Thanks, Lisa

So Lisa Romeo Writes  is my favorite blog for writers. On January 3, she offered to send her readers daily writing prompts for all of January. I knew I couldn't refuse — it seemed just what I needed to get into my imagination, but what would I do with these prompts? I've tried to keep a journal, but my handwriting is just sad. Then, I was poking around some other blogs and read a post called Shitty First Draft and voila — SFD @ 2KoP was born. (SFD — Shitty First Draft — comes from Anne Lamott's great memoir on writing, Bird by Bird .) Enough expounding. Time to get to my first SFD. (Ed. note — the prompted writing will be in this green text; all asides will be in this grey text.)

Prompt: With Pleasure

I got the response card in the mail today. She had checked off the "Will Attend" box and then added "with pleasure". Who is she kidding? I know she doesn't want to come to my wedding. She hates me. Always has. Always will.

And I hate her, that smug, know-it-all, bottle blonde … Stop. Don't. I do not want to taint my wedding — our wedding as Nate is always reminding me — with nastiness from the past. Breathe. Think Zen thoughts. 

My wedding will be beautiful.
My wedding will be serene.
Everyone will get along.
She will be green with envy over my gorgeous dress, my fabulous smart beautiful husband, my newly-skinny body.

OK, not so Zen.

Also in the mail today — three response's from Nate's friends and family and lots of bills. God, this simple wedding is turning into an expensive affair. Not by most standards, mind you, but by our standards.

Nate and I both agreed that we would NOT go into debt trying to compete with some TV idea of what our wedding should be. We want simple, elegant and reasonable. And green. Our invitations were printed on recycled paper. We paid a little extra for the stamps that made a donation to breast cancer research. That was Nate's idea, what with both his mom and his sister going through the hell of treatment at the same time. This is just one of the 8 billion, 367 million reasons I love Nate.

And green. The bride's maids dresses are green (my favorite color). We went to a regular store and bought kind of fancy party dresses. I wanted Jill and Allyssa to feel beatiful, and since they are both so different, I couldn't inflict my taste on them, so I let them each pick out their own dress. Jill's is a halter-neck with a tiny waist and full skirt that falls just below the knee. She has the most fabulous neck and the dress really shows it off. Allyssa's is cap-sleeved with a high neck that kind of looks like a choker. It hides her scars. I think she's still a little self-conscious. Their dresses are the same color and they decided on the same shoes — silver strappy numbers that you wouldn't catch me in on a bet.

Time — 11 minutes

Oops, meant to keep it to 10 minutes. I have to come up with a new timer for this. Mine currently only measures elapsed time.

I have to say, this was an interesting experience. The mind just races ahead with ideas. I found myself fighting the impulse to ask "What's the point?" "What's the plot?" "Where's this going?" I seem to worry a lot about plot. Wonder what else I'll learn about myself and my writing in this experiment?