By Sophia Kercher
With Halloween swiftly approaching, I am reminded of scandalous costumes and October debauchery! For instance, once in college, I dressed up in a très sexy French maid costume and drank such potent vodka-laced cocktails that I passed out at my apartment and didn't even make it to the Halloween party. I bet that you have some great tales to tell. Unlock your wildest stories at our upcoming Taboo Tales Workshop. Published writer and Taboo Tales co-producer Laurenne Sala will teach you how to mix dirty secrets with hilarious details to create an irresistible piece for one of LA's hottest storytelling shows (or any other literary variety show).
Let us help you spill your zany tales at our exciting line-up of October and November classes:
Start 10/23 - 10/31:
•From Snoozeville to Sizzletown: Crafting A Page Turner
•I Would Never Do That: A Taboo Tales Workshop
Writing Prompt: Here's a writing prompt inspired by our upcoming Taboo Tales Workshop. Make a list 5 things that you've done (or a fictional character has done) that are scandalous or embarassing. Pick one and and write a scene in which you (or your) character are caught doing that scandalous thing.
For example, I'm going to write about my character Grace who at the age of 13, gets caught smoking cigarettes that she stole from her Uncle.
Comment on this blog! Write about getting caught in a a scandalous act! Post your juicy 10 minute write in the comments, and you could win a free class!
With Halloween swiftly approaching, I am reminded of scandalous costumes and October debauchery! For instance, once in college, I dressed up in a très sexy French maid costume and drank such potent vodka-laced cocktails that I passed out at my apartment and didn't even make it to the Halloween party. I bet that you have some great tales to tell. Unlock your wildest stories at our upcoming Taboo Tales Workshop. Published writer and Taboo Tales co-producer Laurenne Sala will teach you how to mix dirty secrets with hilarious details to create an irresistible piece for one of LA's hottest storytelling shows (or any other literary variety show).
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Start 10/23 - 10/31:
•From Snoozeville to Sizzletown: Crafting A Page Turner
•I Would Never Do That: A Taboo Tales Workshop
Start in November:
•So You Want To Be A Writer?/Finishing School
•You In 1200 Words: Writing and Publishing The Personal Essay
•Short and Sweet: The Art of The Short Story •So You Want To Be A Writer?/Finishing School
•You In 1200 Words: Writing and Publishing The Personal Essay
•Writing A Pilot That Can Fly
•Speedwriting: Getting It Down Fast and Clean
•Writing Reboot: Rescuing Your Crashed Creation
•Period Piece Power: Crafting A Historical Masterpiece
•Be A Troublemaker! Mastering The Art of Conflict
•Speedwriting: Getting It Down Fast and Clean
•Writing Reboot: Rescuing Your Crashed Creation
•Period Piece Power: Crafting A Historical Masterpiece
•Be A Troublemaker! Mastering The Art of Conflict
Writing Prompt: Here's a writing prompt inspired by our upcoming Taboo Tales Workshop. Make a list 5 things that you've done (or a fictional character has done) that are scandalous or embarassing. Pick one and and write a scene in which you (or your) character are caught doing that scandalous thing.
For example, I'm going to write about my character Grace who at the age of 13, gets caught smoking cigarettes that she stole from her Uncle.
Comment on this blog! Write about getting caught in a a scandalous act! Post your juicy 10 minute write in the comments, and you could win a free class!
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3 comments:
I am never scandalous. I am polite, considered, considerate, responsible. But when I was 19, I flirted with scandalous. Actually, when I was 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22, I flirted with scandalous. It was always when a boy was involved. In the name of passion, I crossed the line.
When I was 19 I had a best friend. Now she’s a stylist in New York City – currently styling a Chinese Vogue shoot. Then she was an undergrad at BU. I looked up to her. She’s a year older than I. She is half Cuban, half French. Her father (Cuban) is a Dartmouth and Harvard grad, architect and painter. He’s been featured in art shows from Miami to LA. Her mother designed accessories for Christian Dior in Paris before marrying my friend’s father and moving to Boston.
Once Adriana hit puberty she took a liking to Latin men – I guess we all – to a degree – seek out our father. She had a special flirtation with a guy 8 years older than we who was Italian by way of Argentina. He was extremely smooth – extremely sexy – dark, tall, perfect build. His family lived in Buenos Aires and had a ranch a few hours away – where he played polo with his friends. He knew how to make a girl fall completely and totally into smittenness. My friend was mildly smitten – I was mildly smitten.
Enter Marco’s friend Gregorio, visiting from Argentina. Gregorio was 6’4” – taller than Marco - had blond wavy hair – was tan, lean and muscled – gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Ridiculously gorgeous. Worthy of the name Adonis gorgeous. I thought, hm…
Three days after Gregorio arrived in Boston, we four gathered at Adriana’s house for a spaghetti dinner, and then we crammed into Marco’s teeny 13-year-old maroon Toyota to drive to Lansdowne – to Venus – the club that let us in with our fake IDs.
I wore a black camisole, jeans and heels.
Marco and Adriana went to the bar to get drinks. Gregorio and I stood by the podiums, where you could get up and dance once you got loose enough.
I’d drunk half a bottle of Aquavit, taken from my parents’ liquor closet, before coming out. I was loose enough. Gregorio leaned into me, I into him. Soon his knee was between my legs and my knee between his – that dirty dancing move that was just the way you danced with someone back then – maybe now, too. And we stayed that way all night long – and it was warm, and Gregorio started sweating – and the little drops of salty water dripped off his forehead onto mine – and onto my shoulders, and onto my dress – making little water marks. And Adriana and Marco looked on – at the sweat that was covering Gregorio and me. But it didn’t matter. I braved his sweat, willingly – for that little bit of Argentinian polo player – for three hours of close proximity to that gorgeous, reality-defying face and body.
***This is for my fictional piece.
****Troy’s hands are warm on my stomach and I ease into the warmth of his touch as they grasp my waist and pull me closer. The smell of bleach and onions are everywhere on him and soon they are on me too. The wet warmth of his lips on my neck sends shocks of electricity down my veins. My heart remembers learns how to beat, beating hard enough to make up for the years of sitting still. It pounds in my ears, my chest, my fingers, my lips. I am not only blind but deaf to anything other than the beating of my heart and I kiss him back.
When he pulls back, my lips begin to search for his but the sharp pulling on my right ear shocks me back into reality. "You are steeped in sin," Daddy says as he drags me to his car. My neck and lips tingle from Troy's kiss as we drive home in silence. When he exits the car in front of our house and walks way disgusted, I do not blame him. In my few seconds of solitude, I close my eyes and enjoy in the remaining warmth of Troy's touch and I know that in that moment Daddy is right. I am filled with sin. And it feels awesome.
The blue water pistol caught my eye in the supermarket. I could see it now - me sitting in class, cool, like the bald cowboy in the movie my dad watched on TV this past Sunday afternoon. Something about seven cowboys helping out a village.
The water pistol was small enough to fit in my pocket, and I made my way through the aisles of the store behind my mom and the shopping cart. She'd ask me to pick up cereal boxes from shelves near the floor or to help her with the large bags of rice or potato sacks. My water pistol was waiting to be used. I could see it squirting a nice stream of water onto an unsuspecting cousin or a friend at school. It could end up in the toy closet or in the drawer of a teacher's desk if I was foolish enough. But I was like the bald cowboy - Dad said he's named Yul Brynner - and I was to play it cool and only squirt the water pistol when absolutely necessary.
I walked home with Mom and we carried the groceries, a bag in each hand. She carried the bag of rice and I carried the potato sack. Once we got home and put the food away I showed her my prize.
"Look what I got," I said.
"Where'd you get that?"
"From Shur-Sav. I think some kid left it there." I did think that, but Mom knew the water pistol was in too good a shape to have been left behind by a careless kid.
"Did it have a price tag?"
"No." Wait. Something was up. I didn't like Mom's tone of stare.
"Then that means you shoplifted, Max," she said. "You better not do that again, oiste?"
"Si," I said, defeated. Sorry, Yul Brynner, I could never be as cool as you with the water pistol. It was Mom's now.
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