By Marilyn FriedmanHappy New Year! I just returned from the winter wonderland of Idyllwild for a mini writing retreat of my own so I am finally posting your last prompt of the year. Comments received after Sunday, January 2nd will qualify for the January/February comment contest. Also, make sure to start 2011 off right with these fantastic classes and events. Call 323-333-2954 to RSVP before they are full!
Events:
- How To Be A Writer Who Writes (Featuring Judy Reeves - Fri. Jan. 7)
- Reading at Stories Books (Featuring Jason Flores-Williams and Marilyn Friedman - Sat. Jan. 8)
- Write Your Novel This Year (Featuring Ernessa T. Carter, Ron Koertge, Attica Locke and Janelle Brown - Fri., Jan. 14)
Jan. One Day Classes:
- Mini Writing Staycation with Judy Reeves (Jan. 8-9)
- Flavorful Fiction and Mouth-watering Memoir (Sat., Jan. 8)
- Delicious Details, Tantalizing Truths (Sat., Jan. 8)
- Work-shopping Session (Sun., Jan. 9)
- Into The Deep: Go Below The Surface of Your Writing (Sun., Jan. 9)
- It's All About You: One-Person Solo Show Workshop--1 Day (Thurs., Jan. 13)
- And You Thought Your Family Was F@&ked Up: Developing Compelling Characters From Real Life (ONLINE--Wk of Jan. 17)
- You--Abbreviated and Fascinating: Delicious Personal Essays (Sun., Jan. 23)
- So You Want To Be A Writer (Wed. p.m., Fri. a.m., Sat. a.m.'s)
- Finishing School (Wed. p.m., Fri. a.m., Sat. a.m.'s)
- Your Life On The Silver Screen (Tues. p.m.'s)
- It's All About You: One-Person Solo Show Workshop--4 wk (Thurs. p.m.'s)
- Your Name In Print: Get Your Work Published (Sun. a.m.'s)
Writing Prompt: Make a list of five New Year's resolutions for yourself or a character from your project. Pick one the resolutions and add a sensory detail to it (smell, taste, sound, touch, sight). Write about it for 10 minutes and then post the results in the comments of this blog!Comment on this blog! What are your New Year's resolutions? Post your 10 minute write in the comments, and you could win a free class!
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5 comments:
For the second year in a row, it's my New Year’s resolution to learn how to rap. It started in high school, when I was hired to play keyboards and sing in between numbers at the dance show. I wanted to rap "Pump Up The Jam," and Alex, the drummer in my mini-girl band, said that I couldn’t because I was too white and my voice was as high pitched as a cat mewing for milk. So I just sang the “I want . . . a place to stay” part, and have been seething on the inside ever since.
I want to turn my drabble to lyrics unflappable. It’s the next place that my poetry needs to go. I want to be good, like Eminem or Queen Latifah. Every time I tell someone that I want to learn how to rap, they laugh at me. But I’ll show them, and Alexi! I’ll slap those bitches ‘side their heads with rhymes so fine they go blind!
I’ve been listening to the Old School Hip Hop radio station in my Prius all year long. I wrote one silly rap about ex-boyfriends. I found a website that has rap lyrics. Now, I just have to hunker down and decipher the form—how to imitate, penetrate, obliterate. So here goes: feel free to laugh. My next mini-rap will be as clumsy as a first kiss between two brace faces:
They call me Biscotti
Jewish girl bougee
Watch my striptease of simile
I’m the fosterer of creativity
Biscotti’s in da house
The ultimate juggler
Of words and numbers
A Facebook Twitter bumbler
My name’s Biscotti
Next year I will rise
My rhymes you will idolize
New Years resolutions, hopes, dreams 2011
After 22 years of mothering, almost 23 if you include pregnancy, I am making this year about me, center stage. Boldly, I will sell my home and allow my acquired intuition to guide me to my next step. Maybe it will even attract a happy family to fall in love with my exceptional home, willing to pay handsomely. I see new avenues opening up to me as I step out of this life designed to raise and foster two other amazing people. Now I turn those same skills toward the creation of my present life. I calmly step away, watching simultaneously with elation and clenched-teeth as my newly adult children make their own decisions. I take my next cautious step into the center of the stage, where it seems I will have to write the play, learn my lines and perform this intriguing piece. I invent the rest of the characters, the local of the scenes, the direction, purpose and wait for it to play out. Here on center stage, excited, I enter the dialogue.
I wake up in the morning at 6am. Open the drapes, and sit on the floor facing the sun, piercing through the window. I do this for fifteen minutes, meditating if you will. After my morning zen I make a cup of coffee, boiling plenty of water for a few cups should I need an extra jolt. Grab my favorite mug, ample enough to hold a serious amount of joe. Pour a tablespoon of half and half cream, stir, and head to my desk. I begin to journal--free writing--dreams, ideas, thoughts, annoyances, fears, to dos, goals, grocery lists, emptying the necessary voices from my head for fifteen minutes or so. After the purging I open my laptop to where I left my cursor the morning before and begin once again, but today is different from yesterday, and tomorrow will be more than today. My soul strengthens and warms with each new word, sentence, paragraph because I see the steady progress, and my deliberate practice is working. Although its for an hour most mornings--sometimes two--there's movement, and development, and I know in my bones this daily practice will take care of me.
My resolution to get to the gym "like I used to" was sorely tested this morning. Rain tapped on the window, aiding and abetting my alarm as it twittered me in to consciousness at 5:00 a.m. I was gripped with the urge to punch this innocent inanimate object. It was only the messenger as the me of last night so very deliberately told the alarm I needed to be awakened this early. The sleeping me, still wheeling clear of a dream about going on stage with no rehearsal and no idea what my lines were, wasn't so exuberant about waking up.
The second time the alarm went off, after catching a 9 minute snooze, the room was still dark and cold, but my mind was a little more in tune with consciousness. I could fathom making a decision. Should I stay tucked until this puffy comforter of blue and white flowers, snoring husband at my back and fat cat wedged against my feet, or should I get up, brave the pre-dawn chill and sally forth? After a short debate between the sleeping devil and the Richard Simmons angel, I decided to sally.
Sleeping is lovely and cozy, but not on my list of things resolved. Item 3 is to get my ass smaller and smoothed of the hail-damage cellulite. That requires up and at 'em. Today is the first day of the rest of this week. Hopefully, my resolve will continue to be the more persuasive voice and determination won't fail me. I'll find out tomorrow at 5:00 a.m.
My New Years Resolution is to get back on a horse. How ten years have slipped by and not one saddle sore to speak of is beyond me. Sure, a full time job then motherhood have played a role, but the old saying, "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a wo/man" is ringing in my head.
I miss the smell, the hot snorts on my cheeks and the general feeling of wellness riding through the local Manzanita. Maybe it will help me write?
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