I was just at LA Writer's Day on Saturday, Feb 25 (two days after my birthday) (yes, I love birthday hoopla), and in one of the breakout sessions by Pam Gruber, she had us do a writing exercise on world building. That's the first writing exercise. The other two are word prompts. All are so incredibly different from the other. You never know where your brain goes.
Glad to be posting something, finally, and I hope you join in wherever you are.
Breakout Session on world
building. Prompt: a school
The lone building, red with white trim, housed a steeple
where the bell would ring to usher students in and send them home again.
Wooden tables and benches, small in comparison to the
teacher’s desk, were shiny from wear. Student trousers and books making their
marks in the world and not the academic kind.
Chalkboard erasers and dust lined the front of the room
behind the teacher’s desk. The only globe in town sat in the corner as if it
was being punished. The pencil sharpener on the wall near the front so teacher
could keep watch on those avoiding their arithmetic assignments.
The one thing that did not belong and stood out like a
sore thumb was the single desk nobody would ever sit in again. It should have
burned when the school first went up in flames two years ago.
But it
was the lone survivor.
Words: fame, troop, learn,
tune
My girl scout troop #725 was asked to perform on
television! We screamed and jumped up and down holding hands. Fame was waiting
for us!
It was cookie time of year and to boost sales, our scout
leader was determined to beat troop #722 because they were always outselling
all of us in the area. She worked her magic and knew someone at the local
station.
Scout leader lined us up; shortest in front and tall
girls in the second row. I was front and center. We were asked to sing the Itsy
Bitsy Spider song on three.
To say we were in tune would be a gigantic lie. And we do
not lie. And apparently, we do not sing either.
The look on our troop leader’s face was one I wished I
caught on my phone. She paced back and forth in front of us, mumbling about how
quickly could we learn to sing and could she use a recording instead and maybe
other girls.
So much for fame. Maybe she should have asked us if we
could sing first.
Hey, I can tap dance!
Words: hell, midnight,
barrier, iron
The dark of midnight created its own hell within my mind.
Every shadow wanted to do me harm. Every sound another attack.
Stuck beneath the barrier to the bridge, I longed to call
out to someone passing by. Fear kept my mouth closed. The damp and cold settled
in my joints. Each crouched movement screamed with pain.
The iron grate held me in this prison like handcuffs. If
I escaped, would he really hurt my family? Even if I didn’t escape, he may still do
something unspeakable to those I loved.
I had to try.
