For Paschal

With a single paragraph my good friend Paschal, over at Murat11, pointed me towards a writer who is as fascinating as the stories she writes and as imaginative as the words she uses. Muchas gracias, mi amigo!

And for my friends who also write, JS, Alt, Sandi, San, David, Jeni, Susan, and the list could go on and on, "Please sit for awhile and listen to this fascinating story read by its author, Aimee Bender, and take note of anything she says that you might find helpful."

As JS commented on the Randy Pausch lecture, I watched the whole thing, takes about 50 minutes. Worth it!

Picking Up Raven's Wordzzle Challenge

Bouncing around blog land, I came across Raven's blog and her weekly meme, "Wordzzle" challenge. It sounded like an easy enough thing to do so I picked up the glove and self tagged. I don't promise to keep this up weekly as I don't know how much I'll enjoy it. Or how much time I'll have later on. Until then, here's the skinny on the Wordzzle.

It's week 16 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. The woman who started this is Raven. What she does is give us a bunch of random words and phrases to make into a SHORT paragraph. It's great fun and a good challenge for your creativity.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: spaghetti, larkspur, Prilosec, roaring lion, adamant, green green grass of home, paradox, filibuster, face cream, trout fishing And for the Mini Challenge (designed after a request for fewer words): jury of ones peers, barking dog, a wing and a prayer, liver, sprained ankle.

Raven put some guidelines up on week two to help handle things:
1) If there is a word or phrase which seem like the most difficult to use, try to get it out of the way first.

2) Sometimes especially outrageous words can be turned into the name of a character, e.g. given the words Bambi and bonanza on one occasion, I created a character named Bambi Bonanza, thus eliminating two really hard to use words in one easy stroke. Try to keep the names plausible, though. Nothing like teddy bear toothbrush. That's just cheating.

3) If you come across a word whose meaning you don't know or can't quite remember, there are a number of solutions. One very simple one is to have a character tell you that they don't know what it means. Make it part of the title of a book. Put it on a flag or poster. If you think you can get away with it, use it to name the cat or dog, a company or a castle.

4) Let your imagination play. It is not necessary to write the Great American Paragraph, to be profound, to make perfect logical sense or to write with total scientific or historic accuracy. The idea is to have a good time and to stimulate your creativity.

5) Don't work too hard. I seldom spend more than 20-30 minutes on these exercises. But it's up to you. If you want to spend time crafting a masterpiece why not? As long as you enjoy the process. If you aren't enjoying it then it is probably doing your creative juices more harm than good and you might want to find another way to entertain yourself.

That's about all the hints I can offer. This is an art, not a science, a game, not a chore.

So here's my effort on the Ten Word Challenge:

Trying to deny the existence of her Prilosec headache, Samantha decided to go ahead with the longer but delicious version of her grandmother's spaghetti sauce for the gathering of friends she was hosting. She didn't really feel like cooking this evening. Lord knows it was hot enough, but if she didn't start on the sauce tonight there wouldn't be time to complete the rest of the menu tomorrow. In the back yard she could hear her husband giving their son, Jason, his fly casting lessons in preparation for the planned trout fishing trip to the rivers of North Carolina. She was looking forward to the trip and spending time with her childhood friend Joann and others from school. She didn't know if there'd be much to talk about. The flat lands and distances of the great plains had definitely taken their toll on her life. Living under the unshaded sun of their Oklahoma ranch she felt like she'd become as aged and uninteresting as the crumbling bank of the dead creek that was just a stepping stone away from their back fence and the reason for John's being adamant on a fishing trip. He wanted their son to be able to see mountains and know the joy of bringing in a fighting demon before he headed off to law school. Yes, the green, green grass of home was definitely calling her. "Why did I even put up a fight?" she asked herself. Then she remembered their "discussion" on where to stay. John had wanted to camp along the rivers while she wanted to stay in a nice bed and breakfast in town. "How could I have forgotten?" she wondered. The argument had lasted for days. John knew she didn't like camping. Laughing, she remembered how she'd almost called off the wedding when he suggested it for their honeymoon. But the paradox created by their at odds vacation expectations had defeated him till he agreed that she needn't accompany the men on their overnight treks. It bothered her, not doing things together as a family should. With the scent of dried mown lawn and larkspur on the evening breeze aggravating her headache she pushed her worry down as she gathered her ingredients. Knowing she'd be up late till the sauce completed its 5 hour cooking process, she figured if she didn't get rid of the headache it would be so bad by the time she got to bed that she would have to sleep in another room so that her crying didn't disturb John. Hating that she did so, Samantha downed a hydrocodone in the hopes that the drug would create a filibuster in her system preventing the headache's progression to migraine status. And it was finally working when Jason and John came racing in hollering about the upcoming storm which was blowing in. She could hear the wind coming growling through the sparse trees like a roaring lion. The change in weather hadn't dimmed their excitement at Jason's putting the training fly in the target ring seven times in a row. She congratulated her men and reminded them it was almost dinner time. That being done she got back to her sauce which had now taken on the consistency of lumpy face cream, meaning she needed to add more water to the pot.

Ok, that wasn't a quick exercise. Hopefully I'll get faster if I practice. And it actually feels like more of a story than a paragraph. It seems to want breaking up at several points. Considering the length of time it took me to do the 10 word challenge I understand the request for the mini challenge. If I do this again I may tackle the mini instead. In fact it may be a requirement that I do the mini instead. See that list below? They looked good until I tried to use my dictionary to find out one of their meanings. It wasn't in there. It wasn't on the Oxford web site either. So can anyone tell me please, "What does prenomial mean?"

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: prenomial, inexplicable, tangerine, masks, chocolate cake, panorama, librarian, Stonehenge, meek, florid

And for the Mini Challenge: vituperative, bunny rabbit, house warming, sanitation, triangular

Since my group shares memes and of course, we write a lot, I'd like to invite Paschal, JS, San, Sandi, and Anne to join in.

An Arrow to some Great Stories

I feel like I've been given a prize today! Terry Fletcher, of Terry's Playpen (a how to for bloggers), has accepted my tagging him for the "archive meme" that Sandi, of Holding Patterns, tagged me for. I'm honored! Not only does Fletch not do memes often, he does his story writing on a private blog, which he is graciously sharing with us. His stories bring back memories for me, both personal and those of older family members. Here's his response to the archive posts meme? Happy reading!

Continuing stories and prayer build

My mother has accepted the challenge of writing a 6-word story. I'm waiting with bated breath to hear what she comes up with. Several of my friends blogs are now freckled with these small gems. This is fun and such a good use of creative energy that I hope it continues to generate short bites about and from my friends for many moons to come. (g) I'll ask my mom if I can publish hers when she has them written.

Genesis class was once again a delight. This time, in part, because we keep being reminded that it is so full of folk tales. Today the words fairy tales were used. Yeah! I love those. So much so that when some of my favorite fantasy authors started researching Grimm's stories and after getting back to the original versions, which are often truly horrific, rewrote them from new perspectives I found a whole study of literature that I was willing to pursue solo. Usually I'm happiest hearing other people lecture on a subject.

The stories covered were Cain & Abel and Noah and the Flood. There's lots of room for commentary in those stories. Lots of symbolism too. On a personal level it is fun to try to imagine why and how God did some of the things claimed in Genesis. But I don't take that mental play serious. Or not often. What I do take serious is that God is able to take these folk stories and teach us something with them. These aren't easy lessons. They take in an entire society and its growth. So it would take far wiser minds than mine to come close to grasping all they imply and whole libraries to explain them. Suffice to say that I had a lot of fun in the class today. I was even able to contribute something to the discussions and maybe the teacher's growth as well. When getting ready to head to church this morning I remembered I had a book called "Types in Genesis" by Edward Jukes. It is a very old book written in old English. I like it for the imagery it has which echoes throughout scripture of God's power in both creation and action. I took it to class with me and the teacher asked to borrow it.

When class closed, we used the prayer build method that the teacher introduced last Sunday. We took from today's discussion to find our images. The prayer images are divided into 3 categories. God is-; We ask for-' and So that-. Today we said that God is almighty, forever, and mysterious. We asked for patience, harmony, and insight; So that we might love him more, hear him better, and see others as he would have us see. The reason I love this prayer build is that it makes the group prayer so relevant and personal. I don't feel that I have it down quite right yet. So I intend to keep on listening closely when she does this again. If I find another small bit that will add to the instructions of how to accomplish such a successful prayer I will add it in.

....and still more nasty weather

Three days became four. That was nice, getting to stay home for a 4-day weekend. Now, thank to the freezing rain, the four days have become five. Do I hear six? Can we say make-up days and no lost holidays? I pray that this doesn't last so long that they cancel spring break!

Insufficient layers. Warm pan. Fireplace. Cat!

Six word stories

I've been tagged by Susan to write a 6 word story. She gave some very good examples. Never having had a lot of faith in my imagination this was challenging for me. So I want to say, "Thank you, Susan! It has been a better experience than I thought it would be."

Not being as prolific at this as some are, I managed to write two stories. Here they are.

1. Conspiratorial pets. Absent owner. Spectacles crunched!

2. Opposing gables. Curtains blow. Ghostly romance.

Not having a huge network of readers I am going to see if I can tag someone who isn't writing a blog. There are a couple of teachers at work who might enjoy the challenge.