Archive for November, 2008
TURKEY, STUFFING OR BUST!
Tell me what is your favorite holiday and why? Share something special you do. Remember to challenge me! Anything you share with me, I have to incorporate into a short story I will write and post on the blog.
I just got to celebrate my own favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.
In the United States, it was Thanksgiving Holiday this week. For me, that means family, food, and more food. Oh… and did I mention, food? Actually, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is the only one all year that I get to spend with my sisters, nieces, nephews, and parents. I live too far from my parents and three sisters to just visit for dinner. Any trip to see them is at least a weekend event. Our homes are spread out along the east coast of the U.S. from Maine to Virginia.
My sisters and I take turns hosting Thanksgiving. This year, we went to Amy’s on Cape Cod. One of the family traditions I cherish is the annual photo of all of my parents’ grandchildren on the steps. The kids sit two-by-two on the staircase and my Dad, the proud Grandpa stands at the bottom of the steps and snaps away.
Now it’s your turn. I told you mine…you tell me yours…
WHAT GIVES YOU TROUBLE?
Today’s improvisational creative writing challenge for me! Don’t forget, I plan to use all of the details I collect in November in a short story I will post on my blog.
Tell me about something in your life you have trouble dealing with. Go ahead, this is your chance to vent!
As for me, I have trouble dealing with paper. This is strange but true. I have a love-hate relationship with paper. Obviously, I am a writer so paper is a huge part of my craft. While I work mostly on my lap top, there are always points in every story that I just need to print it out and feel the pages, see the whole story at once, remap scenes by physically arranging the pages all over the dining room table. No big surprise, I love books and reading, too.
In fact, when asked, “If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?”
I blurted the first thing that popped into my head. “Alone on the beach with a book.”
Unfortunately, this hurt my husband’s feelings a little. Perhaps I should have thought more before answering and said, “Alone WITH MY HUSBAND on the beach . . .”
Live and learn. He knows I still love him!
However, I hate paper, too. It buries me every week. Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed by it and part of me is embarrassed—ashamed even—to admit it. Paper threatens to swallow me whole.
I take in the mail. It contains coupons, catalogues, magazines and umpteen bills. Oh and of course, the mail holds stacks of self addressed stamped envelopes coming back to me from literary magazines and agents. The paper keeps on coming. I sort through the piles. Most of the catalogues and coupons go right in the trash. I track the responses from agents and magazines then trash the rejections. I save the envelopes because my mother uses the stamps in her artwork. The bills go in a “to be paid” stack on my desk. The rest goes in a pile in case I might need it someday.
But there is more: I am buried in print outs of my own manuscripts-in-progress, scraps of paper and notebooks with story ideas, to do lists, others’ stories to critique, flyers advertising my writing group at the local library, and receipts for writing-related expenses I hope to be able to deduct.
I don’t want you to think I’m the only contributor to my paper mess. My three sons’ homework assignments, tests, report cards, newsletters, book order forms, field trip permission slips, contracts for musical instrument rentals, and art projects galore.
So if there is ever a time you don’t hear from me for a few days, please come dig me out from under the mountain of paper in my house!
Come on post your gripe here! Challenge me to give the characters in my next short story the same problems and annoyances and see how they handle it.
My Ride Has Been Mom’ed!
Remember, I must incorporate the details you share with me during the month of November into a short story that I will post here on this blog.
Today I am looking for answers to the following questions to give me more info for my Improvisational Creative Writing Exercise:
What kind of car do you drive? What kind of car do you WISH you could be driving instead and why?
I spent the day stuck at home today without my wheels. The reason for this, you ask? The answer: I have no car today because my three sons thought it would be a good idea to play baseball in the driveway. One of them threw the ball, and with incredible precision, hit the passenger side view mirror, smashing it so it loo.
Being the superstitious type, I’m hoping the only bad luck the boys have is the poverty they will experience as I take money out of their allowance to pay for the repairs. Oy vey!
I attached a link to a great video that pretty much describes my current set of wheels. Take a look at it. Have pity on me. Have a good laugh. BUT THEN COME BACK HERE AND LEAVE YOUR COMMENT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFE3B0Rje0
I want you all to know, someday, I will no longer have a need to car pool large groups of children to baseball games, lacrosse practice, religious school, and trumpet lessons. I know you are probably thinking that I will miss this time once it has gone by. You are also probably right! But I WILL NOT miss my junked-up, MOMed Honda Pilot. I will be driving a smart car. That way, if I do invite any children to ride along, the mess will be MUCH smaller!
Isis and Lisa’s Excellent Vacation
Sing-Along Wrong
I have always loved to sing. I even had the lead in my High School Musical and performed in some summer stock theater musical reviews in my younger days. However, I didn’t always get the lyrics right when it came to hearing songs and singing along.
Here are just a couple of the songs from my youth that I thought I knew but then later found out I was completely WRONG!!
Do you remember the song, Dirty D’s and the Thunder Chief? No? Well, when I was in high school, my best friend Kim and I used to sing it at the top of our lungs in the car! Okay, so we were a little off on the words. The real lyrics: “Dirty Deeds and They’re Done Dirt Cheap.”
Deck the halls with balls of Challey (That’s the way my father pronounced “Challah” – you know the braided bread.) It was actually a Christmas Carole many of you sang a million times, “Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly.”
However, as a first grader, this nice Jewish girl had no idea what a “bough of holly” had to do with anything. Okay, so I also had no idea why anyone would crumple up a piece of bread and throw it at the hall either, but somehow it made a nice jingle!
Well, I have shared some of my most embarrassing lyric faux pas with you. Now it’s your turn. Come on, I know you must sing-along-WRONG sometimes. ‘Fess up!