in tomorrow for excerpts…