Writing Prompt: Next to Last

This writing prompt is from Lisa Romeo.  She promised a summer of prompts, so I'm pretty sure I know what this one means. Like everything else in my summer, this is coming to an end. I didn't do as well as I had hoped keeping up with the prompts, but I've saved all her emails and will probably go back and work on some of them, posting them as if I had done them on the day she sent them. Or is that cheating? In any case, thank you, Lisa, for the inspirational summer.

Penultimate — it's one of my favorite words. When I first heard it, I thought it meant that the event or thing in questions was even more ultimate than the ultimate. Penultimate is  such an elegant word, so luxurious in the mouth, that it had to mean something great. It was somewhat of a letdown to discover that it meant "next to last" or not quite ultimate. That really took the shine off of the word for me for a while.

But I've come back to it. At first, it was probably due to the smugness that wordies like me feel when we know the true meaning and usage of a word that many people use incorrectly. I've often heard penultimate used the way I imagined it as a child. Every time I hear or read the misuse, I take out my mental Sharpie pen and correct it. There's such satisfaction in being right. It turns a pet peeve into a gleeful moment of triumph.

But the real attraction of the word is that there is something hopeful about being the penultimate. It means there's still one more chance after this one to get it right; one more opportunity to enjoy something wonderful. Penultimate may not be the "ultimate", but it also isn't the final, the last, the end.

Geez, I'm a geek. Who else takes so much joy in parsing words? If you do, come sit next to me. Leave and comment and we'll discuss. Thanks again, Lisa

Writing Prompt: The River

This writing prompt is from Lisa Romeo. I have never before posted a picture on the SFD blog, but this prompt led me straight to this photo from our recent trip out west.

This summer, we traveled together for nearly weeks — six of us in an eight-year-old minivan with a Sears car-top carrier. Between Chicago and Seattle, we encountered countless bodies of water, from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean. We learned about dams and hydro electric power, and the how engineers and conservationists are revising and rethinking how damming our rivers impacts our environment. 

We crossed the mighty Mississippi early on, at LaCrosse, WI. It was only then that we felt like the trip had really started. Wide and meandering on that border between Wisconsin and Minnesota, the Mississippi was a sleeping giant, lazing along in the heat of the northern summer. It split and reconnected around fingerlike islands, bent at an elbow and slipped passed the I-90 bridge, oblivious of the oily mess it would meet at its delta.

When you start with the Mississippi, how can other rivers compare? I discovered that rivers don't compete. They're content with their own personalities. Creeks and brooks, rivers and streams, mere trickles and pushy waterfalls — we saw them all — and each was thoroughly engaged, a study in movement, some walking, some skipping, some running, but all inexorably going forward to some unknown destination. 

The power of water is can been seen in even slightest trickle. Flowing water both shapes and is shaped by the land formations and obstacles in path. While we watch, we see only the later, how a protruding rock forces the water up, around and over it, changing the shape, color and sound of the water when they meet. We don't see that the water is simultaneously sculpting the rock, smoothing it, scraping and carrying it's minerals downstream. It will take months or years or decades before the human eye can see the water's impact on the rock, but the water's influence over the rock is more permanent and significant than the rock's power over the water.

Many of the rivers we met were suffering the heat of summer.  Wide banks seemed like big-brother hand-me-downs to creeks that had retreated from their edges during weeks of 100+ degree days. 

The true power of moving water could be seen best in the rivers that weren't — or at least weren't any more. The magnificent coulees carved by long-dead ancient rivers bore the scars and patterns of gushing waters that have escaped the bonds of human memory. This dry river bed, this river of rocks and mountain detritus stood probably 25 or 30 feet wide, a lasting memorial carved like a sculptor's self-portrait; a still, unmoving replica of a once-formidable force.

I think this passage meanders more haphazardly than any of the rivers we saw, but hey, it's just a SFD, right?

Writing Prompt: The Dance

This writing prompt from Lisa Romeo. I've been away from writing for several weeks while we traveled. I always think I'm going to do a lot of writing on the road, but it never works out that way. My writer friends tell me it's important to take a break and refill the well, so I'm going to pretend that I did that. But now that I'm home, seems a writing prompt is a good way to get back into the swing of things. 10 minutes.

Without question, the longest two hours of my life. Longer than the time I was stuck on the tarmac in Cleveland during a snow storm. Longer even than any two hours of labor. It was the time I chaperoned the middle school dance. 

Just to prove how bad this dance was, the principal decided to cancel all dances from that point forward, so it wasn't just me who that it was bad. It was bad.

I'm no prude and with four kids and two step kids, I've done more than my fair share of chaperoning. How bad could it be? thought I. Two hours in a middle school gym — a little sweaty, a little loud, a little boring, but I could take it. I was a veteran. 

My little sixth grade twins had no idea what the whole dance thing was about. Like all the other sixth graders, the formed a circle around the periphery of the gymnasium, mostly running around and playing tag. 

The seventh graders formed another ring, inside the circle of sixth graders, but not at the center. Here the girls primped, gossiped, giggled and pointed. Totally expected behavior. The boys stood in awkward clumps, hands shoved deep in their pockets, standing on tiptoe to see the real action that was going on in the very center of the room.

The eighth graders closed ranks in tight knots that formed the nucleus of the three-ringed cell. They were the only ones "dancing", if you could call it that. A single girl stood, bent over at the waist, buttocks high in the air. She was surrounded by a group of between six and 10 boys, who took turns bumping and grinding into her from behind, simulating (quite graphically) a variety of sex acts. 

Again, I'm not a prude, but I was seriously shocked. These were 12 and 13 year old kids. I know that jitter bug was considered obscene in its day; my mother wasn't allowed to even listen to Elvis the Pelvis because of his lewd hip movements; and belly dancing, often considered an art, clearly has sexual overtones. But this was overtones, undertones and overt, in-your-face sex. And it was gross. I could understand what the boys liked about it, but I kept wanting to ask the girls "What are you thinking?"

The principal instructed chaperones to physically walk through the circles to break it up. At one point, he turned the lights up to full power to discourage the behavior. I spent two hours as a vice cop before the whistle blew signaling that it was time to go home. I never knew the shrill sound of a whistle could bring such relief. I grabbed my twins and headed home for a much-needed long, hot shower. 

Time: Oy, that was such an awful night. Wonder how I could use this in fiction. That dance was six years ago. Have shows like Dancing with the Stars changed school dance behavior? Would I have been as bothered if it had been a high school dance?

Writing Prompt: Cake or Pie?

This writing prompt, from Lisa Romeo, just begs to become a Two Kinds of People post. For this SFD, I'm just going to list the things I want to touch on in my post and see where it takes me.

There are two kinds of people in the world: cake people and pie people.

Not a big fan of cake. Cake is too dry, except truly decadent cakes like those molten chocolate things. 

Cupcakes are a pain in the ass to make. Tell the story about the little boys eating the tops off of all those cupcakes. Molly's black-bottom pies and how the recipe calls for frosting, which seems redundant. 

Then there was the time when Al Segretti inadvertently made my favorite pie for dessert on my birthday for the progressive dinner.
Cindy Fey's pie from last year. What a treat. Not many people will bake for mere acquaintances.

Making pie with Amy up at Michigan Tech. It was my first effort and a complete disaster. Pie is tricky, even though there are only a few ingredients. The dough is sensitive to ambient conditions and overworking it can make it tough. Also mention baking pies with Grandma. Cindy and I used to get the trimmings to make tarts, but we usually just made a mess. Interesting that some people who like to cook don't like to bake, and vice versa.

Pie song from "Michael".
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So, this was interesting. Writing my thoughts down just as they came without molding or shaping them. Oddly, it did not feel freeing to write this way. I think part of the fun for me of writing Two Kinds of People post is shaping all these random, barely-connected ideas into a cohesive whole. Here's a pun for you: I like kneading the randomness into a workable shape. Which is what I'm going to do right now. See the finished product over at Two Kinds of People. I'll leave it cooling on the window sill.

Writing Prompt: Putting Out Fires

Today's writing prompt is courtesy of Lisa Romeo's Summer Writing Prompt Program. You can get free prompts from Lisa, too. Here we go — 10 minutes on putting out fires.

It seems all I do these days is put out fires. There's no time for planning, thoughtful contemplation, cool assessment of the situation. I just aim the fire extinguisher at that flare up, blast the hose on this flame, and spread the chemical foam on those dangerous crash and burn fires.

The little flare ups are caused by my two youngest boys, who are a combustible combination these days. Prior to adolescence, they were best friends. Now that can't seem to be in the same room together for more than five minutes without igniting a simple bicker into a big blowup. 

The visible flames come from our robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul financial strategy. We haven't intentionally increased our spending, but our income has been cut (like everyone else's), our healthcare expenses keep rising, and every time I turn around, there's a new bill burning to be paid. Just when we get one fire under control, a new hot spot shows bursts into flames. 

The slow, undousable burn stems from my inability to stop time (or at least slow it down a bit). Children are heading off to college, step children are getting married, little boys are turning into big boys, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. This particularly deadly fire is complicated by my tendency to burn the candle at both ends, leaving me vulnerable to the shifting winds of middle-age mood swings that provide endless fuel for this fire.

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10 minutes. I know. I know. I took this poor metaphor and squeezed it's guts out. But, that's what shitty first drafts are for.

Day #19 — Late to the Party

Yesterday, IRL, I joined Twitter, which seems to fit in perfectly with today's prompt from Lisa Romeo:

Prompt: Late to the Party

Some days I think I'm pretty up on this whole technology thing. I have several blogs and there are those in my circle who even consider me a little bit of an expert. I strongly believe that that's because my circle is old (sorry, friends) and we are in danger of missing the new tide of technology completely.

Yesterday, I signed up for a Twitter account. I know I'm a little late to the party, but that's nothing new. I only started my blog two years ago and it took me quite a while to figure things out. I still don't really know how to drive traffic to my site, even though I've dabbled in StumbleUpon, de.li.ci.ous (or whatever that is), blog catalog, ping-o-matic and a few others. It's just that there's so much that it's overwhelming.

I'm not a complete Twitter virgin. My husband's pet store has a Twitter handle and I'm the only one who posts to it or his Facebook page (or his blog, for that matter). I seem stuck in this chair in front of my screen. I can't keep up with the blogs I follow, or my Facebook page and now Twitter. Whatever will I do?

Still, it's exhilarating to learn something new. I know it doesn't seem very risky to those under 30, but to those of use a little (ahem!) older, each new step into the Interwebs feels like a giant dare.

A few weeks ago I created and launched my own writing services Website. It was a thrill to see it go live and I'm terrified that they are typos and missing links. On the other hand, the site only gets a couple of hits a day, so I don't know what I'm so worried about. I have plenty of time to make corrections.

Since starting this free-writing project 19 days ago, I've struggled with the idea that it could be just a waste of time (or should I say "another" waste of time, now that I'm Twittering?) I also felt that way after three weeks of improvisation at my regular writer's workshop.

What does all this have to do with my writing? Is it making me better? Will it get me published? I never have writer's block, so I don't need help breaking through it. If anything, I want to write too many things (evidenced by too many blogs).

But wait! Today I had a breakthrough of sorts. I got a Tweet about a writing contest that I probably never would have heard about if not for Twitter. It struck a chord with me, and I remembered something that had come up during the improv session last Thursday. I started free writing and created a draft essay, then went back and molded it to fit the parameters of the contest. Now, it's out to my readers, and I will make revisions based on their comments and submit it. 

Even late to the party, I have things to learn. Even late to the party, I still might strike an important match and light my career on fire. I guess the moral is still better late than never.

Time:  12 minutes

I have no idea what this rambling mess is in terms of following the writing prompt. This is exactly what I don't do on my "real" blog — take a giant brain dump. But this is where the prompt led me today. Maybe it was a chance to see that all these disparate efforts and seeming distractions are what I'm supposed to be doing, to get me moving down the right path. Or, maybe it was just a brain dump. Time for bed.

Day #16 — Pie

Today's writing prompt — well, really yesterday's prompt, if you've been following — is pie. Pie! Thanks to Lisa Romeo for her daily prompts.

Prompt: Pie

Birthdays = cake and ice cream. Right? It's tradition. It's the candles and the song and the fanfare and making wishes and blowing hard, with the lights dimmed and everyone clapping. But I don't like cake — or at least I don't like most cake. A good carrot cake with homemade cream cheese icing (or is it frosting) may be an exception. This was our wedding cake, though, so it doesn't have any birthday connotations for me.

I like ice cream just fine. In fact, I like ice cream just a little too much, if you know what I mean. But the sweet I really crave for my annual celebration is a birthday pie. Peach pie, to be specific. This tends to be a little problematic, since my birthday is in late September, several weeks past the end of peach season. So to produce a really good peach pie for my birthday, I need to plan ahead and freeze some of those juicy fruits when they are at their peak.

I don't know when I developed such a taste for pie. I don't remember loving it as a kid and I hate when the crust is overcooked. I do remember baking pies with my grandmother. She wasn't really a very good cook, coming from the school of thought that you started cooking Thanksgiving dinner at 5:30 in the morning and cooked everything all day long until one dish was virtually unrecognizable from the next and, often, barely recognizable as food.

But the woman made a mean pie crust (and great pierogi, but that's another story). I remember watching her put the crust together by hand, cutting the cold butter into the flour and working without a recipe. Pie crust is touchy. Even though there are only a few ingredients (mostly butter and flour, and maybe a little ice water or cold milk and some salt), a good crust is very dependent on ambient conditions, such as temperature and humidity — and good pie crust bakers put their dough together according to feel.

My grandma would line her pie tins, and then cut off the excess crust and give it to my cousin and me to make little tarts. First we would eat half of it, and then would knead and roll it practically to death, so that by the time we got it into the tart pans it was as tough as leather. Still, it was much more fun than Play Dough, because we were really cooking.

I don't remember eating very many of my grandmother's pies. Maybe we only baked together a few times, but those experiences provided powerful memories.

The best pie I ever made was a pear pie with cranberries. It was just beautiful. It took me a long time to get the crust thing down. Finally, I learned to follow the multi-step directions in the Joy of Cooking. If you follow their recipe exactly, your pie will be perfect every time.

Personally, I prefer a good fruit pie. Lemon meringue may look beautiful, but it just isn't as good to eat. Key lime pie is great, but the graham cracker crust puts it into a different category all together. Some like custard pies, like French Silk or banana cream. Fair enough, but give me a peach pie or a sour cherry pie (yum!) or blueberry (third choice), apple or even raspberry pie any day over those cream pies, thank you very much.

Time: 11 minutes

This piece could definitely be worked into a Two Kinds of People post. I'll have to keep it in mind. It might also be part of a memoir-type of essay. I see quite a few possibilities here. The writing seems particularly disjointed to me. Perhaps because there are so many possibilities, I had trouble picking a path and sticking to it. No worries, though. That's what SFDs are for.

Day #14 — What to do?

Since I took a little detour yesterday (responding to a prompt from Linda Cassidy Lewis), today I am facing two prompts from Lisa Romeo in my inbox. Such a dilemma! At first, I wasn't sure what to do. Should I respond to two prompts in one day to "catch up"? No, that does not follow the rules or intention of this blog. Should I do them in the order received? Should I peek and pick the most fun prompt? Should I just keep one in reserve?

Well, I peeked. Yesterday prompt was "black and white"; so many possibilities! Today's prompt: "Jumped the Shark." I don't even know what that means. Since my goal is to get more creative in my writing, I should probably do the second one, but my logical brain is responding, trying to figure it out, and my creative brain is off cowering in the corner at such a prompt. So:

Prompt: Black and White

My husband swears he dreams in black and white. I don't see how this is even possible. Why would anyone dream in black and white? Why those two colors? If you need contrast, why not blue and orange, which are across the color wheel from one another and therefore complimentary? And why just two colors – why not three — black, white and red, for example.

The answer probably lies in the fact that he was born in 1950 and is among the first generation of children raised with television. Of course, back then, TV was all black and white. Again, I don't really understand the science behind that, but I'm sure there is some logical, or at least technological reason.

But why would the subconscious be limited to black and white if the conscious brain is capability of perceiving the full color spectrum? What does that say about one's subconscious? I'm no shrink, but my guess would be it has more to do with his need for utter control, even in sleep, than the effect that black and white television had on his life. 

I'm not being critical here (OK, maybe a little — but I like control, too) or judgmental (OK, maybe a little because, frankly, I don't really believe him). He actually says that he hardly ever dreams, but that when he does they are always in black and white. Part of me thinks "No, they're not. You dream every night, just like everybody else, you just don't remember them; AND you dream in color every night, just like everybody else, you just don't remember.

But the other part of me, the generous, empathic part, thinks "how sad". What would I do with out my Technicolor dreams — sometimes dozens, even more in a night? It's true that my dreams are often exhausting — frequently involving my inability to get something done, some small task or enormous endeavor accomplished or resolved. But, I've found that as I've gotten older, I am somehow partly conscious of being in a dream state and can alter the course of my dreams. (How's that for being a control freak?) Sometimes, when I get really frustrated, my semi-conscious self will remind my sleeping self that it's just a dream and that I don't have to stick with it. I can move on to the next dream.

Maybe that's a good lesson for me as a writer: if the story in my head — my awake dreaming, if you will — gets too frustrating, maybe I can move on, at least temporarily to the next story, or an older story that needs revision.

And who knows. Maybe my husband is telling the truth. After all, nothing is ever black and white.

Time:  12 minutes

Damn. I ran long again. I really must get a better timer. Or just learn to be less wordy. Still, the control freak in me would feel really uncomfortable if I didn't bring the prompt to some logical stopping point. Of course, this blog is designed to take me out of my comfort zone, so maybe I should get that timer that will signal me to stop and let go at exactly the 10-minute mark. I read that one writer always purposefully stopped for the day right in the middle of some important part of his or her writing. The idea was to give the subconscious something to keep working on while s/he went about the rest of the day and into sleeping/dreaming. It's something to consider.

Day #10 — So Many Possibilities

For today's prompt, Lisa Romeo suggested: Read All Directions Before Starting. Oooh, which way to go? There are so many good possibilities. In the true spirit of the SFD, I think I'll just let my mind and keyboard ramble.

Prompt: Read All Directions Before Starting

When DH built the little shed in our backyard, he was shocked and frustrated to discover that the kit had too many medium-length bolts and not enough long ones. Turns out that he had used the long bolts in the wrong spot and had to take the shed down to the ground. I discovered this when I read the directions. Read them — not just looked at the pictures. I do so love to be right. It could be my fatal flaw.

One of my favorite in school exercises, and a truly delicious practical joke, is that old ridiculous worksheet entitled: "Read All Directions Before Starting." My mother was a teacher and a librarian. I always read all the directions before starting. As a consequence, I was one of the few that read:

Step 1 — Read all directions before starting. Complete this assignment as quickly as possible.
Step 2 — Write your name at the top of this page.
Step 3 — Open and close your workbook three times.
Steps 4 though 19 — a bunch of other ridiculous tasks, including (I kid you not) "walk to the front of the room and kiss the chalk board." (I suppose now it would be a white board, but it would have the same effect.)
Step 20 — Set down your pencil and watch most of your classmates make fools of themselves because they did not follow directions. Try not to laugh, or you'll give it away.

I loved this exercise. Have I mentioned that I love being right? It's definitely my fatal flaw.

Do you know how many times I have read the directions for making Jello? It's not that hard. Boil one cup of water. Dissolve the gelatin in the boiling water. Add one cup of cold water. Stir gently. Refrigerate until firm. If I can reproduce the directions (almost verbatim) even though I have not made Jello in many months, then why do I feel compelled to reread them each time. And it's not just Jello. I still read the directions on the pasta package. Pasta. Boil until desired doneness. It doesn't take a genius. 

Recently, I have used two different sewing patterns that had incomplete and just plain wrong directions. I found myself rereading them over and over, with the ingrained belief telling me that if I only read the directions carefully, I'll be able to figure it out. But sometimes directions are wrong.

And sometimes there are no directions. We've all encountered the missing manual. How can software companies get away with putting out complex products without creating and including a comprehensive manual? What is that? 

And what about all those really important things that simply don't come with directions — like children. Where's the manual for parenting? What was God thinking? 

The two sides of my brain are in constant battle over the whole "read the directions" imperative. How much time have I wasted reading directions I either already know or that don't matter? Why must I read them word for word and critique how well they were written. Why can't I just take what I need and move on? 

Time: OK, over time: 14 minutes

Clearly, this topic struck a chord. I bet it could be revised to make a smashing essay. Ah, perhaps there is a reason for all this prompted free writing. Must mark to revisit.

Day #9 — Go, Team, Go

Lisa Romeo prompt #9. This was week two of our improv sessions with Jimmy Carrane at Off Campus Writers Workshop. I'm still a bit fuzzy on where all this improvisation (both the theater games and the free writing) will take me, but I'm sticking with it for now.

Prompt: Go, Team, Go

The Big House — also known as Michigan Stadium — the biggest, baddest, best place to watch American football, nay, any sporting event, in the world. 100,000+ seats of unobstructed views of the field. 

Even if you don't like football, The Big House is an adventure. There's always something to watch. You have your rabid Michigan fans, many shirtless in frigid temperatures, showing off Maize and Blue war paint and jingling their key rings on key plays. There's the tide of sound rising in a unified chorus of cheers or moans as they play unfolds on the field. 

Then there's the human wave, when 100,000 people work together rising and waving and falling again as the wave rings the stadium, faster and faster, reversing on itself and then crossing, in spontaneous perfectly timed choreography. It's a sight to behold.

The 150-member Miiiiichigan marching band takes the field at half time, led by the most enthusiastic drum major in the NCAA. We don't need no stinkin' mascot. We've got cheerleaders tumbling off the walls to count out the score. And the pep band touring the stands. And an alma mater that nobody knows, except when you reach the word "Hail". And a fight song that everybody know, played like a leitmotif throughout the game.

I like football, at least college football, but you don't need to be a fan to get into the spirit. An autumn afternoon at The Big House will take you to places you've never been … even back in time and spirit to the days of the Roman Coliseum — it's a real Ann Arbor circus.
Time: 11 minutes

Nonfiction from a writing prompt is a completely different experience. I've written about Michigan Stadium before, on my real blog. Maybe there's something here that needs to be explored — an essay for the alumni magazine perhaps. Think outside the box. Think new venues.