My Voice
Monday, February 9th, 2009
Come in and sit on the bottom step. I am up early waiting for your story to walk in. I’ve left the stairwell lit and the television on to prompt something in your past, and if it would help, I can start some coffee. I am ready at the keyboard to write it down as you tell it to me, and I’m excited to hear how much exciting is than the stories that I have to tell. In a moment, I’ll open the window and on the cold wind I will hope that, at the very least, your words will blow in. The story might be about the moment – the early morning, the day not yet turned to light – or it might be about the way you spent a Saturday in your childhood. I can help you dreamily about it, clear away the haze, and be finished in time to lay myself down before has risen high over the rooftops. Just one rules: Let me tell it in my voice and not yours. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing
Mothers shoved windows open in the unseasonable warmth to let the houses breathe out the stale air from children and pets. For the first time since the early fall, the sun was warm and the women who work at home during the day took every measure to let it in and the winter doldrums out. And those who toiled outside for a living stopped to admire their work and the weather, which is a rare occasion in early January. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing
Compilation
Friday, November 14th, 2008
(NOTE: Stutter-starts are a common occurence in the writing trade. Often a writer sits down to let the words flow out with wonder and imagination and winds up with only a few incoherent sentences. In the last week, I’ve written several random notes and paragraphs. Since these short pieces were written in various tones and on differing subjects, I thought it would be more challenging if I pieced them together.)
Burned leaves suffuse the backyard air with white smoke blowing from matted piles. The smell is sharp, dry and Maple sweet when breathed deeply. Somewhere in this syrupy smell is a connection to the lazy fall afternoons of my childhood. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing, Writing Instruction
Search lights sweep loosely in the misty air above the country airport grounds. Round and round, an effect that resembles faint psuedo-moonlight is cast on the bare trees, the holy rusted chain-link fence, the crevices in the uneven ground that show through red as clay. The airplanes are unanswered prayers tonight that can’t see the beacon for its as weak as the faith shown by the tower crew. (more…)
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Tags: Country, Free Writing
Lit earlier in the day and forgotten in the window light, the flame still dances around in the melted wax pool, casting its shape and rhythm on the wall behind the piano. In that corner, there is nothing to coerce it – no draft or idle wind. All the windows were closed when the night came on early, at 7 o’clock, the autumn suddenly deciding to be noticed.
Along with the fading sun the temperatures dropped, too, and the people who live on this street and the others around it reach up steep chimneys to open the flues and light the first fire of the fall. The entire world outside smells of burning logs, a duller yet more pleasant aroma than the leafpiles the neighborhood children rake up and set on fire in the gutters or in giant drums their fathers brought home from work. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing
