Writing exercise

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter's What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, Exercise #1-Beginnings

Write ten of your own opening lines for ten different stories.

• "You're such a cock-sucking, piece-of-shit, prick!"
• I'd never seen anything more grotesque in my life as what I'd laid eyes on that very moment.
• Mr. Walker always said I was a fighter.
• Mrs. Bennet took her time walking up the gentle slope at the foot of the mountain, weaving through the sharp rocks that littered the terrain and keeping on the lookout for critters.
• This was a day just like any other; the kids were broken off into units playing, I was playing my part as silent observer while writing in my journal, and the weather was gearing up to be a scorcher.
• Ellie stared hard at herself in the mirror and for the last time, slid her wedding band off of her finger and slowly, gently laid it on her dresser.
• The pillow was soaked with my tears for all of the drunken men that had shared my bed.
• He found the old plaid cookbook on the top shelf, pulled it down, dusted it off and carefully opened it to page 342, his favorite, upside down pineapple cake.
• As I watched his worldly possessions spiral and tumble to the ground from my third story balcony I was overcome with a calm satisfaction.  I did this.
• Let me just say, for starters, that people with dirty fingernails creep me the fuck out and while I sat in the waiting room of Dr. Wang's office staring down at the absolute filth collected under the fingernails of the child next to me, I felt like the walls were closing in on me.

How did I do?

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#40 List 20 things that annoy me. Pick one and write about it.

1.       When someone wakes up the sleeping baby

2.       Smelly people

3.       Not being able to finish something in the time I have allotted for it

4.       My husband pestering me about sex

5.       People tying the bread bag in a knot

6.       Bad endings in movies

7.       My older son jumping on the bed right next to the baby

8.       Dirty bathrooms

9.       Not being able to find an ingredient in the store

10.   Getting home from a store only to realize that I bought the wrong thing

11.   When I'm tired and the baby won't sleep

12.   People "should-ing" on me

13.   Not having enough money to do what I want, when I want

14.   The speed at which the hair on my legs and bikini area grows back after shaving

15.   Chin hairs

16.   The human race, myself included

17.   Christian's need to spread the word

18.   Customer service reps who don't know the answer but choose to act like they do instead of finding out for sure

19.   When I want to eat something but all the dishes or silverware are dirty

20.   Traffic jams caused by people just slowing down to stare at the mayhem on the other side of the median

We have all been there.  Stuck in a traffic jam, trying to figure out what it is at the end of the long line of cars in front of you.  You swerve over slightly trying to get a better angle to see what the hold up is, as if that is going to make you go any faster.  Maybe it just gives us the peace of knowing so that we may make guesses about how long it will take to get home.  Finally you get to the front and realize that there is actually nothing happening on your side of the median at all but that the entire traffic jam has been caused by people slowing down just to stare at <insert random traffic hold up here> happening on the OTHER side!  As soon as you pass this spectacular event that has occurred on the other side of the road, traffic immediately speeds back up to normal and everyone is back on their way. So annoying!!!!

Wrote my first real short story...

It is a twilight fan fiction short story called The Summer I Met Your Brother.  I the story was written for a Photo-history class I am taking.  We were to pick a photo from the 1800's and write a short story about it.

When I saw this photo I immediately thought of Bella and I knew it was the one.  Anyway, the story is about 4000 words and here is the link if you would like to check it out.  Leave me a review and let me know what you think.


The Summer I Met Your Brother
Short story. Bella tells Alice the story of how she met Edward at camp one summer back when they were just kids.
Twilight - Fiction Rated: T - English - Romance/Friendship - Chapters: 3 - Words: 4173 - Reviews: 3 - Updated: 3-30-11 - Published: 3-29-11

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#161  Write a mini-story (100 to 250 words ) that begins with: "They had nothing to say to each other."


They had nothing to say to each other.  They were both in such shock that while their minds were reeling trying to figure out how, when, and why this had happened to them, they were speechless.  They dumbly stared down at the little baby sleeping peacefully in its hospital bassinet that had just been dropped off in their room by one of the nurses.  Anyone who took one look at the three of them in this room would know that this was not their baby.  There was but one decision to be made.  Do they take this baby--the baby they carried to term, the baby they thought was theirs for the last nine months, the baby that was supposed to be theirs-- and leave the hospital and love him as their own?  Or, do they go down the long, emotionally and physically devastating, legal road and sue the doctors and hospital that somehow implanted the wrong embryo into her uterus.  They finally look at each other and both know that they will choose the former but can only hope that their baby was not out there in the world somewhere unknown to them.

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# 305  List 20 rules you've broken.

20. No lying


19. No staying out after curfew

18. No food or drink

17. No underage drinking


16. No stealing office supplies

15. No shoplifting

14. No drugs

13. No trying on bathing suits without undergarments

12. No letting others use your prescription drugs

11. No sexual harrassment

10. No flip-flops at work

  9. No personal calls on work phones

  8. No sleeping at work

  7. No taking the Lord's name in vain


  6. No paying your rent late

  5. No cheating

  4. No hurting others

  3. No putting gum under your seat

  2. No talking during class

  1. No sex in your parent's bed


 Well this certainly paints a very different picture of someone.  : )

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#97  You wake up, go to the bathroom and look in the mirror.  A different face stares back at you.  Begin your story here.

"What...The...Fuck?" 

I'm staring at what is supposed to be my reflection in the bathroom mirror, but is not.  A series of things seem to happen simultaneously.  My adrenaline shoots off the charts, my heart is beating out of my damn chest, I immediately shut the door, lock it, and look again.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."

It takes me a minutes to realize that I am fucking chanting in here and on my way to hyperventilating.  I sit down on the toilet and force myself to take deep breaths.  I am desperately trying to remember all of those tips and tricks to calm someone down that have been drilled into my head for years.  After a few minutes of supreme focus on this task it is working.  I have calmed down a fraction.

My cognitive "flow" slows down considerably.  I stand up again and walk over to face the mirror hoping that I was having some kind of psychotic episode and it wasn't real.  Nope.  Still not me. 

Fuck! 

Clearly I lost my fucking mind sometime between going to bed last night and coming in here this morning. .  I mentally jog through a few questions.   

Whose face is this?  Do I still have my body or has it changed also?  I quickly pull myself from my reflection and look down at myself.   

Okay...still my body.  Has anyone else noticed?  I thank my lucky stars that my family is still sleeping.   

Okay...think, think, think!  I am hitting myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand pretty damn hard as if I might jar the answer loose. 

Oh! Maybe I accidentally ingested some sort of drug and I am hallucinating!  Maybe it was in something I ate.  Okay, okay I can see how that could happen.  Shit is in the food we eat all the time.  Ya...I must have gotten something from the produce section that had some weird fucking hallucinogen on it. 

I actually start to feel a little better about the situation as I reach this conclusion.  I realize that if I just wait this out then the effects will wear off and my fucking face will be mine again.  I would have never believed that a thought like that would ever be crossing my mind.  If I am, in fact, on some type of drug then I need to go to the ER which means that I am going to have to go in the bedroom and wake up my husband. 

I face the door and look at the knob.  I stand this way for a long time while I try to work up the courage to unlock that mother fucker.  I am about to have that moment.  You know the one.  The one that determines whether I have lost my fucking mind or I am just trippin' on some really crazy shit.  One look from my husband is going to fucking define me.  I take a deep breath and in one fluid and swift movement I open the door and walk into the bedroom.  I kneel down next to my husband at the head of the bed and gently shake him.  He groans and shuts his eyes tighter while trying to shoo me away.  I am so scared by this point that I am close to tears.  I take another deep breath and shake him again.  That one does it.

"What?" he groans, clearly annoyed.  His eyes flutter open a little and he rubs them for a second before really looking at me.  I just stare at him, not breathing, waiting for his reaction. 

"What the hell Abby?"  I squeeze my eyes shut.  I can't see this.

"Go back to bed."  He pulls the covers over his head effectively shutting me out.

 Wait...What?  I rip the covers back off of his head.

"Does my face look funny?" 

That little glimmer of hope is starting to come up in my belly.

"No, leave me alone.  Go back to bed"

He pulls the covers back over his head.  I stand up and for a few seconds the elation that I am not a psycho nut-job builds to a boiling point.  Then, I burst into a silent, happy, jumping, spinning, dance, alternately pumping my fists in the air and swinging my head around.  Once I finish, I kneel down on the floor in front of my husband again.  I know he is going to be pissed that I am bothering him again but I am too happy to care.

"Honey?"

"What...Abby"  Yep, he's pissed.

"You have to take me to the ER.  I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think I may have accidentally ingested some drug on something I ate last night because I am apparently hallucinating."
                                                  *****************

Turns out I was right.  There was a massive recall on lettuce in our area and there had already been about a hundred cases like mine reported within Northeast Florida.  I will never forget that day for as long as I live.  I also will never, and I mean never,  forget to wash my fresh produce again.  :)

previous journal entry gone awry

This started out as a journal post one day but I was feeling creative so while the main story is true I added/changed/omitted things here and there just for shits and giggles.  It was fun and I still got my point across from my original journal entry.


             I am driving home from watching my son play basketball a.k.a. have an all sports free-for-all for toddlers for 45 minutes at the YMCA when I realize that I am getting kind of hungry.  I decide to splurge and go for McDonalds.  As I’m driving over to said establishment I pray to some/any God/s that may or may not exist to let it not be crowded because my truck has no air conditioning and it could easily be 110 degrees inside my vehicle at that moment.  When I think about having to sit in a long-ass, lunch-rush, drive-thru line I have flashes of horror movie scenes where my skin actually starts to melt from my body.  Wouldn’t want that now would we, God?  As I am pulling in I let out a small sigh of relief.  I arrived before the lunch rush.  “YES!” I say to no one in particular.  I must zone out because all of the sudden it is my turn and I am pulling up to the computer screen that may or may not show me what I am actually going to order depending on the competence of the “Drive-Thru Specialist” taking my order.  I panic a little because I have no idea what I want but I try to work it all out in my mind quickly.  I think about a happy meal because the portion sizes are appropriate for an adult and it will be more of a normal calorie count for my splurge but I quickly reject that idea because I remember that they don’t put any veggies on the happy meal burgers.  I scan the menu for a grilled chicken sandwich but it looks like that is unavailable as well.  Could this shit be any unhealthier?  I finally just decide to go with a #2 which is the Quarter Pounder Combo.  I’m asked if I want this medium or large to which I respond medium while marveling at the enormity of what Americans deem perfectly acceptable portion sizes.  I order bottled water for my drink as well as kids chocolate milk because I am kind of in love with chocolate milk.  I pay for my artery clogging, sodium enhanced bag of food and think of nothing more while I drive the rest of the way home.  I pull everything out of the bag and get everything set up.  I sit down in front of it all and actually have the nerve to feel excitement about digging into my splurge meal and then I open the box that contains my sandwich.  --the box that is supposed to contain my bun sporting a thin beef patty piled high with veggies and condiments galore.  What I encounter instead is a giant version of a happy meal cheeseburger.  What the fuck?!  Since when did they stop putting everything on burgers by default?  I didn’t know I had to specifically ask for things to be put ON the sandwich.  I though that people only had to ask for specific things to be taken OFF the sandwich.  So, all hope crushed, I sit staring at what I can now essentially call my “Super Huge Happy Meal”.  The irony is not lost on me that I had clearly decided in that line not to get a Happy Meal, let alone a ginormous one, with no toy to boot!  Well, what the hell?  I start eating the shit anyway.  While I am chowing down I notice that McDonalds has started putting their nutrition labels on all of their packaging.  I clearly love torturing myself so I start tallying up what the damage will be once I am done.  This disappointing experience of a meal has added up to more than 1100 calories.  This is almost half of my daily allowance of calories.  I am lucky I am currently nursing a baby and can eat massive amounts calories or I would be up caloric creek without a paddle.  Once I finish eating, I stare blankly at the table and ponder all of this for a few moments.  I mentally shrug, get up, throw away my trash and head into the bedroom to hang out with my boys.  Fast food sucks!