from lizshine.blogspot.com:
Prompt for the week of Oct 15-21
Research week! If you're doing nano, make a list of topics that you could know more about regarding your novel idea. Place the story is set? Main characters profession or hobby? Research all the things on that list. Post here what you researched and how many pages of notes you took.
***
1. List of Topics I Could Know More About
Regarding my Novel Idea:
Artificial Intelligence
Milton's "Paradise Lost"
Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther"
Cloning
Electricity
Stem Cell Research
Anatomy
2. Place the Story is Set?
Either the Pacific Northwest
or
A Remote Area of Alaska.
Probably both.
3. Main Character's Profession or Hobby
Dishwasher (profession)
Cooking (hobby)
16 October 2007
15 July 2007
Body Image Prompt
Annika didn't have a body image problem, because she didn't have a single body image. What she had were several fragments, several pieces of body images--if they could rightly be called that--that intersected at various curves and points. They were all part of her, but no single one could ever be a true image of her self.
When she was a girl, Annika kept the secret of these fragments. The other girls around her knew exactly who they were and what they were here for, even if it changed from day to day. She was never sure. In fact, most of the time she felt like a visitor here. Not quite alien, but not quite a native. She suspected there was nothing wrong with her, or the other girls, but that she could see something no one else could. She could see the fragile, slipping, shifting segments of souls.
Annika didn't tell anyone. Until she was fifteen. Until she had her first real kiss. Until she felt safe enough to tell someone things weren't quite what they seemed.
Something happens when we kiss someone. Sometimes it's disgust, for the other person, or ourselves. Sometimes it's a rocket-rush of pleasure. Sometimes, and this is how it was this first time, this first kiss, with this person, for Annika, sometimes it is out of this world. She dug her fingers into the worn fabric of the sofa, clutching for something, anything, to ground her to earth, to keep her holding on.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Fine."
"You sure? You look a million miles away."
"I'm fine. It's just. Well. Um, do you ever feel like you might come apart?" she asked him. He would have laughed but for the sincerity in her clear, steady eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Just sometimes do you feel like if you don't hold on tight, all the million pieces of yourself might up and fly away?"
"Kiss me again."
Annika kissed him. The feeling had passed. With relief, and a tinge of disappointment, she let go of the couch and put her fingers in his hair. It was thick hair, and cut short so that it resembled the bristles of a hairbrush, but it was not without softness. It smelled like soap. And something else. Something sweet. Strawberries at the beach. Or the folds of a baby's ear. Or the particles of air in some barely remembered meadow far, far away.
When she was a girl, Annika kept the secret of these fragments. The other girls around her knew exactly who they were and what they were here for, even if it changed from day to day. She was never sure. In fact, most of the time she felt like a visitor here. Not quite alien, but not quite a native. She suspected there was nothing wrong with her, or the other girls, but that she could see something no one else could. She could see the fragile, slipping, shifting segments of souls.
Annika didn't tell anyone. Until she was fifteen. Until she had her first real kiss. Until she felt safe enough to tell someone things weren't quite what they seemed.
Something happens when we kiss someone. Sometimes it's disgust, for the other person, or ourselves. Sometimes it's a rocket-rush of pleasure. Sometimes, and this is how it was this first time, this first kiss, with this person, for Annika, sometimes it is out of this world. She dug her fingers into the worn fabric of the sofa, clutching for something, anything, to ground her to earth, to keep her holding on.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Fine."
"You sure? You look a million miles away."
"I'm fine. It's just. Well. Um, do you ever feel like you might come apart?" she asked him. He would have laughed but for the sincerity in her clear, steady eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Just sometimes do you feel like if you don't hold on tight, all the million pieces of yourself might up and fly away?"
"Kiss me again."
Annika kissed him. The feeling had passed. With relief, and a tinge of disappointment, she let go of the couch and put her fingers in his hair. It was thick hair, and cut short so that it resembled the bristles of a hairbrush, but it was not without softness. It smelled like soap. And something else. Something sweet. Strawberries at the beach. Or the folds of a baby's ear. Or the particles of air in some barely remembered meadow far, far away.
02 July 2007
Liz's Fireworks Prompt
ROMAN CANDLE
There are summers where I feel young, where the sun slips through the branches and lands on several blades of grass, where a butterfly is flitting across the clover, wings fluttering. A sad sort of happiness springs up inside me, awe at being alive, a glimmer of what life means. This isn't one of those summers.
I feel old. I feel like the Roman candle purchased by a little boy at the local fireworks stand. It's the first time he gets to light his own firework, with help from Dad, and he's excited. They set the Roman candle in the large block of concrete. They aim it away from the house, toward the stars. Dad lets him light the wick all by himself. They run away. The little boy squeals. He jumps, elated. Then stands very still, watching, waiting. The wick burns slowly. The flame moves down through the tube. Smoke gurgles out. And then nothing. No pyrotechnic star shoots from the tube, like a bullet from a gun. It's a dud.
This summer has no charge. It's heavy. And slow. I wander from place to place, trying to fill in the gaps of being awake with little things. Washing dishes. Watering roses. Weeding through e-mails. Looking for little wonders in the blades of overgrown grass.
There are summers where I feel young, where the sun slips through the branches and lands on several blades of grass, where a butterfly is flitting across the clover, wings fluttering. A sad sort of happiness springs up inside me, awe at being alive, a glimmer of what life means. This isn't one of those summers.
I feel old. I feel like the Roman candle purchased by a little boy at the local fireworks stand. It's the first time he gets to light his own firework, with help from Dad, and he's excited. They set the Roman candle in the large block of concrete. They aim it away from the house, toward the stars. Dad lets him light the wick all by himself. They run away. The little boy squeals. He jumps, elated. Then stands very still, watching, waiting. The wick burns slowly. The flame moves down through the tube. Smoke gurgles out. And then nothing. No pyrotechnic star shoots from the tube, like a bullet from a gun. It's a dud.
This summer has no charge. It's heavy. And slow. I wander from place to place, trying to fill in the gaps of being awake with little things. Washing dishes. Watering roses. Weeding through e-mails. Looking for little wonders in the blades of overgrown grass.
14 June 2007
Surf Buddha
Surf Buddha
by Matthew Lippman
There is a sandalwood Buddha on the desk that has my stomach
and I don't suppose to call myself a Buddha
or even pretend to know much about Buddhist whirlings
but Rachel gave me the thing and it's got my belly
the one my father has got
and the one his father had
and I know this bulge the way I know my name,
and can't believe I've become the language of fat
that the boys in my family have kept quiet.
So I encourage my stomach out into the world,
rub it on a daily basis and think
that if I ever become a religious man
there would be god and glory to find there,
my rib cage distended,
my love of ice cream as sweet as my love of Rachel
who put the Buddha in my palm a month after we met and said, have this,
and I said, I already have this,
my hands in motion around my belly button and then today
noticed for the first time that the little bastard has got some serious nipples on him,
thank god, and breasts too,
he's the perfect kind of godlike statuette
even if I am a Jew
but the days have been glorious and people die in truck crashes
and men beat their wives and flowers bloom purple
and the cardinal I've named Jack always comes around my way at this time,
4:40 in Baldwin on the Island,
Wes Montgomery on the Sony
and I don't know if it's his song Cariba or the wind on my swollen toes
that makes me pick up the little guy, stick him in my mouth,
swirl him around between teeth and cheek,
place him on the edge of my tongue and let him surf there,
through the neighborhood of my white heat,
on the curl of my pink waves.
by Matthew Lippman
There is a sandalwood Buddha on the desk that has my stomach
and I don't suppose to call myself a Buddha
or even pretend to know much about Buddhist whirlings
but Rachel gave me the thing and it's got my belly
the one my father has got
and the one his father had
and I know this bulge the way I know my name,
and can't believe I've become the language of fat
that the boys in my family have kept quiet.
So I encourage my stomach out into the world,
rub it on a daily basis and think
that if I ever become a religious man
there would be god and glory to find there,
my rib cage distended,
my love of ice cream as sweet as my love of Rachel
who put the Buddha in my palm a month after we met and said, have this,
and I said, I already have this,
my hands in motion around my belly button and then today
noticed for the first time that the little bastard has got some serious nipples on him,
thank god, and breasts too,
he's the perfect kind of godlike statuette
even if I am a Jew
but the days have been glorious and people die in truck crashes
and men beat their wives and flowers bloom purple
and the cardinal I've named Jack always comes around my way at this time,
4:40 in Baldwin on the Island,
Wes Montgomery on the Sony
and I don't know if it's his song Cariba or the wind on my swollen toes
that makes me pick up the little guy, stick him in my mouth,
swirl him around between teeth and cheek,
place him on the edge of my tongue and let him surf there,
through the neighborhood of my white heat,
on the curl of my pink waves.
29 May 2007
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman
I finished The Troublesome Offspring... last night. I enjoyed immensely, even more so than Correlli's Mandolin (which is saying a lot).
I read some lame review of it at the NYTimes on the Web site that concluded with, "What we have here is the age-old fight between good and evil. Which is which? Taking more than a page from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who has obviously taught him a great deal), Mr. de Bernieres, who has lived and worked in Colombia, comes down hard on the side of good times and fornication. Along with the buffoonery and the wildly comic inventions, he tells us that there is simply no institution we can trust. The message of this wondrous novel is: Leave us alone and we'll manage. Not only that, we'll probably have a lot of fun along the way."
Yeah, okay, I can see that, on the surface. But this is magical realism we're talking about here. You can't just say, "What we have here is the age-old fight between good and evil." Cut. Dried. Pat answer. This is a story about The Other, or in this case The Others. Weird People. Amazing people who must make sense of the less-than-amazing world some of us live in and its less-than-amazing government.
-----------I'm not done here...I'll be back---------------
Okay, I'm almost done with "Good Omens" now and I realize I'm never gonna say everything I want to say in this post. But let me say this, I'm so tired of reading generic reviews of books that could apply to just about any compelling novel. Not only does it do an incredible disservice to the reader, it slights the author and banalizes the characters.
Oh, and one more thing..."Mr. de Bernieres, who has lived and worked in Colombia, comes down hard on the side of good times and fornication. Along with the buffoonery and the wildly comic inventions, he tells us that there is simply no institution we can trust." Well, duh. When was the last time you read a great novel that was on the side of the government, the establishment, the institution? When was the last time you read a great novel that sincerely put trust in the government, the establishment, the institution? When was the last time you read a great novel that said, "You know what? The bold (replace adjective with any of the following: bohemian, adventurous, etcetera) life should be replaces with one more rigorous (replace adjective with any of the following: structured, status quo, etcetera)? Of course the author was against the rules and silly crusading of the government and the religious do-gooders! Geez!
Bottom line, this is a great book. Read it.
I read some lame review of it at the NYTimes on the Web site that concluded with, "What we have here is the age-old fight between good and evil. Which is which? Taking more than a page from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who has obviously taught him a great deal), Mr. de Bernieres, who has lived and worked in Colombia, comes down hard on the side of good times and fornication. Along with the buffoonery and the wildly comic inventions, he tells us that there is simply no institution we can trust. The message of this wondrous novel is: Leave us alone and we'll manage. Not only that, we'll probably have a lot of fun along the way."
Yeah, okay, I can see that, on the surface. But this is magical realism we're talking about here. You can't just say, "What we have here is the age-old fight between good and evil." Cut. Dried. Pat answer. This is a story about The Other, or in this case The Others. Weird People. Amazing people who must make sense of the less-than-amazing world some of us live in and its less-than-amazing government.
-----------I'm not done here...I'll be back---------------
Okay, I'm almost done with "Good Omens" now and I realize I'm never gonna say everything I want to say in this post. But let me say this, I'm so tired of reading generic reviews of books that could apply to just about any compelling novel. Not only does it do an incredible disservice to the reader, it slights the author and banalizes the characters.
Oh, and one more thing..."Mr. de Bernieres, who has lived and worked in Colombia, comes down hard on the side of good times and fornication. Along with the buffoonery and the wildly comic inventions, he tells us that there is simply no institution we can trust." Well, duh. When was the last time you read a great novel that was on the side of the government, the establishment, the institution? When was the last time you read a great novel that sincerely put trust in the government, the establishment, the institution? When was the last time you read a great novel that said, "You know what? The bold (replace adjective with any of the following: bohemian, adventurous, etcetera) life should be replaces with one more rigorous (replace adjective with any of the following: structured, status quo, etcetera)? Of course the author was against the rules and silly crusading of the government and the religious do-gooders! Geez!
Bottom line, this is a great book. Read it.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm just finishing up Louis de Berniere's The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman and getting ready to start Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman...
26 May 2007
21 May Writing Prompt
ROADMAP
I drew a roadmap for peace
complete with oceans and valleys,
mountains and streams,
even pine trees in miniature,
their needles no larger than a rosemary leaf.
I made a house for me,
well-built, wearing modest grey-blue,
but inside things turned--
the way things always do--
and the roadmap for peace
struck a blow.
First it was the cat,
I named him Ink because
he rubbed himself against me
in long, fluid strokes.
When I bent to pet him
he purred and seemed content--
until I turned my back--
and then he pounced on the bread dough,
he scared away the birds,
and when I went to erase him
he nearly flew across the room
where he landed, claws first, upon my back.
And then there were the books
of every shape and size,
the books I tried endlessly to organize,
but every time I had a method, a plan that seemed just right,
a little voice would whisper yet another way to categorize,
until it was books, books everywhere:
they scattered in piles across the floor,
they took over the kitchen table,
they wound around corners and into my bed.
I decided I could do without books
and I burned a beautiful fire,
but all those books came back as words
that flicker through my mind,
and I find myself reciting whole passages
when I've had a little wine.
But the thing that really ruined
my roadmap for peace
was the thing I never could find,
it wasn't something I put on the map,
it was nothing I could see,
but it lurked in every corner
desperately hungry for me.
I tried my best to avoid it,
I plugged my ears
and closed my eyes,
I tiptoed even in the daytime
and tried to make no sound at all,
but eventually it found me--
the way it always does--
when I forgot to watch for it
and smiled at a rose.
It sunk it's teeth in slowly
so I scarcely felt the pain,
by the time I knew it had me
there was no escape.
That thing, it fed upon me
until I finally gave up,
and I admit I begged it to finish me
as quickly as it could,
but it dropped me quick from its drooling jaws
and left me broken on the ground.
And now I'm re-drawing
a roadmap for peace,
maybe this time I'll get it just right,
because when the dark thing
makes its way onto my map--
the way it always does--
it will show no mercy to me
and have no regard for love,
and I will have to fight it,
human against beast,
and I know the odds are not on my side,
but this latest roadmap is full of hope
and hope can turn the tide.
I drew a roadmap for peace
complete with oceans and valleys,
mountains and streams,
even pine trees in miniature,
their needles no larger than a rosemary leaf.
I made a house for me,
well-built, wearing modest grey-blue,
but inside things turned--
the way things always do--
and the roadmap for peace
struck a blow.
First it was the cat,
I named him Ink because
he rubbed himself against me
in long, fluid strokes.
When I bent to pet him
he purred and seemed content--
until I turned my back--
and then he pounced on the bread dough,
he scared away the birds,
and when I went to erase him
he nearly flew across the room
where he landed, claws first, upon my back.
And then there were the books
of every shape and size,
the books I tried endlessly to organize,
but every time I had a method, a plan that seemed just right,
a little voice would whisper yet another way to categorize,
until it was books, books everywhere:
they scattered in piles across the floor,
they took over the kitchen table,
they wound around corners and into my bed.
I decided I could do without books
and I burned a beautiful fire,
but all those books came back as words
that flicker through my mind,
and I find myself reciting whole passages
when I've had a little wine.
But the thing that really ruined
my roadmap for peace
was the thing I never could find,
it wasn't something I put on the map,
it was nothing I could see,
but it lurked in every corner
desperately hungry for me.
I tried my best to avoid it,
I plugged my ears
and closed my eyes,
I tiptoed even in the daytime
and tried to make no sound at all,
but eventually it found me--
the way it always does--
when I forgot to watch for it
and smiled at a rose.
It sunk it's teeth in slowly
so I scarcely felt the pain,
by the time I knew it had me
there was no escape.
That thing, it fed upon me
until I finally gave up,
and I admit I begged it to finish me
as quickly as it could,
but it dropped me quick from its drooling jaws
and left me broken on the ground.
And now I'm re-drawing
a roadmap for peace,
maybe this time I'll get it just right,
because when the dark thing
makes its way onto my map--
the way it always does--
it will show no mercy to me
and have no regard for love,
and I will have to fight it,
human against beast,
and I know the odds are not on my side,
but this latest roadmap is full of hope
and hope can turn the tide.
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