Thank you for visiting my public writing journal. This writing exercise was inspired by a passage out of one of my favorite Steinbeck novels. You can guess which one by the title. I spent an hour sketching this out yesterday—the 22nd—and a good hour today—the 23rd—spent revising and editing. The exercise goal for myself here was controlling reader emotions, as well as information release control...
I wrote this scene sketch this morning to play with my sentence construction. I hope you enjoy the read. Narcotics Detective Jimmy Hallaren sat in an early model Ford sedan, in the New Mexico desert three miles outside of Santa Fe, his .40 caliber pistol, unholstered, on the passenger seat, his bearded, cracked hand resting beside it, his dark eyes fixed on a dark patch in the road, irregular...
Sophie’s wiry fingers quivered violently as they pressed glue in place, attaching a lace veil to a felt bonnet she had laid out on her workbench; her joints swelled; if she stopped now, she might sleep through the night without waking in painful sweats; but Sophie would not take a break; if Sophie stopped making hats for even a moment, she feared all she would do is stare at the old grandfather...
Yasmin and I took the kids to the Shopping Mall on Saturday after our workout. We promised Adam to buy him the latest Blox constructible. It was still morning; the food court scuffled with cuckoos and stirred with the stale stench of the dying; but my gut moaned and the family agreed; lunch must come early. We sat at a small circular table with the double stroller parked in place of the fourth...
Old man Jackie had a dry, tacky mouth; made it hard for him to swallow. He worked in a hot shop — you know the name? Hot shop, a name used in the days, call a place a hot shop to say the place makes irons, see? Iron drills, iron arms, and bits, see? Well, Jackie, this man was a hot man with a tacky mouth and not a hair on his head. The heat from his torch burn it straight off. The skin it left...
Old Kramer Lindorf struck the mound with his cleated toe — two outs, one batter up. The Baltimore Tigers were closing in on their first victory of the season and it was all thanks to Kramer’s seasoned pitch; twisting over the plate at speeds over 100mph. The only thing he needed to do was keep the batter on the plate; when who else should stride to it but young Smithy Smithers; fresh from his...
“What started it?” the dark little boy asks. “Did we attack them?” I don’t know this one. One of Chaz’s new friends? “What are you talking about?” “The war, Chaz told me you saw when it started.” I look around the kitchen. The noise of the birthday party hums in from the front room. “Why don’t you join the party kid.” “I’m not a kid, I’m thirteen, and you’re an old man.” For a few seconds I stare...
This is Part II. For Part I, click here. The young girl walked for many miles in the young hours of the first night, with only the dim glow of a jaundiced moon to light her way. An inconstant gale stirred the low plants of the plain, projecting suspicious shadows in the corner of the young girl’s eyes. In her mind she filled in the darkness around her with an imagined wilderness, tearing...
This is Part I. For Part II, click here. Under a perigee sun, in a desert village twelve kilometers west of the great metropolis, Sher’tlaa, in the stoney, black foothills by the sea, there lived a young girl. She had the aspect of the mythic Amazon; tall, tightly muscled, but lean; the hardened body of her father, Kuwshad, no doubt, and filled to her fingertips with the uncompromising compassion...
I stare into an evening sun; a pebble-sized hole in the reddening horizon. The world stretches towards this sun, as if painted on the inside of an enormous straw; I, standing at one end, the sun the other. All the world curls around us. A boardwalk, wooden fencing, a hill covered in coastal shrubs, all rush to the shore ahead, where curious figures dance and sing and fill my nose with smells both...