Writing: We laughed, we cried, and we chose between the lesser of two evils.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post
Today's writers group was oddly gory.
This, of course, was not the intention.
I shared some of my writing from a few years back on this blog, and a few members of our group dug up some of their old writing, back when they were in high school.
Bill's selection was a report he'd written on embalming. The report was both well-written and very detailed and suddenly my hot chocolate just didn't seem to taste so great. Throughout the rest of the meeting, in both off-topic discussion and in written exercise, the theme of blood and gore seemed to pop up in the strangest places. I'm not sure the other patrons of the coffee shop, if they could hear us in the back room, appreciated it.
The writing assignment from the last meeting, however, brought us back to the lighter side of things. John's short essay involved two hilarious neighbors, a plum tree and dog crap; he had the entire group laughing and he was laughing so much that at times he couldn't read. I told him to post what he'd written in the comments section here on this blog, so we'll see if he does. (Hint, hint).
Our 10-minute writing exercise for today's meeting was to write about a character who must choose between the lesser of two evils, a prompt taken from The Writer's Block: 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination by Jason Rekulak.
As always, I'll include my efforts. I'd love to hear from others who try it.
Right or Left
by Julie R. Neidlinger
Right or left? The choice was too much. He paused.
Left or right, right or left.
If I go right I'll have to deal with the left, he thought. And if I go left, the right won't leave me alone.
He picked up the number two pencil again, tapping it against his lips. Just one circle was all he had to commit to.
Going right had it's appealing benefits, there was no doubt in his mind. But left? There were unions on the left.
The pencil felt heavy in his hand; he wished it would make the choice for him.
The sound of metal rings scraping along a curtain bar brought him out of his stupor.
I must decide, and soon! he thought frantically. If only he weren't from North Dakota. This wouldn't be an issue, this free choice that haunted him.
Left or right.
He placed the pencil on the paper and wrote in Daffy Duck. His ballot was complete. He was free to go.
Assignment: Your homework, should you decide to accept it, is to write a mini-mystery between 500 and 1200 words. I got this idea from a book I bought this week called 100 Malicious Little Mysteries where all the mysteries are one or two pages in length and great for when you have just a tiny bit of time to catch some reading. This assignment will be a tough challenge; writing a good mystery with few words sounds difficult. So have at it!
Labels: writer's group, writing, writing prompts
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 1/14/2006 02:46:00 PM
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2 Comments:
Charlie turned into his driveway after a long hard day at the office and immediately slammed on the brakes. His neighbor’s dog had done a dump in his driveway again – the third time in a week. Charlie got out of his car muttering “No more Mr. Nice Guy,” to himself, scooped the dog crap up with a snow shovel, carried it over to the neighbor’s back door and dumped it on his steps..
A half hour later Charlie’s neighbor, Roger, arrived home, glanced at his mail, and then walked through the house and out the back door to turn on the lawn sprinkler. When he stepped on the dog crap – he could hardly have missed it – his legs flew out from under him, and he landed flat on his back on the sidewalk.
Now Roger was no Einstein, but it didn’t take him long to figure out how the dog crap had ended up on his back step. Charlie’s snow shovel was leaning against Charlie’s garage wall in plain side, with a tell-tale smear on the shiny aluminum.
“Two can play that game,” Roger cried, as he limped over to Charlie’s garage and borrowed his step ladder and hand saw. Charlie’s plum tree overhung the fence between their back yards and for years Roger had been raking up the rotten plums that fell into his yard without saying a word. ‘Just being a good neighbor’, he called it.
Roger positioned the step ladder beneath Charlie’s plum tree, climbed up, and began sawing off every branch that overhung the fence.
He was nearly finished when Charlie came tearing out of his house. By then the plum tree looked like a giant Brachiosaurus had eaten away a third of it. Charlie charged the step ladder, waving his arms and screaming like a wild man.
Roger, who had been standing on the very top of the step ladder to reach the highest branches, lost his balance and did a backward somersault, fracturing two ribs and an ankle when he hit the ground.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” he yelled, and swung the saw at Charlie. Charlie tried to jump out of the way, tripped over the ladder, and took a header into Roger’s barbecue pit, throwing his back out and opening a gash on his forehead.
Ten minutes later Charlie and Roger were on their way to the hospital, lying on opposite cots in the same ambulance. Before they had gone half a dozen blocks, the female attendant decided she had learned enough new words for one days and stuck her fingers in her ears.
By 
, at
January 18, 2006 3:52 PM
Thanks for posting your story, John!
It just makes me laugh.
By 
Julie, at
January 19, 2006 1:10 PM
