Tuesday, April 27, 2004
A Little is Better than Nothing
My exercise for myself started with one that I learned from pea: three short stories, each beginning with the same sentence. I added a few twists - five sentences maximum, and finish them all within one bus ride downtown (about half an hour). The five sentences could be as complicated as I wished, but not just for the sake of being complicated - they had to be literary sentences, not merely bizarre grammatical aberrations.
I really liked my first one, but the second one was weaker and the third was just plain weak. Regardless, getting one good one story out of the process was worth it, and I may have learned something about how I write. Like, forcing myself to try to be creative on a crowded bus lurching toward my final stop is a foredoomed enterprise.
Because I find them all more interesting in context with each other, and I could use being taken down a few notches, I’ll show you all three efforts, but in reverse order. You can read them in any damn order you like, of course.
3. His footsteps creaked on the porch. The light snapped on. He froze. The light eventually went off. As quietly as possible, he left.
2. His footsteps creaked on the porch. He stopped; slowly rocked back a little to see if he could make it happen again. Creak - a resonant, raspy chord, sort of a D, a good country chord; it spoke to his bones. He pulled the mandolin from the case slung over his shoulder, creaked a few more times, and began to riff on the tone, exploring combinations he’d never considered before. After only a few bars someone had stepped up to an open porch window with a dobro and began to accompany him, with an occasional muttered “damn....”
1. His footsteps creaked on the porch. “It’s been a long time,” he thought. “Dad would never have let that go.” As he juggled for his keys in the dark, he let go the small paper sack. He heard the bottle shatter, smelled his whiskey soaking into the floorboards, whispered a choked curse to himself and slid sobbing to the floor.
That was fun, wasn’t it? Come back tomorrow and we’ll learn how to grow magic rocks in a jello shot! Do you remember magic rocks? Did you ever wonder what would happen if you ate one like a vitamin? If you tried this, I’d be interested in hearing from you. Otherwise, I’m on the road a lot of today - supper with Dad in LA, where he’s being honored by his Jewish law enforcement association! Whoo-hoo rabbi cop! I’m looking way forward to seeing him and it’s just a pity it’ll be such a short trip. But a little is better than nothing. Hence, this post.
