NaNoBlog

Today's writing is something nobody gets to read. but this is just to say, I do have 345 new words so far. And at least 655 more to come before the day is out. I got behind over the last couple of weeks owing to a visit from Mirabai and then a flurry of Christmas stuff, but now I am back in the game.

Post NaNoExercise 5: Tonight Neil and Moira and I did a line by line round robin with dragonflies as a theme. I've put mine in with each of the original line breaks and cut it into several stanzas for readability. Neil made it a piece of prose with paragraph breaks. It looks quite different in the two forms. Neat.

Dragonflies in August

Brilliant speeding shimmer
They glitter in sunlight
dazzle over the water
In lazy patterns. The damselfly flutters, her husband flies firm.
He is the flight without a target

We gaze at them through faulty lenses
through the jellied water of our eyes
I think I can see her thorax

once, one sat on the back of his hand
He could feel it, and examine it in close detail, but he never bothered to look
he wished he could feed it something
He asked me if it would eat pomegranate seeds
I said I thought it would. Who wouldn't? round and glassy and plump and red
But of course, dragonflies are meat-eaters, not fairies
they're not stupid enough to eat in hell
He looked at me when I said that, and grinned

I could never resist that about him
Or any other thing about him, really.
I didn't have a pomegranate, but there was an apple in my bag
I'd offer it, but I knew he would cut me down. He always did.
So I cut the apple up instead
Into four slices, and slowly ate each one

I never did understand why he had all the luck
Why life for him was wholly without seeds.
I glanced at him, quickly, and then away again
I fancied I could her them buzzing
as if one of them would come to rest on my apple
My hands were now sticky, and I had lost all interest in the dragonflies
And I knew I should tell him that this had to end
The air was still and the water was silent
I felt heavy, as if I might sink into water, sink into the world itself

And then he took my hand and said, "We're going"
and the apples fell into the water
I smiled to myself, and thought "Isn't this always the way?"
Comings and goings and never quite settling so that I was too dizzy, too distracted to leave
I was held, nearly pinned, over the water
A damselfly foerever stuck to her mate

I didn't do one yesterday, so today it's on. Post NaNo Exercise 4: Write a sestina. I've never tried one before, so it's bound to be interesting. I'm going to ask three friends for two words to get my six. And they are: arm, rocky, space, alien, slippery, and streetlamp. Off we go.

The concept of time is so messed up for me now. We got up at 3 last night so we could get Moss to work by five. We hadn't actually made it to bed until just after twelve. Naturally, when we came home at three in the afternoon, we "napped". It's now six and a half hours later and I should be getting to the winding down part of the day, not just waking up. But I guess since I am awake after all, I'll put a writing exercise on here. Or not. You know, I kind of think not. Not today. Brain still sort of zombied out. All I can think about is how I really want some blueberry muffins.

Results for Post NaNo Exercise 3:
What do you collect? Why? How did you start?
I don't know that I actively collect anything. I do tend to get things that are similar though. If I like a shirt I'll end up buying other shirts just like it. The winter before last it was all red shirts and sweaters. A particular shade. It helped of course that I needed warm shirts and sweaters and that the stores all had that one shade to offer. See how it is? You fall into it.

Now I guess I collect silver and china. I didn't set out to. But I was given a ton by my Grandfather who just moved out of his house and into a retirement community. Mismatched tea cups mostly, and one set of dinner plates and salad plates and cream soup cups. There are lots of neat cups ad saucers in the mix though, some from England and others from Russia or Germany or France. I don't really suppose I collect them, though, even though I have a collection, because I didn't try to amass them a little at a time. I just got handed them all in one day. Same with the silver.

I've got an old bacon warmer, which is this smallish rectangular box with a shallow pan for the bacon, and a hollw inside underneath where you are supposed to put boiling water. I don't know if we'll ever use it. I don't think we've ever made bacon (British or American style) at home, but it's interesting to have around. There are platters, too. Oblong and round and scalloped and smooth and ornately detailed with floral wreath edges. Then there are two gravy-serving devices. One gravy boat on its own little tray and one little cauldron on a stick. They were both of them black when I got them, but I polished them up with Tarn-Ex and now they're gleaming almost white. Of course, I inadvertantly also polished my abdomen and am now paying for it with an itchy and painful rash, but that's another story.

I used to collect things, though. I mean really. Even if I don't now. I collected teddy bears for a while when I was a wee slip of a girl. I had teddy bear wall paper and teddy bear... I'm sure I had other teddy bear things. Mostly I was jealous of my sister's teddy bear, which I had originally wanted, but which my father had told me I was too old to have. I felt that as a five-year-old I was NOT too old, but he was bigger and stronger and had the money, so my sister got it instead. She was only a couple months old at the time. Now I've got Oatmeal, who used to live with James, but who came with me to France after she fell in love with The Lemur. They're both here now, and happy enough, and Oatmeal's as good a bear as my sister's if not better, so I suppose it all worked out well enough in the end.

I also collected all things having to do with Ireland for a while. That was sometime around seventh or eighth grade. I had calendars and books and t-shirts and tapes and even a video called Jig, Don't Jog, which was supposed to be an exercise video for people who wished they were in Ireland, I guess. There were a few people, who were "jigging" (by which I mean doing low impact aerobics) on an irish hillside. It was taped on low-quality film by someone who either didn't know much about video, didn't have any money whatsoever, or just plain didn't care. The green grass all looked like a sickly fluorescent yellow. I'd watch it over and over and wish I was there with them. There was a book of photographs, too. It was a good one, though, shot by pros with good quality equipment. And in it was a picture of a place called Kylemore Abbey, which the book said was a boarding school for girls. I wanted depsperately to go there, but my parents didn't think paying ten thousand Irish pounds a year for me to go to high school in County Galway was a worthy use of their hard-earned incomes. Also, they didn't really have it. So I kept on collecting things to do with the country, thinking I suppose that if I got enough Irish stuff, my bedroom at home would become a portal to the Emerald Isle. I even had a piece of peat for a while. I'm not joking. The Irish import shop near my granparents' house sold them, encased in plastic. A bit of Celtic sod. And I bought one, which just goes to show that people really will buy anything.

I'm sure I've collected other things too. Some would claim I collect blogs. I have... seven that I can think of. I don't write in each of them consistently, but they're out there. And I can think of at least two more that got eaten by teh intarweb because I left them alone for too long. But I'm not really sure what the point of collecting things is. In the end, i usually chuck it all because I have to move or something. I collect and collect, but then I clear it all out to start again. What does that say about me, I wonder? My, this has been self-centered. Ah well. It's writing practice. I suppose writing exercises are just another thing I collect, right? A good thing, even if they often make for tiresome reading. No one ever said you had to in the first place, though.

Post NaNo Exercise 3: Doing a random one from Daydreaming on Paper (which I found through Tricia). I'm tired, so it likely won't be very long.

#1 (opening sentence and last paragraph by Tricia Paragrahs one, two and three by Julia, Moira and Jenny)
The line was getting longer instead of shorter. Emily swatted at the flies that buzzed around and wondered when she'd be able to get out of the hot sun and into the small building. It didn't look any cooler in there, but at least there was shade and a little electric fan. All around her children where whining and tugging on their mothers' skirts. None of them were screaming, though. It was too hot for that.

She smiled at one beautiful little olive-skinned black-eyed girl with long, shiny straight dark hair carefully braided into intricate small cornrows, but the girl merely stared at her, sucking her thumb, and clutched more tightly at her mother's skirt. Emily felt the smile dry out and cake on her face, as if it would flake off in another moment, and jerked her eyes back to the little building where the shade and electric fan, which was supplied by the low current in the village so that it barely rustled the papers on the official's desk, looked more inviting than ever. She mused again on the fact that in foreign countries small gratifications that would be taken for granted rose to the status of luxuries, dismissed it as a travel book thought unworthy of the work she was supposed to be doing down here, thought once more of Emily Hahn, and sighed.

The line slowly inched forward and eventually Emily was inside the building where the air was only slightly cooler, but no less filled with flies. Finally, there was only one person between her and the desk, a small, thin woman. She tried not to stare as the official, Mr. Nagerelli according to the small, black nameplate on his desk, began arguing with the woman. They weren't yelling in English, but Emily could pick up a few words, could figure out the general gist of the argument. Apparently the woman didn't have the proper paperwork. The woman began crying. It obviously wasn't an act, those were real tears she was sobbing, but Mr. Nageralli showed no sympathy and waved her away, then looked coldly up at Emily. "Oh, you," he said in a thick accent, but Emily couldn't complain, as it was at least English. "Do you have -?" but Emily cut him short by smiling and thrusting at him a manilla folder, thick with papers. She definitely had all of her paperwork.

Mr. Nageralli gave a quick glance over Emily's paperwork. "Yes, all in order," he said. "But I'm afraid you're not going anywhere for a while." Emily looked confused, and bewildered as he grabbed her and cuffed her. "You are my hostage!" he shouted. "I refuse to have to deal with this paperwork anymore. If they don't succumb to my demands, I will keep you tied up forever." Emily tried to explain that she didn't have anything to do with the government. She wished very much that she had taken care of her travel visa a different day. The fan buzzed, not blowing any air on her, but it seemed to symbolize her life so far. Left, right, and going nowhere.

#2 (Jenny, Tricia, Julia, Moira, Jenny)
He couldn't believe he hadn't realized it until now. The cows were laying down in the field, the sheep were huddled by the fence, and the cats were mysteriously out of sight. Bob couldn't remember when he had last seen Tabby, in fact.

There was a great disturbance in the haystack as he approached. Something was in there, and it was moving. He gripped his wooden hayfork with trembling fingers, hesitant to commit himself to the task at hand. The people in Barlow had talked of a monster and he'd laughed. "No sech thing," he'd said. "Ever'one know ain't monsters no more." He supposed God was smiting him now, and he knew he'd have to face it one way or another, so he gathered his resolve and inched closer.

Suddenly, before he could stab at the haystack with the pitchfork, he saw a great blinding light descend from the sky. Wind scattered hay everywhere, and he clung desperately to the pitchfork, not so much as to defend himself but just to be able to exert control over something. He couldn't see anymore, and the violent windstorm was ripping the breath from his nostrils. He opened his mouth and screamed, but heard nothing, and he knew he was screaming as loudly as he possibly could. He felt his feet leave the ground.

He fell over onto his back, hitting his head on the edge of a wheelbarrow and at the same moment the light dimmed, and he found himself looking at a small, gray form. It was short, barely three feet tall, had an oval shaped body, and eyes the size of dinner plates. Its head was directly connected to its body, no neck at all. It had long, spindly arms and short stubby legs and its open mouth revealed rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. It was standing by the haystack and didn't seem to notice him, for which he was thankful. He glanced over at the hayfork, which lay on the ground a good two feet out of his reach. He held his breath, stayed perfectly still, wondering if he should risk running for it when the thing looked directly at him. It waddled forward and stopped a foot away from him, grinning and showing all its teeth. It poked him in the arm with a long, gray finger and said in a high-pitched voice, "You're it!" Then it ran away, out the barn door and into the night.

#3 (Moira, Jenny, Tricia, Julia, Moira)
Years afterward, she still wondered what would have happened had the avacados not been underripe. It wasn't her fault, after all, although she knew that he blamed her. She thought about him often, and then felt guilty about it. She knew she shouldn't complain about how things had turned out. She had a good life, a good husband (a rebound from *him,* but still, a very good man) and things may have seemed satisfactory. But like an underripe avocado, things only looked good on the surface.

It's the squeezing that's the most important. Whether in a marriage or a search for the perfect fruit. Yes, she often seemed to compare her life to cooking. The guacamole with her husband was good. But not as good as it could have been with *him* - she really thought at one time that they would be growing old, putting down roots, and having wonderful meals together for a good long time.

She'd met him in Boston when she was in school. He'd come from the southside and worked in the produce section of a grocery store that she didn't normaly use. She'd beenat a sorority sister's apartment preparing for a Mexican theme party with the Sig Eps. She was supposed to make guacamole because she was the one from California, but there was no way she could with the rocks that Melissa had picked up. So she'd gone back in a rush, trying to get things done before the frat boys arrived, and there he was. He was cocky and vulgar and put up a fight when she tried to exchange them. She'd been angry and weary and snapped at him, but she'd liked the jut of his jawbone all the same. In the end they spent five months fighting and having stupendous sex before things fell apart.

It wasn't just the arguments about you-went-to-college-I-never-had-the-opportunity, you're-from-California-I'm-a-Southie, but the sense she had that even if those gulfs had been bridgeable, his attitude would doom any attempt to even try. She thought it was his braggodoccio about being from Southie, about growing up hearing gunshots in the afternoon outside his school and continuing to play on the jungle gym with the other kids because it was so normal, the neighbors laughing at the bullet holes in the window and two out of his five closest friends from high school dying before they were twenty-five. If you weren't from Southie, you couldn't really talk to him. He would be polite as he could, but in the end he really considered anything not from his homeland a waste of time. This wasn't the Hoosiers-like usual granfaloon; it was as if he had been captured and raised by an outside tribe, and his only home was there, even though he'd been released into the world again. She hadn't thought this was really possible in modern-day America, but there he was. Like an underripe avocado: something which looked familiar and as if there were a way to deal with it on the surface, but when you touched it, was a kind of alien rock, a space egg, and nothing would hatch from it.

#4 (Julia, Moira, Jenny, Tricia, Julia)
Herbert was a very serious sort of dog. He would always cock his head and look intently at you, ears akimbo, pupils big, as if he were trying to figure out some kind of doggie mathematical theorem. I had the feeling that if he were not a dog, and furthermore, if he were not a rather stupid dog, he would be a canine Einstein, having not one (as Keats did) but two annus mirabilises (mirabili? And I start to wonder how smart a human I am) figuring out not special and general relativity, but a kind of Grand Unified Theory of Smells. Since dogs communicate primarily by means of smell, this would be the greatest communication leap ever known to sentient beings, surpassing perhaps even the rosetta stone or the stone tablets detailing bribes given to priests at Sumer.

Of course, few people would agree with me on that. Especially those who didn't know him well, and even more especially to those whose crotches he was earnestly sniffing. While I don't necessarily condone that sort of behavior (I couldn't get away with it, and it was my apartment) but I also didn't feel it was right to curb an animal's natural instincts, even if it included sticking his nose up the skirt of a female guest (not that I had many of those lately.)

So, it was quite a surprise when one day, little Herbie ran away. I assumed at first that he had simply decided to go a little further at the doggie park, and that he would return in a few minutes. But I waited, and then I called, and then I started to worry just a little bit. He loved to run off the leash, and he had always come right back before. This was unexpected. I posted leaflets around the neighborhood, asked everyone I met, and generally mourned the loss of a truly great friend.

I thought about getting a new pooch for several weeks, but conceded that none would have been quite the same as Herbert, and besides which I hadn't wanted him in the first place. I inherited him from my Granfather's fishing buddy. Didn't think I could turn it down. Respect for the dead and all. Anyway, as I said, Herbert always seemed like a serious old chap, so you can be certan I was as surprised as anyone to hear about the whore house. Wouldn't have known at all if the Mrs. hadn't made me take him in to the vet to get vaccinated. Turns out they put one of theose micrchips in him when they did all that. Technology these days just kills me. In any case, when they found out he was running an operation as a sort of doggy pimp, they busted it up and called us to come and get him. Said they recommended we neuter him first, but I'm still fighting the Wife in that particular issue. I did let her insall the electric fence, though. And Herbert's mostly indignant. Lays down in front of MTV and on't budge. I half wonder if we ughtn't get him a little chiquita to keep around, but don't want puppies, and I don't know how he'd take toa lady without all her parts. ort of a cheap trick after he had the whole neighborhood at his beck and call, you know? So we'll just wait and see. I think he's smart enough that he might find a way around the fence and run off again, and you know, I couldn't blame him if he did. Seems only fair for a man to be free.

Post NaNo Exercise 2: Tonight I have the privilege of working with Moira and Jenny and Tricia, so we're doing a round robin. We're each coming up with an opening sentence and then passing it on to the next person. After that each of us will write a paragraph to go with that sentence and passed again until there are four stories of four pragraphs. Of course the result is bound to be madness, but that's the nature of the beast, and half the fun.

Second result for Post NaNo Exercise 1: The table had a glass top. Its legs were made of black metal, and it had brass joints. The chairs matched it and had flora printed cushions in mint green and mauve that matched the curtains. It was a decorating nightmare that could only have come out of the 1980s. There was a basket of fruit in the center, mostly apples and oranges with one banana. A math textbook lay open on page 242 with a scattering of lined loos leaf paper next to it and a half chewed yellow No. 2 pencil resting on top. Someone had gotten to problem number five before leaving it, seemingly for just a moment. There was a calculator, too. Texas Instruments was the brand, and it displayed the number 336.667 in clumsy digital graphics. The chair had been pushed back a little when the person had left, and its cushion was just a bit off center. An aqua windbreaker with fuschia stripes down the arms was draped over the back of the chair and a glass of milk, two thirds empty sat above the text book. There was a wooden post in front of the scene with a plaque atop it that read, "Afternoon Break From Word Problems, J. Salinski, 2056. On loan from the Meredith Detwiler collection, Huntgrove, PA."

The scene was impressive when you stopped to realize it wasn't real. How had he done the milk? It even had bubbles at the top. And the calculator. Was it real? Had he made it himself? A lot fo time had to have been spent gathering the pieces together even if he hadn't constructed them all out of raw materials. Glass-topped tables were nowhere to be found these days after the lawsuit in 2012. It was the little things that really made it though. Particularly the parka. It was draped so casually, not balanced perfectly, but hanging with the left side just a bit lower than the right. The use of bold colors was striking, too. The fruit was bright, of course, but the parka was different. Perhaps it was that it mirrored the shades in floral print on the chairs and drapes. The mother had chosen those, but her daughter was young and vibrant and not ready to be confined with muted tones and pastels. The half chewed pencil seemed to indicate that, too. Here I am, it said, I am someone who doesn't care about leaving no trace. I'll take what I can of life and leave a mark. One had to wonder if she softened and stiffened with age or if she'd retained the fire. People would stop and stare at it for long stretches trying to cull meaning from it. There were a thousand theories about what he had meant. He wasn't sure he knew himself.

First result for Post NaNo Exercise 1: The table was the center of the room. It wasn't a terribly small room, but as it was all part of the log cabin, and left in natural wood hues, it seemed smaller than it was. The table was the same color as the walls. It was made of the same wood, as a matter of fact, and was so large that it looked as if the cabin must have been built around it. Of course, that wasn't the case, but it looked it all the same. There was a runner along the center of the table. It was made of red linen and had been a gift from Shelby's mother. Shelby had done a lot for the place, Ron had to admit. She gave it color, like with the runner, but more than that, she gave it life. In the center of the table was a cracked bowl. It was pale green stoneware that Shel had found at a yardsale. Too beat up to serve food in, but she never let that stop her from taking it in and putting it to use. It had broken on the way home in the car, something that Ron had warned her it would probably do, but she didn't say a word. Didn't let him get away with an I told you so or anything. Instead she took it into the back room, which she'd staked out as hers and filled with craft stuff, and the next day it came back out glued together just so. Ron would be damned if the crack didn't even look artistic. Shel filled it with pretty rocks for a while, and then in winter she switched to pine cones and these little red berries that she glossed up with some enamel stuff. Ron didn't know much about that sort of thing, so he couldn't say exactly how she'd done it, but the berries came out like little hard beads, and werenice to look at in the bowl. They were a good contrast to the green, and they matched the linen runner perfectly. There was nothing else on the table, but Ron's elbows. There should be placemats and two dinner settings, but there was just empty wood. The grain running legthwise and glazed in honey colored finish. His elbows were big and bulky, but that didn't seem so out of place witht he table being what it was. It was solid. He'd built it himself. A real table for real people. Not some fancy flimsy thing like Shel might have found in the city. There weren't any intricate carvings on the legs or the sides. The lines were smooth and clean and sturdy. It was a man's table in a man's house. He wished he didn't feel like his blue work shirt clashed with everything on it so much. How could a few little things make everything seem more fragile and soft? He wasn't soft. He couldn't be. He supposed that was why she'd gone, after all, wasn't it? He reached a hand into the bowl and closed his fist around two little pinecones and some shiny berries before letting them slip through his fingers. The sound they made as they fell back into the bowl was almost like music. He had a friend who had one of those rain sticks. It wasn't exactly the same sound, but it was close enough. Hypnotic. He sat there and kept at it as the sun set. Come home to me, he called out with his mind. Come back. It was after midnight when he dusted off his hands and went to bed.

Post NaNo Exercise 1: Describe a table in someone's home, and pick one detail that makes it unique or that says something about the place or the people who live there. You may describe everything about the table or very little about it, but you must concentrate on the detail you choose and bring it to life. It may be an aspect of the table itself or an object on the table.

I finished it. Not the entire novel, but the 50,000 words. I ended up with 50,403 in November. Of course I haven't written since then, but that, dear (most likely non-existent) readership, is about to change. Natalie Goldberg begs us to do at least two years of solid writing practice. I suppose if you add it all together, I've done more than that in my lifetime, but you can't really ever do too much. So, this blog is going to go back to being the catch-all for writing exercises. Starting now. Today.