Friday, January 23, 2004

 

Writing Prompt 7: What Is Your Idea Of A Dull Evening?

Hmmm, as a writer who works fulltime as an IT shift-worker,

I don’t have time for dull evenings. Really. Not so long

ago, I was reading an article that said that studies showed

that shift-workers either get enough sleep and lack a social

life or have a life social life and lack sleep, and some lack

both.



And anybody who writes and works full time knows that you

have to find, make, steal the time to write. But the good

thing about being a writer is that even if you are faced

with a dull evening, it can become fodder for your writing.

I would write more about how the dull becomes interesting

under the microscope of observational scrutiny if I wasn’t

certain self-imposed time and word restrictions when it comes

to these writing prompts.



Dolor- Theodore Roethke

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.


Next: Writing Prompt 8- What is the best way to treat meddlesome people?




 

Writing Prompt 6: What Is Your Favourite Time Of Day?

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and think about the girl
And never ever think of counting sheep

When your lonely heart has learned it’s lesson
You’d be hers if only she would call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That’s the time you miss her most of all.


Yep, yessiiree, ma'am, my fav-our-ite time of the day are the wee small hours of the morning: two a.m to five a.m. I like the silence and the tranquilty and the feeling of being alone in the universe in a good way, like Superman in his Fortress of Solitude.

I like reading and writing in the wee small hours of the morning, and surfing the net,
watching good DVDs and bad tv.

I like to think in the wee small hours of the morning. I like to look at the moon and the stars and watch the sunrise. I like to listen when things are not so tranquil: the
sounds of fights, fireworks, fun and all that sort of thing.

Next: Next: Writing Prompt 7: What is your idea of a dull evening?

Thursday, January 22, 2004

 

W.P.5: What Is The Worst Thing Parents Can Do To Their Children?

When I first read this prompt, the first things that came into my mind were
molestation and any form of psychical and psychological torture and torment,
Such as those parents who keep a child in some small, filthy enclosed space
And treat him or her like an animal.

But I have no experience in these matters. Not as victim, survivor, perpetrator,
or expert. So, I can’t speak on these issues with any authority. All I can do
Is repeat the usual (and true) sentiment that child abuse is bad and that child abusers are evil and post these links:


Amnesty International: Children's Human Rights


Child Abuse Prevention Links

Unicef


World Children's Fund


Next: Writing Prompt6: What is your favourite time of day?

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

 

Writing Prompt #4: What Is A Good Neighbour?

What is a good neighbour? Someone who is is considerate,
decent, and who has the ability to know when to get
involved and when not to interfere.

Simply put, the good neighbour is the opposite of the
bad neighbour. The good neighbour gives you no grief,
respects the fact that your home is your castle and refuge.

A good neighbour is not petty. He or she can be a friend,
but is usually somewhere between acquaintance and friend
or is an approachable but unintrusive "stranger".


Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

-- Robert Frost.


Next: Writing Prompt #5:
What is the worst thing parents can do to their children?



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