WRITING BOOT CAMP - Day 6

Day 6

Alphabet Poem

Write a 26-line poem using all the letters of the alphabet. Have the first line start with the

letter “A,” the second “B,” the third “C,” etc.

Always, somehow, we are

Bending,

Careening –

Delicately

Enough –

For those who don’t understand…

Go then,

Happily

In the direction to which you dream,

Jive with those inner demons,

Keep your head above, just so,

Lingering that fine line between

Mortal and immortal.

None who seek

Overtly will come to with

Pleasure,

Quintessential in nature,

Realize this before all else.

Simply be,

Thoughtful and proud,

Undulate such heaving swells as to

Vibrate the fickle human shell

We are compelled to

eXist within.

You must haste to it or perish,

Zealot.

WRITING BOOT CAMP - Day 4

Day 4

Sent to the Wrong Printer

You’re at work and you print something personal (and sensitive). Unfortunately, you’ve sent it to the wrong printer and, by the time you realize it, somebody else has already scooped it up.

            ‘Dear Mr. Harris,’ Claudia’s chipped-pink nail polish fingers clicked away decisively at her keyboard. If it had a voice, and it was grateful this morning in particular that it didn’t, the keyboard would have had a shill, holier-than-thou screech that so often pained the ears of Claudia’s co-workers when it emanated from her vocal chords.

            Claudia didn’t pause to take a sip from her cooling coffee mug – something that offended the pink cup (adorned with the insignia ‘I’d Rather Be Knitting’ and a pug wearing a hand-made toque) deeply. Yet the chilled goblet swallowed its’ pride and said nothing. The remainder of Claudia’s desk was equally unused to being disregarded – papers sat unfiled, documents unedited, emails hovered unread. The telephone was the only who voiced her disapproval with a constant, shrill ringing – yet, to no avail.

            Claudia paused for a moment, fingers poised above the keyboard as tense and proud as a concert pianist prolonging the final chords of his master piece, and the objects in Claudia’s meticulous office held a collective breath, anticipating their daily routine to resume. It did not. Claudia dived once more at the keyboard, striking the keys with such force as to harm the blocky letters, had they any feeling.

            ‘Last night was amazing!’

            The cursor blinked repeatedly in shock.

            ‘I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for your hands to caress me like that –‘

            The ergonomic chair which, for so many years, had devoutly and delicately embraced Claudia’s lady parts, groaned and creaked in jealous rage.

            From the top of Claudia’s precisely parted hair, to the harshly ironed lines of her grey slacks, to the nude stiletto pumps that ever so slightly crossed from work appropriate to sexy, Claudia was the epitome of propriety – bordering on prudish. Today, however, Claudia’s eyeliner was smudged, her lips bereft of their usual plum lipstick, her hair unkempt and she was, shocking to any who would notice, wearing the same outfit as yesterday. One of her nude pumps lay deserted at the corner of her cubicle, having been discarded and left for dead when Claudia stormed in earlier. It lay, cockeyed and dusty, in no man’s land. A hole in the toe of Claudia’s panty hose had spread, shearing through the thin fabric, meandering up an unshaven calf to linger tenuously on the curve of her knee.

WRITING BOOT CAMP - Day 3

* Not sure if it's super rude to upload this incomplete - - but I haven't been able to finish and need to move on to Day 4. So, I'm asking...

How would you end it?

Day 3: Mystery Cookie

One Day you come into work and find a cookie mysteriously placed on your desk. Grateful

to whoever left this anonymous cookie, you eat it. The next morning you come in and find

another cookie. This continues for months until one Day a different object is left—and this

time there’s a note.

            Jon placed his briefcase down on his desk with his usual huff. The train ride that morning had been exceptionally annoying, more so than he was used to. A young mother with a new baby had sat next to him and he knew from that moment on, it was going to be a terrible day. Not that he had anything against women, but babies – seriously? The thought of them gave him the heebie-jeebies. He just couldn’t understand what would possess a person to want to make one of those.

            Jonathon C. Turner never intentionally grew into the cynical, hard man that he was. He simply always had been. Growing up as a morose only child to two middle-class-average parents, he quickly gave off the impression that he was twice his age starting as young as 4. He showed no interest in the usual toys and games that young children adore and his parents were flabbergasted to say the least. He quickly moved through high school flying under the radar as a loner, and as soon as he graduated and had the keys of his new car in hand from his father, he was gone. A phone call once a year at Christmas was the only contact his parents had with him.

            Now, middle aged, unmarried and working as an in house lawyer for what was nationally renowned for being the most insidious bank in America, he was quite content with his life. He had no for a girlfriend or commitment – whenever he needed sex he was quite capable of finding it from one of the girls hovering around the local bars. He had no need for family – the space in his heart that had once held a place for loved ones had grown as cold and barren as his city apartment. He had no need for friends – the social communication he engaged in courtrooms and in the law office were satisfactory enough for him.

            He didn’t know it yet, but this was the start of something new and terrifying.

            On his desk, sitting amongst its’ own crumbs, was a chocolate chip cookie.

            Jon looked about his office in consternation, as if hoping the culprit would be close by. Finding no trace of forced entry or foul play, he returned to the place on his desk where the strange cookie resided. It seemed normal enough, if finding a chocolate chip cookie on your desk in the middle of the morning was normal.

            Jon tentatively took a bite out of the corner and instantly recoiled at the taste. Spitting out what was in his mouth into the stainless steel trashcan beside his desk, he regarded the cookie with mild horror a second time. Something did indeed seem strange about it, upon closer inspection. It seemed, almost, fibrous. Jon broke another piece off and was horrified to find a host of black beetles, dead and with tiny black legs upright and erect, black backs shiny and brown like so many chocolate chips.

-          -

Jon was consumed. Initial emails sent to his fellow employees demanding to know the explanation behind this ‘prank’ turned up fruitless. When similar cookies showed up on his desk for the rest of the days that week, Jon was beside himself with righteous anger. Even though he purchased a camcorder and placed it in his office the cookies continued to show up at different times during the day with no footage of the perpetrator caught.

Jon would visit the bathroom and upon returning, a cookie.

Jon would place a telephone call and when he swiveled his chair around, a cookie.

Jon would open up his notebook in a meeting with clients and there nestled inside, a cookie.

He didn’t know it yet, but this was driving him mad.

Weeks past and Jon could hardly focus on anything other than the mystery of these bug-infested cookies. He regretted throwing away the cookies in the first few weeks, since he now meticulously combed through them for any hint or clue of who was behind this. The cookies, he found, contained different specimens of insects in each one.

In one, bess beetles. In another, blacklegged ticks, carpenter ants, centipedes, click beetles, daddy long leg spiders, dragonflies, ear mites, grasshoppers, crickets, leaf insects, Parnassian butterflies, sphinx moths, termites – Jon’s list of insects grew daily. He filled notebooks with clues and leads that constantly turned up futile. He began to keep specimens of the inedible treats – hoping that somewhere therein he would crack the code.

WRITING BOOT CAMP - Day 2

Day #2: The One That Got Away

You bump into an ex-lover on Valentine’s Day – the one whom you often call “The One That Got Away”. What happens?

            Kelly Sanchez was all about the ‘usual’. Usual coffee, usual route to work, usual lunch break, usual life. Nearly everything about her life was predictable and safe, right down to the mousey brown color of her hair and her meticulous selection of clothing – dark wash jeans, white t-shirt and navy blazer. Everything you’d expect from a 20-something, successful, smart, attractive young woman living in the city. Everything was usual about that day. Except, of course, when she ran into Kevin outside of a Source Adult Video Store.

            Let’s go back a bit. She wasn’t inside the adult video store. In fact, since her daily walk to work passed her by the glaring eyesore, she usually opted to cross the street and walk on the opposite side of the street, crossing back over again when she was safely past the sexual recreation depot. On this day, however, she was running late. A predicament that she hardly found herself in, being a punctual and prideful person, yet was caused by a late night at the bar with her good friend, Christina. Kelly had one too many of her favorite Tootsie Roll cocktail – a mixture of Root Beer and Kahlua – and as a result, slept past her alarm clock by an entire 10 minutes.

            To explain Kevin, in a nutshell, would be to describe a pseudo-Italian hipster complete with slouchy toque, skinny jeans, long board, grubby beard and glasses so large and so obviously lacking lenses one would wonder as to their purpose. Kevin personified hipster in a way that few other teenie-bopping 14 year olds could hardly grasp. They thought it was all about the look. For Kevin, it was a way of life. He proudly boycotted corporations, sneered at mass consumerism, worshipped indie-rock and took a stand for animal rights. He ate vegan and dressed dumpster. Relationship wise, Kevin wasn’t necessarily what you would call the crowning jewel to gush to your parents about.

            Kelly and Kevin met at a vegan brunch restaurant called ‘The Starving Artist’. At the time, Kevin was into Kelly and made it very obvious. Kelly, on the other hand, had made an automatic decision that she later began to regret. She turned him down. She saw him as he was, unemployed, unshowered, unattractive. After she made it very clear to him that she would have nothing to do with him, he had shrugged and good-naturedly bid her ‘adieu’. No, seriously, he said “Addio, dolce signora.” Maybe it was the halting Italian accent, maybe it was the indifference to her rejection, but Kelly immediately regretted her decision. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

            She had tried fruitlessly to track him down, but having nothing but a name and a vague description that matched nearly 10,000 teenage boys in the metropolitan area, her search came up empty. She vowed, buzzed on Tootsie Roll martinis, that she would never love again.

            What Kelly was experiencing was akin to can’t-have-it-so-you-desperately-want-it syndrome. It’s a common condition many young women suffer from. For a lack of options, women tend to regress to any prior love-interest, regardless of any glaring faux pas’. This is a safe resort to facing the music and accepting solitude. 

            Kevin was constantly the name uttered on her lips, and her friends soon grew tired of trying to make her see the obvious and simply rolled their eyes whenever it came up. They had hoped that the sheer impossibility of the two ever meeting again would render Kelly’s poor judgment skills null and hence, not worth worrying about.

            Yet when Kelly saw Kevin outside of that adult video store, her heart swooned and soared. She forgot all about being punctual, all about work and all about the extensive list of reasons her and Kevin were just not a good match.

 His oversized glasses suddenly made his eyes look large and dreamy.

His slouchy toque no doubt covered a rich head full of creamy brown locks.

His skinny jeans contoured the strong calves of his legs, obviously toned from mountain hikes to watch the sunrise.

His beard had a rugged, Brad Pitt look-a-like feel. His scent, just as manly and rugged.

Kelly stopped in her tracks while watching in dull amazement as he turned down the opposite street and walked away, whistling The Sex Pistols, his recently purchased plastic black bag swinging as if it contained nothing more than a harmless stuffed teddy bear. Oblivious to the sparks so carelessly shooting from Kelly’s eyes, Kevin walked in and out of Kelly’s life yet again and just as swiftly as before.

That day, Kelly entered into a resolve. She would wait every morning outside of the adult video store and await her love.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lucky for Kelly, she didn’t need to wait long. Her friends hardly had time to break the spell that held her so viciously in its’ grasp. A few mornings later, whistling the same irritating tune – yet, somehow melodious to Kelly’s ears – Kevin exited the adult video store in the company of yet another plastic black bag.

Kelly’s heart thumped inside her chest – the moment was now, the moment she had been waiting for all her life – she was about to meet her true love and confess the love which she had for him. No doubt, he would confess the same and would carry her off to live a simple, uncomplicated life together in the country. He would feed her organic grapes, serenade her with his ukulele in his awe-inspiring Italian accent, and grow a little garden patch in his back yard.

“K-k-kevin?” Kelly ventured tenuously.

Kevin swung about nervously, clearly perturbed at being caught in a personal, weekly ritual. He eyed Kelly up and down and uttered a, “Yeah?”

“I’m in love with you!” Kelly blurted out.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Uh…” Kevin looked perplexed. “Do I know you, lady?”

“It’s Kelly! From brunch – the other day? Well, it wasn’t the other day it was actually three months ago but of course you remember I was eating eggs benedict and you said how much you liked eggs benny I’ve never heard anybody call it that it was sooo funny you are so funny Kevin anyway you asked me out and I was so stupid back then and I was going through some stuff at work and whatever but that doesn’t matter because I realized my mistake and that I love you!” 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Eyeing her up once more, Kevin slid over to her smoothly. “Ah, si, dolce signora, I remember.” He swung his arm around her shoulders and caressed her cheek. 

Kelly’s nose registered the pungent odor of him as he led her down the street. ‘I just caught him at a bad time,’ Kelly justified to herself, ‘I’m hardly at my best in the morning! Wait – is that egg in his beard? Omg, what is that stain on his shirt?” Kevin offered her to share an earbud with him – she could already hear the blaring indie-punk rock music blaring from the headphones – and she politely refused, mildly horrified.

 “Hey, wanna head back to my place and watch this movie I just bought?”

What had seemed like a good idea at the time had, actually, been a horrible idea in reality.