I did not like this exercise. It's been done too often! However, I had promised to produce something by Monday and here it is, slapdash as it may be. The next exercise is:

Think about a family gathering, a holiday, a birthday, a funeral. Write about that gathering in the first person from the point of view of a child.

The ceaseless movement of the dinghy had stopped bothering her. In fact, the rhythmic rocking had soothed her. Marguerite no longer held out any hope that they would be rescued. The eternal darkness that she was in because of her blindness lessened somewhat when it was daylight and she realized another day had arrived. Her fingers felt the notches in the wooden slat that made up part of a short ladder. They had been adrift for thirty days. Marguerite picked up her nail file, and sawed back and forth until a new dent noted another day. It was only then that she thought of her companion.
Robert had grown increasingly quiet over the last few days, and she said, tentatively,
"Robert?"
"What?" he growled.
Shocked, she realized he was very close to her--too close. She put out her arm. When her hand found him, he jerked away from her and the boat rocked more quickly.
"What were you doing?" she asked, her voice quavering.
"Nothing," he said. "I was watching you mark the wood. What's the point of marking how long we have been here? There's hardly any food left and you know we are both going to die."
"We don't know that. We might still be found. It happens."
"We haven't seen any sign of a ship for at least two weeks. We have probably drifted out of the common sea lanes."
Marguerite did not answer. She was remembering the events of a month ago. They had been on a four-master, on a birthday cruise for her friend, Shirley. Shirley had invited five of her very best friends and their significant others. Marguerite was a kind of tagalong. They felt sorry for her because of her blindess and Shirley had tacked her on at the very last minute. How she wished she had not come.
Shirley had brought along the latest boys' band combo. They were on the verge of becoming the next overnight sensation, and she had been able to get them in a lull between gigs. They obviously thought they were going to have a free vacation, but it was their damn drug taking that got them in this mess. They were freebasing in the hold, using the cook's torch to warm the spoon. Someone had dropped it and their music books had caught fire. Instead of staying to put out the fire, Robert and the others had panicked and run for the gangway. The fire got too much of a hold and they had all abandoned ship.
Marguerite, unable to see, had been swept up by someone in the general confusion, and put into this dinghy. She had counted the thuds as eleven others had landed on the thick rubbery bottom of the boat, and then listened to the confused shouting, smelling the acrid smoke, and holding tightly to the ropes on the side. She kept very still in all the madness, trying to make herself as small and out of the way as she could.
The members of the band had all managed to get into this one dinghy. She was the only woman and the others were passengers. One of them had been badly burned and soon had succumbed to his injuries. A band member, deprived of his drugs, had slipped into dementia and thrown himself overboard about the third day, quickly followed by another trying to save him. They were quickly separated from the boat, and their cries grown fainter and fainter. There was no attempt to organize their supplies, and soon it was everyone for himself. One man, thirstier than the rest scooped a tin mug of sea water and drank it. She heard him raving, and then suddenly the dinghy rocked wildly, his screaming was cut off by a gulp, and she heard him not more. A fight had broken out, and Robert, with a hatchet in his hand, had covered her body with his own. She crouched down in the bottom of the boat, with her fingers in her ears, while the dinghy lurched and rocked from the melee within it. She must have lost consciousness. When she was aware again, she and Robert were the only ones left. From the nature of his silence when she asked what had happened, she decided to say no more.
That was some time ago, and she knew there was no more food left. They had been able to rig up a canvas to collect rain water, but that was running out. Robert had stopped talking to her a few days ago, and the incident this morning had made her scared of him. She felt the boat respond to a sudden movement. Instinctively, the slat in her hand, she raised her arms above her and ducked to one side. There was a swish of air and she realized that Robert had rushed past her. The slat was pulled out of her hand. She heard a splash, and then the boat rocking. Stretching her along side of the boat, she found the slat, and then the connecting chain. Robert's booted foot was entangled in the ladder, and he was hanging upside down over the edge of the dinghy. He was struggling to get his head out of the water and get back into the boat. Instead of helping him, she drew as far away from him as she could, and waited until the sounds died away and all was calm again.

Ready to go

I just got back from the UK, and Dover, NH, where I enjoyed meeting up with former colleagues. Had a great time, but still have not completed my third assignment from Susan Green's book. I have given myself a deadline of next Monday.

Welcome to new followers. Great to have you here.

Welcome to two new followers: Barbara and Kristi. I realise that I don't post as often as I should. The truth is, I am trying to write the next assignment about the two people left in the boat and decide who is to die. Very difficult for me to conceive it. I keep starting and trashing what I have written. Then, life gets busy.

What am I saying? Life is busy for everyone. In fact, I think back to my mother's life and remember how she was able to relax and just be in the moment. I have got too many irons in the fire and love to read too much. Just got Kathleen Norris's latest book, Acedie and Me. It's giving me lots to think about. That laziness I am afflicted with, is it really acedemie?

Thanks to all you followers.

Welcome to four wonderful followers to my blog! Jenny, Teresa, KiwiPoet, and Frenchy! I am still learning the diameters of blogging. I found out that I cannot cut and paste a document from Word into my blog. If there is any way to do this I would appreciate learning it.

I know that Jenny is taking part in the writing exercises from The Fiction Class by Susan Green. We are on the third exercise right now. I hope the others will too. I am open for feedback.

How many of you have blogs? I would love to start following you, too.

I forgot to post the next assignment. Here it is:

This is an exercise in learning how to write a climactic scene.

A boat sinks during a storm, and only ten of its passengers make it onto the lifeboat. One by one the survivors are knocked off until. after a month at sea, only two survivors are left. There is not enough food for both of them, and one of them is going to have to get rid of the other. One of them is a teenage girl who is very strong for her age, but she is blind. The other is a musician from a successful boys' band. He is twenty-six years old and smaller than the girl. Who will survive? Write the final scene.

Well, I haven't got anyone interested in joining me in this venture with The Fiction Class yet. The last assignment was to choose someone from history and write a description of them eating a meal. I hope everyone knows about Lady Isabella Bird and her travels in the Rocky Mountains in 1872, before Colorado won statehood. She is a very interesting Victorian lady who, when she was at home in England, was always ailing. She got her doctor to agree that travel would be beneficial for her health and traveled extensively. She wrote books about her travels, and they are worth reading. So, my story is about her, as follows:



It seemed to Isabella that they would never stop riding. The sun was beginning to set and she swayed, trance-like, in the saddle. The Western saddle, with the high horn in front, kept her securely in place. Much better than the English saddle she was used to, with the precarious sidesaddle. She was glad she had decided to defy convention and ride astride, even though it bunch up her crinoline, and chafed the inside of her legs. She had been tempted to war the old pair of overalls that Jim had offered, but then remembered the lawsuit she had files against The Times for saying she dressed like a man. However uncomfortable it was, she was determined not to forsake her feminine clothing.
When she had first met Jim Nugent, his harsh face and eye patch had discomfited her. And his reputation had not been too good. However, the owner of the trading post had assured her that he was the best guide around. Once she had grown used to his appearance and his rough ways, he had proved every bit as good as she had been told. But she wished he would stop riding.
As if he had heard her thoughts, Jim stopped suddenly, and Isabella's horse did a neat, little sidestep, nearly unseating her. Now that it seemed as though the trek was over, she perked up and looked around. The shadows were growing longer and she realized how hungry she was. They were in a clearning bordering a lake that sparkled under the lowering sun. Pine trees, and the occasional clump of quivering aspen, interested with granite boulders, surrounded the lake. A fish jumped and, just as quickly, dropped with a soft splash into the water.
Jim dismounted, then came over to help her. As her feet touched the ground, her knees buckled, and his arms tightened around her. She could not resist leaning against him. Her previous life, dull and predictable, with her sister and father in England, was a faraway dream. She never felt more alive and well than when she was traveling. She straightened up, and walked stiffly over to a fallen tree trunk, where she sat down. Jim took the horses over to the lake, where they drank noisily.
Jim gathered wood and quickly got a fire going. It was beginning to get cold. He handed her a piece of jerky. At first, she had not liked its tough stringiness, but she had become used to it, and she knew it might take a while before they ate. He took his fishing line from the saddlebag and walked around the lake, away from the horses. Chewing slowly, she stared dreamily at her surroundings, only getting up now and then to add more wood to the fire from the stack of wood Jim had gathered.
Jim hollered, and she smiled. They would eat tonight. Isabella got up and fell into their usual routine. She filled the batterend tin coffee pot from the lake, threw some coffee grounds from Jim's pack into the top, and balanced it on the glowing edge of the fire. The sun suddenly went down behind the mountains, and it was dark when he came into the firelight. The Rocky Mountain trout hanging from his line flashed silver as he walked into the clearing. He had already cleaned them, and he skewered them on a peeled twig and balanced them carefully over the flames.

While they were cooking, he got out his sourdough starter, flour and salt. He mixed up some dough and rolled it into a long strip. He wrapped it around another peeled stick, and propped it over the fire. He led the horses away from the water and hobbled them some distance from the fire. She could hear the lazy crunching of their teeth and they lipped at the grass.

They ate the simple meal in a companionable silence, broken only by the sound of the wind soughing in the trees, and the lapping of water. She thought of banquets she had attended in England, and gladly traded them for this meal under the Colorado sky. She studied Jim's face in the firelight. The shifting shadows made it difficult to see the patch over his eye. His face had become familiar to her now, and dear in every outline. He was a man that many women would love, but no sane woman would marry. She knee she was safe in his hands, and smiled at him across the fire, nursing the remains of her coffee in the tin mug.

Her father and sister would be horrified if they could see her now, but she had never felt more alive. Tomorrow they would continue their journey to Estes Park. Her time in the Rocky Mountains was coming to an end. She would have to return to England, although only to finish her book for the publishers. She was already planning her next trip--Japan, perhaps, or the Hindu Kush?

The second writing assignemt from the book The Fiction Class by Susan Breem is:

Think of a person from history who intrigues you. Napoleon? Cleopatra? Martin Luther King?

Write a tw0- to three-page description of that person eating a meal. What would s/he eat? How would s/he eat. What would s/he be thinking about as s/he ate? Would someone be sharing the meal with him or her? What would they talk about?

Remember: Bring your character to life.

Well, here I am again, and I have completed my first assignment. But, before I post it, I have a couple more suggestions.
The first one is to those writers who may want to accompany me on this journey: Buy yourself a copy of The Fiction Class, by Susan Breen, and follow along with the story as we go.
The second is a deadline. The assignments are all to be completed by December 31, 2009.
Here's my first completed exercise. Remember the assignment was to list five obsessions and then write about one of them.

OBSESSIONS

My five obsessions:

1. Gadgets

2. Having the right equipment

3. Perfectionism

4. Books

5. Trying to make everybody understand me.

It was hard to come up with five obsessions. At first, I though: Obsessions? Me? No! Then, I put denial aside and it was not long before I had my completed list. There they are; five perfectly good obsessions. They are not necessarily in their order of importance. I chose the second to write about.

The first true skill I learned was to knit. At the time, in post WWII England, knitting was taught in elementary school. The only accessory needed for knitting was needles and yarn. The school provided both. My brother was also taught this basic skill, but he rebelled against it and deliberately twisted the knitting needles and tangled his yarn. The teacher assigned me to untangling his yarn, and I grew to hate the knitting class, but I enjoyed the knitting and pursued that throughout my life.

The next skill I learned was sewing. I was about nine or ten years old and held in my arms a teddy "bare". I would make him a pair of overalls. I had watched my mother sewing enough to know how to do it. She allowed me to use her sewing machine, a hand-cranked Singer in a shiny, domed box. However, she accompanied this permission with dire threats about what would happen to me if I broke it.

In spite of this, persisted. This was difficult in many respects. The Singer was awkward to use; I had to keep one hand turning the wheel and use the other to guide the fabric under the needle without sewing my leading finger to the project. I was spectacularly unsuccessful some of the time, which certainly sharpened my instincts for self preservation. Things did go wrong occasionally and my fear of what my mother would do made me into a pretty good mechanic. I learned to take that Singer apart and put it together again so that she would never suspect there had been a problem.

That was only one of my problems. This took place a few years after the end of the second World War. Everything was scarce--especially money. I used fabric cut from an old blue shirt, unmatched sewing thread, a blunt needle, and blunt kitchen scissors (the only ones my mother would trust me with). In spite of it all, I finished the trousers and tried them on Teddy. They did not fit. I had not known to cut the pattern pieces in a curve to accommodate a three-dimensional body. With barely enough fabric, I persevered, and managed to produce a pair of trousers that were more successful and Teddy's modesty was preserved.

I continued to sew, eventually making clothes for myself, completely my first summer dress at the age of eleven. But those years of austerity had eaten into my soul, and I became obsessed with the need to have all the right equipment for whatever hobby I undertook. At first it did not take much. I amassed a collection of knitting needles in different sizes, no longer having to hunt around under sofa cushions and in drawers to find a matching pair. I filled a sewing box with whole packets of needles, a rainbow of embroidery threads, two pairs of scissors and a thimble sized just for me. And eventually, my own sewing machine. In fact, more than one sewing machine, as sewing machines were exchanged many times, each one better and able to do more than the one before.

As my hobbies grew, so did my needs. I became a hooker, making hooked rugs. I needed a frame and a strip cutter, and of course, blades of different widths for different rugs. I collected wool fabric, and learned how to dye it. I owned several rughooks, having to try out quite a few before I found the one best suited to my hand. Then, if I made a latch hook rug, it meant a different kind of rughook and many tries to find the best, and a gadget that would mechanically cut yarn to the needed lengths. And books on How To Do It. My obsessions began to overlap.

My most recent hobby is quilting. My book obsessions also contribut to this, and I have a huge selection of quilting books (to go along with my hooking books). In addition, I have several rotary cutters, many rulers of differing lengths and sizes. My stash is overwhelming and I have six pairs of scissors and so many pins I could make a herd of hedgehogs. And three sewing machines. Actually, I have four sewing machines, but recently put one up for sale. I just recently traded in a perfectly good sewing machine for one that has more bells and whistles. It cost more than my first car.

Too many sewing machines, too little time. I realize that I cannot take up any new hobbies. During this time, there was one hobby I did not give up and that was writing. And the best thing about writing is that one only needs paper and something to write with, be it pen, pencil, or word processor.

For years I have wanted to be a writer, but somehow other things kept getting in the way. For instance, knitting, reading (especially reading), quilting, sewing, embroidery, etc., etc. Since I am not getting any younger, there may not be too many years left for me to do this. So, I am trying this blog to see if I can jumpstart myself.

My sister is a published writer and poet and I think that gets in my way. But then, any excuse, right?

Recently, she suggested that we read The Fiction Class by Susan Breen. In it, the protagonist, Arabelle Hicks, teaches creative writing to an adult education class and in the process gets to know her difficult mother better. At the end of each chapter is A Writing Assignment.

I am proposing to use this blog to do each writing assignment, and I wonder if there is anyone out there who would care to join me?

So, tomorrow I am going to do the first assignment, which is:

Make a list of your five obsessions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5

Now write a few paragraphs about one of them.

Sheen