Writing Assignments

60 Word Nano Stories

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I abhorrently used femininity as an excuse to be lazy on the farm so I wouldn't have to pitch as much hay or manure as my brothers. But when they'd accuse me of not pulling my weight I'd dive into a task and hope that if they told my dad I'd be found up to my elbows in pig shit.

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We used to graze our milk cows in the ditches to conserve pasture. Four hours a day, every day, all summer. If a cow crossed a broken down fence into the neighbours' and cut up her teats there was hell to pay. The sky was impossibly blue. The wind weathered our faces. The horse flies bit chunks out of our skin.

*

Hazel eyes sparkle – squinting and grinning. Shaking hair like a mane. Strawberry stained lips, cheeks, fingers. Small arms reach hugs and kisses, “Hi, Eena! Hi!” Shrill voice patronizing yet so sweet. Chubby legs kick in delight. Gummy smile spilling strawberry slop on last night’s pyjamas. Blue eyes crinkle. Bright sunshine in the summer kitchen makes angels out of both. Sisters. 

100 Words On Departures

In Darkness, sparrows and robins have begun loudly making their daily plans as the mourning doves’ lament coos three part harmony in the moist air. A thread of light is birthed in the east and the grey shroud begins to evaporate exposing wells of colour beneath. Breath of dawn expands in the lungs of birds, trees, sky. Old Man Moon, still bright, hides his visage behind the trees as he makes a hasty escape. Clouds play an orchestra of purples, pinks, gold across a firmament young and ancient. Immeasurable verve begins the dance of the day. Unnoticed, night departs.

Ode to the Potty

O life of peace and diapers depart from me!

Thou hast lulled me into a stupor of simplicity and ease

Where I could come and go at my whim,

Hours tediously carefree.

But No more!

My life, now ever more compelling, abounds in

bargains and careful contemplation.

“To pee, or not to pee,” before undertaking any endeavour:

This is the question.

Once unhappily leisurely, days are now filled with puzzlement.

“Mommy! I’m DONE!” Lies spurt forth like diarrhea

After gorging on seafood entrees at a

Saskatchewan truck stop.

Can I trust this tiny tot’s emphatic pronouncements?

These are the riddles that breathe life into

Previously uneventful days.

I relent.

Wearily satisfied by untruths

And receive the hearty reward:

Soft and pungent evidence of the dupe.

Foul words fall from my lips like so much defecation

Spilling forth from toddler’s shorts.

Time has been a villain until now -

Permitting frivolity and devil-may-care!

Now - O - potty training

Thou induce order and acuteness to this life of laxity!

Hemming in thoughts, actions, and creativity;

Attuning the senses to one small mortal in one small chamber.

Pray! Make me privy to your secrets

As I contemplate this discipline confined to

Education’s stool.

Potty - well of wisdom, sharpener of focus, throne of patience,

Let not your lessons be evacuated from my consciousness.

- Peace

Writing Prompt #16

I have been writing down the writing prompts that Lil Blue Boo has been posting on her blog, and while she is on prompt #40-something, I am way back on number 16.

Since I have been trying to think about craft and challenge when it comes to writing, I decided to tackle this one as a poem. I haven't written a poem in at least 3 years.

Prompt #16  -- Pick one word and write where it takes you:

CORNERED

KNOW-IT-ALL

SALTWATER

All life

is made of 

saltwater.

People say Adam

was made of 

dust.

But it was the

saltwater that brought

him to life.

Saltwater oozes 

from our pores

from our eyes.

Expressed from our

bodies when we 

are wounded.

Or when we 

are elated,

united.

Our first home is 

a dark sea of 

saltwater;

Where we learn 

to breathe

to dance.

At the end they 

drain the sea from

our bodies

And put us in 

the ground

to dry.

Peace

About Writing....

Journal-ling on my deck. AKA "my happy place"

I have been getting excited about writing again. To be honest, I am always excited about writing. I have an inner monologue that runs in my head as if I were constantly writing a journal entry. Some nights I lay awake and think about what I wish I was writing in my journal, but I often don't get up to write. Instead, I rationalize that I am too tired, or will need to be up with the babe soon and I should just go to sleep. I would probably be further ahead if I just got up and wrote for half an hour and then went back to bed instead of mulling it all over for an hour or two.

The elusive "sleeping baby"

Tonight, I didn't even try to lay down to sleep. I went out to a movie with some girls and had a large Coke and popcorn, so I am all jazzed up on sugar and caffeine. Not to mention all that popcorn in my pregnant body is giving me some serious heartburn. Babies take up so much room! There will be no sleeping for a little while yet. 

Since July, I have been more motivated to make an effort to write every damn day. It's a hashtag. I have been following the writing prompts of "lilblueboo's" blog and while I have only done about a dozen of them, they are a great way to get me putting pen to paper, telling stories I might never have written down and actually making me think about my craft. So far, I hadn't written anything today besides copying some recipes from the interwebs into my "make-your-own-cookbook", so this is an opportunity I will not waste. And what better way than to put up a blog post?

Writing Prompt #6 - Courtesy of lilblueboo.com

I have been working with a writing group at my local museum. The title of the group is "Family Secrets" and the goal was simply to get people writing their stories. Especially stories about family history. There are so many things in life that are lost because no one took time to do a little recording. We aren't a group who is about genealogy or chronology or even names of places. We are simply trying to tell our stories. The beauty is that as we tell our stories our histories come out in them and are recorded. We leave a legacy of ourselves and also those who have influenced us. And maybe nobody else gives a crap, but since stories are a universal glue that holds humanity together, I think someone somewhere might actually crap. Or give one. Or whatever. 

At first, I wasn't sure I was fitting in as a writer with the group. Everyone else has stories of horse drawn wagons, homesteading, and one room schoolhouses. My stories have a similar feel, as I grew up largely in a rural environment, but my stories also feature technological advances such as electricity and tend to feel more like a journal entry. (Obviously, most of my writing experience takes place merely between the coil bound covers of my journals, so besides university papers, I don't have much experience as someone who actually "writes".) It took me a little bit to realize that my stories were the same as my counterparts - even if my style was a bit different. I was writing about being a kid, growing up, funny anecdotes, relationships with parents, and the other members of the group were too. It is just that they are all 30-50 years older than me. 

Our leader, a local author named Tyler Trafford, has been extremely helpful and encouraging getting our group moving forward, getting stories down, sharing our voices. He even suggested we create an anthology of our stories to publish and will be walking us through the process. He has a great deal of knowledge and experience to share with all of us amateurs. In fact, he has really challenged me as a writer, which no one has done since my 20th Century Irish Drama class in university. That professor was an extremely tough marker, but I didn't take her grading as an invitation to improve my craft. It was merely a formula I needed to passably achieve in order to make it through her class. I learned in university that my writing ability was not necessarily magnificent, and while I have always harboured hidden hopes of one day being published for my own merits, I let my laziness and my arrogance lull me into believing that my words were somehow....a big deal. That if I bothered to write it down, it was good enough. That is the danger of only writing in a journal . The only audience is me. And I know exactly what I am trying to say. I like my writing style. I don't notice my grammatical errors. I think I am witty and entertaining and profound. That is also the beauty of just being a journal-er. No one insists I do better. No one challenges me about my craft. No one can burst my bubble.

Tyler burst my bubble. It has taken me a couple of days to grapple with it.

He is SO encouraging. He calls and leaves messages about how he and everyone enjoys my stories and that my words are so great. It has been nice having people pump my tires about writing like I did in junior high. But - He told me I do well at getting words out and once I spew it all out on paper, I get lazy. He told me my pieces were good, but if I would just invest more time and effort into them, they would be great. The elements are there. However, I need to rework them.

I want to protest. To say, "but I am so busy with a little kid in the house." I want to say, "I've never had to put so much extra effort in before." I want to say, "Aren't my words, the way I say them, enough? Aren't they already magic?"

You know what, though? He is right. It happens all the time with me. I get excited about doing something, but then I don't pursue it to my full potential. And it is OK to do that. I can't throw my whole self behind every project I take up - it isn't realistic to think that I can be fully invested in every endeavour I find interesting. Nobody can.

This is where my problem is: I have this black balloon I have been packing with me for years. It is the idea that I am kind of good at a bunch of things - but excellent at none. That there is nothing about me that makes me special. At least not in tangible gifts. My husband and I used to have this joke between us: this is Mark, (followed by a lengthy list of his accomplishments and talents), and this is his wife, Val, she's a good friend. 

The truth? I have never really put myself out there in a way that has challenged my abilities and talents. I had enough to get by - and get by pretty well - so I left it at that. Honestly, it is easier to coast through than to make myself vulnerable by really striving. That way if I fail I know I haven't really tried anyway. Super cliche and super lame, but also, ashamedly, super true. I have the potential to learn how to be excellent at writing. I have been keeping a journal fairly consistently since the 8th grade. I think that is a pretty good indicator about my passion for writing. Journal-ling is the only thing that I started in my childhood and have continued through my life. I have always wanted to write down the things I think, feel and experience. The craft of it is something that I can learn to improve on. I can learn to be an artist with my words. And you know what? Even though I am interested in trying and doing lots of things from knitting to tanning leather to pottery, I will be happy to do all of those things decently - but I want to be excellent at writing. Maybe one day I will be published for my own merits.

I guess that means I should spend some time editing this post before I put it up.

Peace.

Not a real blog post

I am in the middle of writing a blog post. Not this one - another one. A REAL one. It is about the title of my blog, but a couple of things happened.  First is that the last two weeks seem to have run away with me. Between Thanksgiving weekend, company, weaning calves, driving, trying to clean, taking a mini trip that turned into a small trip, renovating with my sister-in-law, a sick babe and the things coming up this weekend,  well, posting to a blog that only a handful of my friends may or may not read didn't seem to make it onto the "necessary" list.

This is a photo taken by my sister-in-law of my mom and I rounding up the cows and calves for weaning Thanksgiving Monday. Giddy up. 

Second is that as I was writing,  I started to sound a bit like I was attempting to write like a writer.  Maybe that isn't an  accurate assessment either.  I started using a thesaurus and was being (in my mind) a little philosophical.  Well, that got me thinking about voice.  How could I post something with the words "expound" and "juncture" in it since my last two (first two) posts were about my hair care regime and my sugar addiction! I would sound like a total chaunch - how could I sound like anything but a poser and a tool? Seriously?!

So what is my voice?  We all know that the things that go online always have some kind of polish to them. Yes - even you Instagram moms who swear you are laying it all out there on the line. You have to at least consider the things you share and choose the words you write. So what words do I choose and why? And do I have to consistently choose the same types of words or ideas or motivations when I decide to "put it out there."

When I was in jr high school,  I wanted to be a surgeon. In high school I decided I wasn't smart enough for that, so I thought about writing and journalism. The problem was that I was only actually interested in editorial style writing.  I remember saying I wanted to write my opinion about whatever topic I wanted and have people be interested in what I had to say.  How narcissistic - oh, wait... Anyway, maybe I'll blame society for giving me a large enough dose of reality, but I had a pretty strong feeling that nobody was going to pay me for my opinion on my limited knowledge and experience. But who needs to get paid when you can spew it out on the internet for free! -- But back to the dilemma,  what is my voice?

I'll tell you what it is. It is mine. Sometimes that is laughing until I'm hysterical at a Julian Smith video on YouTube,  sometimes it is discussing papal encyclicals or the problems with the UN. Sometimes I might cry over how much I love cooking and food (yes, that has happened), rant about social justice, and occasionally I might expound on the itchy nature of my scalp.... see what I did there? My voice can  be (usually is) loud, but it has tempered over time - thank the Lord - although it can still sometimes be muffled by my foot. I might talk about my babe, my daily life, my indignation, my passion, my feelings, current events, the world at large, and I might use my everyday words, or I might pull out the thesaurus and exercise my writing muscle, but rest assured, the voice is mine.

The beautiful thing is that I am so many things at once, and so are you! So consider this a disclaimer to any future post you may read and think, "Wow, what a load..." I'm not usually trying to sound like someone I'm not, and if my sound isn't ringing true,  feel free to question; but also consider I am not static and will not always sound the same.

I do what I want.  ;)     --Peace