Here & Now... Then Outside

Exercise #115 : "Here & Now... Then Outside"

Considering where you are right now:

• What do you see? List 3 things.
• What do you hear? List 3.
• What do you smell? List 3.
• What do you taste? List at least 2 tastes.
• What do you feel on your skin? List at least 3.

Once you've finished this, imagine that you have moved outside nearby. Ask and answer the same questions.

GO!

3 Sights. Right now, I am in my living room. Across the way, our Christmas tree stands in all its glory, except most of the ornaments have been removed. It was once haphazardly decorated with white and blue lights (Hanukkah, much?) as well as blue and silver ornaments and multicolored Mardi Gras beads. I'm sure you can tell already that this house is filled with a bunch of 20-somethings. The three was originally sparsely decorated with a few olive green and red bulbs, but our male roommate, Andy, decided that we needed to get some more. Now, one of my roommates, Mo, is a bit of a Christmas tree snob, so imagine her surprise when she walked into the house to see a tree with mismatched bulbs, white and blue lights, and a string of Mardi Gras beads. It was actually quite humorous. I was sitting there in the living room watching tv when I heard her walk in through the kitchen.

"Oh, my God," she said slowly. I couldn't even see her, but I knew to what she was referring. When she actually walked into the room, her face was priceless. She proceeded to tell me that her mom made a point of having a tastefully decorated tree every year. The ornaments were all matchy matchy and so on which is nice, but I prefer a tree with meaning. The tree at my parents' house (pictured right) would probably be absolutely disgusting to Mo, but it's filled with ornaments that are over 20 years old. Each one has a meaning and a history, and I wouldn't trade it up for the world. The only thing that I don't like about our tree is that it's fake. My mom is allergic to fir trees, and if she's around them her eyes swell up, she starts sniffling, etc... So no real tree for the Howerton family. That's ok, though. The ornaments make up for it.

But I've digressed... I've only listed 1 thing that I can see. I can also see the tv which is currently playing "Trading Spouses" on CMT. When I write for my blog, I tend to turn on the tv or my iPod for some background noise regardless of what's playing. My third and final sight is Kitty Kitty scooting her butt across the rug. Bad kitty! I guess it's time to express her anal glands again... I know, I know... That's gross, but it has to be done. I would end up with a cat that has a weird problem like that. Oh well. I love my cat.

Now onto 3 sounds. I hear the tv, of course. I also hear the cats' water fountain bubbling away in the dining room. Yes, friends, the cats have their own water fountain. I am slowly turning into an old cat lady. How did this happen? My 3rd sound is the tapping of my keyboard. I don't know why, but there's something calming about it.

3 smells. This one is hard. I have a really good sense of smell, but there's nothing really that's sticking out to me right now. I smell.............. my house. Case closed.

2 tastes. I taste the stuffed crust, cheese and grilled chicken pizza I ate a few minutes ago. Yummy... I also taste the water that I drank with it. Yes, water does have a taste!

2 feels. I feel the big comfy faux suede couch on which I am currently lying. I also feel the plastic of my computer pressing against my forearms. You know, this is really not a very comfortable sitting position....... Consider it fixed.

Ok, this is a pretty long post, so I won't bore you with the outside version. If you've gotten to the end, I applaud you.

Peace.
Stef.

P.S. I just realized that I skipped an exercise! Whoops! I'll do Exercise #114 tomorrow.

Continue reading...

She's Always Late

Exercise #113 : "She's Always Late"

Why is she "always" late? What are three things she's actually been on time for? If you have time, describe her purse.

GO!

I'll tell you who is always late. My Mom (pictured right). I love the woman. Really,I do. But she is never on time! I can't even begin to list the times where I have waited around for her to get her stuff together.

An example? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Last year, Thanksgiving. I was working (such is the life of a dog walker), so I had specific times where I had to be at work.

"What time do we need to eat, Stef?" she asked me.

"Well," I said, "I have to be at work at 2 o'clock, so probably sometime around noon."

"Ok, we can do that."

Apparently not.

I get to my house around 11am, and my Dad and sister haven't even gotten out of bed. My Mom is in the shower, and I'm just sitting there, waiting for something to get done. In retrospect, I probably could have done something to speed things along, but I was so frustrated that I wasn't thinking straight. I sat there for an hour, two hours... At around 1pm, things were finally being prepared. Too bad I had to leave at 1:30 to make it to work on time.

That being said, I got a tiny bite of corn bread at 1:30 and immediately left for East Nashville and the dozen of dogs that were waiting for me to let them out and feed them. Get this, though. My Mom had the audacity to be mad at me for leaving! MAD! I gave her accurate times, did I not? Sure, it was Thanksgiving, but I had to be a responsible adult and work.

As far as my Mom's purse... It has everything in it. Floss, makeup, incendiary devices... hah Not really. She has one of those purses that has very useful items in it, though. If I catch myself out of my house with her and in need of something I can ask her for it, and chances are it's on her person somewhere.

Oh, Mom. I love you, but you're crazy.

The scary part is that I am becoming more and more like her as the years pass...

Lord, give me strength!

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Who Went to McDonald's?

Today's exercise is going to be completed by my lovely sister, Juniper Trela. Yay for guest posters! :) I'd be remiss if I didn't inform you of her blog, We Can All Use a Little More Juju. Either way, go check it out.

Without further ado, here is my sister's contribution to my little bloggy.

Exercise #112 : "Who Went to McDonald's?"

Who is the most unlikely person - living or dead, famous or non - you can think of to be in a fast food restaurant? Imagine that person just walked into McDonald's. Why are they there, and what happens?

GO!

Perhaps he was just being ironic, but he just looked too uncomfortable to be standing in one of the lines at Burger King on purpose, based on some vindictive hipster ideology.

He seemed to be hiding behind his slightly slouchy knit cap and unkempt kinda-beard, dodging direct eye contact with the other patrons. He shoved his balled up fists into the pockets of his skin-tight jeans and rocked back and forth on his Chuck Taylors. From the line next to him, I couldn’t tell what his dark gray shirt, probably from Snorg Tees, said, as it was covered by a yellow “summer scarf.”

He caught me looking at him with a confused grimace on my face and his gaze shot to the ground, his thickly-rimmed black glasses nearly falling off of his nose. I shrugged and continued to peruse the menu, even though I knew what I was going to get the second I started towards the joint.

“They have really good chicken sandwiches.”

My head snapped back to his direction. His sheepish expression nearly made me laugh. He had just given me his excuse.

END

Hmm... Who is this about? I don't know. I'll have to ask her.

Do any of you have any ideas? An answer is to come!

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Note to Self: Stop Looking at All Memos Immediately

You know... the one that let me know that it was time for me and everyone I grew up with to get married and procreate. I've blogged about this before, yes, but it seems that this rush to the altar is only getting worse.

Anyways, I figured that there was a memo that, for some reason or another, I missed (kind of like that freaking TPS Report memo...), so I went hunting around my room and found this:

Just in case you can't read the tiny font, here's a transcript:

Hey, guys,

I was thinking about pulling a little prank on Stef, and it requires complete commitment on your part. My idea is this: everyone starts getting engaged, married, pregnant, or all of the above except for her. Hilarious, right? Imagine how she would feel being invited to all of these weddings for people with whom she grew up!

Of course, once these weddings and pregnancies are completed, I will not tolerate any divorces or abortions. Just so you know...

But seriously, it'll be great. Who's in it with me??

Respectfully,
(signature)
Yaweh

I'm not going to lie... I'm a little hurt. First off, it was a trick that they all played on me. Not cool. I'll have to have a personal conversation with God a little later about that. Secondly, I'm only 23 years old. I'm not even done with college (even though my age suggests that I am). Marriage is so far from my mind that, well, it's not even a blip on the mental radar.

I swear, though, every time I log onto Facebook or Twitter, another friend of mine updates their status to "...is engaged" or "...is married." Or maybe they tweet something like this: "Ahh! I just had the best baby and/or wedding shower EVER! My friends are sooooooooooooo sweet!" I'm pretty sure I have a cavity now.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm against marriage. I may very well get married someday. Right now, however? HELL no! Like I said, I'm 23 years old. I'm still in school. I'm going to be in school for a while (Thanks, opera and your overwhelming requirements for succeeding in you as a career.).

Anyways, enough ranting for now. I just had a freakout moment and felt the need to share my slight insanity.

Peace.
Stef.

P.S. In other news, I am going straight to hell for my offensive blasphemy. Continue reading...

The Bible - Claire DeMaule

Exercise #111 : "The Bible"

Think of one of your characters. Does he or she read the Bible (or other holy book)? If not, why not? If so, what passages would be of particular importance for him or her? When did you character first come across this passage? What does it mean to him or her?

GO!

I keep using my main character from my NaNo novel in these things, so I'm thinking it's time to branch out a bit. I know her pretty well; let's meet some of the other characters, shall we?

Today's exercise will focus on Claire DeMaule, the matron of the Women's Quarter on board the Spectre (I'll have to enlighten you guys about this character and the Women's Quarter in a later post, but the bare bones facts are that it's a brothel type setup for when the ship is out on a really long tour. The men need... er... release somehow, so Captain Eldon begins employing women to fulfill this need. Claire is Eldon's special go-to girl.).

Claire is deeply religious. Before boarding the Spectre she was on her way to travel across the universe in hopes of spreading her beliefs to those who hadn't yet heard of her God. She reads the Bible every day, spending at least an hour in the Word. Her position on board might make her a hypocrite, but when it gets down to it, she loves the Captain and will do anything for him. In fact, her favorite verse is Ruth 1:16-18:

But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us!"

To Claire, these verses exemplify utter devotion and love, and her somewhat naive romanticism exascerbates her mildly stalker-ish behavior.

END

In other news...
Time to officially start all of those New Years' Resolutions!

Mine? Well, I'm glad you asked.

• get to a healthy weight (I'm 5'11", so let's shoot for 160.)
• read the Bible in chronological order in a year's time
• edit the crap out of my NaNo novel and prepare for this year's NaNo attempt (Yes, I already have an idea... heh)
• maintain a more consistent blog posting schedule - I used to be really good at this, but over the last couple of weeks, I've really been slacking. Not ok. The schedule will be as follows: at least one post every weekday by 2pm. Easy enough, eh?

How about you guys? Do you have any resolutions for this year?

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Ears

Exercise #110 : "Ears"

In specific detail, describe some of your characters' ears.

Here are a few cues:

shape
color
texture
thickness
jewelry
hair, moles, freckles, etc
scars, wounds
placement

I'm not going to lie; I really don't want to do this one. Ears are totally not my thing... That being said, I'm going to take today's exercise off and think about possibly coming back to it in the future. :)

Oh, how I love being the boss of my own blog. heh

Peace.
Stef.

Continue reading...

At Least...

Exercise #109 : "At Least..."

In his Fictional International essay "To Begin, To Begin," Clark Blaise writes: "The most interesting thing about a story is not its climax or denouement - both dated terms - not even its style or characterization. It is its beginning, its first paragraph, often its first sentence... the story seeks its beginning, the story many times is its beginning, amplified."

Opening a piece with "At least" is to open in medias res, that is, in the middle of the action. For example:

At least the cake was white.

Or:

At least they approved of the groom's gerbil.

The exercise is this: Pick one of these lines (or one of your own, beginning with "at least") and continue writing.

GO!

For this exercise, I decided to pair it with an image prompt. I headed on over to Google Search, typed in "at least,"and rifled through the first page of pictures. What I got was this:


So I guess we'll go with that! :) Let's begin, shall we?

"At least we're not all dead," said the petite blonde girl who was twisting fresh blood out of her skirt.

"Right," the large man sitting next to her said. He was entirely still with his eyes closed, and he was covered in dirt and blood.

The two of them were huddled around a small bonfire along with several other people who were equally as soiled as they.

"Of course," she said, "we are a bit worse for the wear, but I bet we'll be back up and running by tomorrow afternoon."

The man took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "Right," he said.

"At any rate," she continued, "we're alive. That's all that matters."

The young girl decided that her skirt was dry enough to leave alone, so she dropped it. It fell heavily to her ankles and made a thump sound.

One of the people sitting across the fire from them stirred, a slight sob falling from their lips.

"Tsk," said the girl. "What do you tell someone who just lost everything?" She began to bundle her hair behind her head.

"Nothing," said the man. He pulled a cigarette box out of his pocket and lit up.

The girl dropped the golden tendrils. "Huh?"

"You say nothing."

"You can't just say nothing." She waved a hand in front of her face.

"Sure you can."

Turning her face away, the little girl said, "If I had just lost everything, I'd like someone to talk to."

The man took a long drag on the cigarette, put it out on the ground beside him and leaned forward. "You did just lose everything."

5 minutes up.

Hmm... I'm not sure how I feel about that one. I want to know what happened. That's one thing that frustrates me about these exercises. I sit here and write stream of consciousness for 5 minutes (or at least I try to do that...), and I come up with all of these new and interesting ideas! hah I guess that's the point, though. I'll have to keep this one in mind for later.

Did anyone else do this exercise? What did you come up with?

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Tunnel

Exercise #108 : "Tunnel"

What if there was a secret tunnel underneath your house? Where would it take you? What would it be like inside? Where would you find the hatch?

GO!

Am I a dork for having already thought about this very idea? It all started with the Nancy Drew series (the REAL, original series of books... Not this nonsense where Nancy is now this hip, modern woman. Blah.). She would constantly find herself in these places where a hidden switch or lever would open up a secret door that led to her eventual cracking of the case. Clue was also an influence. All of those rooms tied together by secret hallways... It's engrossing. All of the kings and so on had fancy castles with hidden passageways. Why not me? hah

And then you've got The Lord of the Rings. Now, Bilbo Baggins's home wasn't much of a secret tunnel, but I would imagine that's what my tunnel would be like. It would be dirt, but, as J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, "it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

The hatch to my tunnel would most likely be found in my basement or the lowest part of the place in which I'm currently living. I'd use it for a place of my very own, where I could escape the trials of everyday life. It would probably lead directly to a single room with the world's comfiest couch with a desk and a pantry, and there would be ample lighting, of course, due to the underground nature of this room. Simple living, yes, but oh so wonderful. It would be tastefully yet simply decorated, and a large fireplace would dominate one of the walls.

Can I move there now? Sigh...

What about you guys? Have you ever thought about anything like this? If so, what is your tunnel like?

Ok, this has gone on long enough. Time for me to get off here.

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Rx

Exercise #107 : "Rx"

Take a character from a piece you are working on or make up a new one. Over the course of his life, what medicines have been prescribed for him and why? Be as specific as possible, and be sure to describe the color, shape, size, and taste (etc) of the medicines.

Interesting. As the daughter of a surgeon and a nurse practitioner (Where did my sister and I get these writing / singing genes? That's the question of my life....), I know a great deal of pills and what they're for, etc, so this will be a fun little exercise to do. The question is... which character should I use? I think I'll go with my NaNo character, Savannah Hansley (I swear, this chick has gone through so many name changes... When am I finally going to stick with one?? Only time will tell, I guess.).

There is a bit of explaining to do, however, before I get started. As a general rule, Savannah's father is relatively anti-meds. He only uses them when absolutely necessary. So if Savannah's list seems a bit short, you know why.

GO!

• Age 2 - penicillin for an ear infection, oval-shaped, white with a small indention down the middle to make splitting it in half easier, chalky and bitter taste
  
• Age 5 - penicillin for strep throat, same appearance and taste as above
• Age 9 - futuristic unnamed antidepressant for severe depression. Sav witnessed her mother's first miscarriage and took it to heart, worrying everyone who knew her. As a last resort, they sent her to a therapist, and she recommended said antidepressant. It was a blue pill, smaller than her pinky nail, and round. It had a sugar coating, so it tasted sweet.
• Age 16 - Sav goes back on the aforementioned antidepressant after having been off it for several years. Her mother had her 2nd miscarriage and loses her mind. Sav cannot cope, so she withdraws and worries her family and friends once again.
• Age 16 - New antidepressant as old one is not working. This one is a very small trapezoid, pale yellow in color. It has no taste.
• Age 17 -Ethynodiol (birth control) to keep the babies away. She's terrified of having a child due to her mother's trouble, and even though she does not take part in sexual activities at this point in her life she wants to be absolutely sure that she is never put in that position.
  

In other news, I did a bit of research (thanks to Roni's comment on my NaNo Teaser post), and I have decided that my opening might not be a good idea due to the fact that it begins with her waking up, and it's super complain-y. Savannah isn't a complainer, and the waking up thing is... old hat. There's no real tension in the opening, so I am out to find and document said tension. I have an idea, and I think it's going to do well. I'll post and excerpt up here once I have that figured out.

Well, that's all for today! It's weird that a new year is about to start. It sounds so cliche, but this year really flew by. I'm excited to see what happens in 2010. :)

Peace.
Stef. Continue reading...

Language Overlay - Music

Exercise #106 : Language Overlay - Music

Sprinkling in language that reflects a character's concerns and passions add richness and texture to a narrative. For example, if I have a character who loves sports, when he goes outside to rake the leaves, I might have him "grip the handle like a bat." The idea of this exercise is to generate vocabulary - nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, phrases, gestures, metaphors, etc - that would have to do with sports and then sprinkle some into the narrative as it suits. In this exercise, try it for music - assume your character loves a certain type of music; or teaches, plays, or composes it. What vocabulary would be in his or her mind? Certainly things like notes, scales, perhaps a metronome. Make as long a list as you can in 5 minutes.

GO!!!

For being someone who is musically minded, I'm finding this exercise to be... confusing. Maybe that just makes me dense. Here's the thing: I understand her sports analogy. That makes sense to me. Music, however, is one of those things that, while incredibly physical, I view in a mental sort of way. When I sing, I view pictures through my mind's eye. I don't think about my intercostal muscles pushing and pulling against my ribs in order to expand my ribcage. I don't think about how my abdominals are working like crazy while I'm floating a high note. Of course, I've had to focus on these things while practicing, but it's the practice that's turned it into muscle memory so that I don't have to think about it. I guess you can say that it's always something that's on my mind, but it's so far in the back recesses of my brain that I'm able to focus on other things.

That being said, I sat here staring at my computer for a full 5 minutes without coming up with a single example to fill this exercise. FAIL.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm fresh out, it seems.

Peace.
Stef.

P.S. CHRISTMAS IS TOMORROW!!!!!! I'm going to be taking it and the weekend off. Expect a new exercise up on Monday! :) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! And a Happy New Year!!!!!!!!! :-D
Continue reading...