Chez Shaffner
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Chez Shaffner
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A Fun Lunchtime Diversion
Reporting back on yesterday’s workshop. Rather than forty-five minutes of free writing, the session had a big more structure, as the instructor came with handouts. The handouts suggested ways of turning every day’s lunch hour into a writing exercise. For example:
- Choose two people in the cafeteria or restaurant and imagine their conversation.
- Describe your sandwich.
- Close your eyes and observe the lunchroom through the sounds.
- Repeat, using the aromas in the room.
These may sound kind of cheesy, but her central thesis was that by forcing yourself to write from some pretty mundane prompts, you’re bound to stumble across something good. In other words, you’re bound to find a seed somewhere along the line, and if you plant that seed you might end up with a short story (or whatever it is that you write).
With fifteen minutes remaining, she asked us to write about breakfast. For ten minutes, fifteen writers scrawled as quickly as they could. And then she made us read. Not an option. Around the room (counter-clockwise, which seemed wrong), each of us read our first and last sentences. It wasn’t that awful after all.
I promise something more interesting tomorrow… Tying up loose ends in my novel’s ending is sucking the life out of me…
Just for the hell of it, here’s what I produced in that ten minutes yesterday… Ain’t pretty.
- When Keryn sits beside me on the edge of the bed, it’s my cue to wake. I have been varying degrees of awake since her alarm sounded an hour ago. She has showered and dressed, consumed her daily bowl of cereal with soy milk, and applied her makeup at the coffee table while watching Sex and the City on DVD. I haven’t moved from my pillow. It’s still too early for my taste, quarter to eight. She has to leave now, walk to the garage, and drive to Waltham. My commute is somewhat less arduous—soon I must move from the bedroom to the dining room table, my makeshift workspace. She kisses me good-bye and I wish she could stay ten minutes more. But she can’t. She’s already running late.
I’m never hungry so soon after waking, but my stomach grumbles for tea and caffeine. A year ago, before I met her, I had never sipped hot tea. (Impossible! you protest. But true.) Now a dozen varieties are arranged neatly in a flip-top chest on our counter. I set the water to boil and drop a tea bag in an empty cup. A year ago the word “bergamot” was not in my vocabulary, never mind its scent one I could recognize from across a crowded restaurant.
That’s what you get in ten minutes without editing…
Labels: Writing
