Hi it’s Christina –
Happy Thursday morning all!
Inadvertently I took a page out of a far greater book than I will ever be able
to write, for on the seventh day I rested, as far as the blog went at least.
Yesterday I needed to take my mother for an early morning medical procedure
(she’s fine), followed immediately by helping a friend who needed to be moved
out of her house yesterday, followed immediately by Wednesday Writer’s
Workshop. By the time I got home last night, the last thing on my mind was the
blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this, but quite frankly…I was pooped!
I almost didn’t go to WWW because
I was so tired, but I’m glad I did, because just like last week, I felt
energized when I left. As predicted, the ebb and flow did alter attendance last
night from the previous week. Keith and Joe were not there, but I got to meet
JoAnne who I’m pretty sure enjoys writing plays, she has a dry tongue in cheek
sense of humor and I know I’m going to like her. Mary, a breathtakingly
beautiful woman who blew me away when she said she was sixty, who is writing a
memoir - she gave us little informal bits and pieces of her story and I think
it will be a fascinating story when it is finished. Sue, who will be leaving on
a 200 mile trek through Wales with her husband and then writing about it; and
finally Debbie, who is going through a messy time in her life and is finding an
inner strength she never knew she had through writing. AND (yes, I started a
sentence with a conjunction), I swallowed my embarrassment at not hearing
properly the first night and asked Sangita (not Agita like I thought last week)
for her actual name. Remember how I said last week she was one of those people
who looked somewhere between 25 – 35, well last night she looked barely 19, so
now I’m really confused. The one sad thing about last night, Beth, our Grand
Pooba, announced the WWW will dissolve at the end of June. She will be moving
on to bigger and better endeavors. I spent some extra time chatting with her
last night after everyone left and I felt much better about the group
disbanding so soon after I found it. I will simply find another group (or start
one with help) and I will just keep Beth as a friend. WWW may have introduced
us, but we have so much in common and I thoroughly enjoy her company, it would be
ludicrous not to continue the friendship past June!
Anyway, on to Tuesday’s assignment and the Day 7 …hmmm… or should I call
it Day 8 Challenge? Would it be confusing to call it Day 8 when it was only the
7th challenge? No, I wasn’t labeling the challenge numbers, I was
labeling the days, so it will be the Day 8 Challenge. (Aren’t you just so glad
I wrote all that out…still on my first cup of coffee, sorry.) Day 6 Challenge
was:
You are house hunting and the realtor has brought you to an old, needs some
serious TLC, Victorian. As you wander the home, you see it has definite
possibilities, and then you open a set of French doors…
I stared at the Victorian from the street, not holding out much hope I
would fall in love with it and make it my home, because quite frankly, from
this angle, it looked like it came off the set of a “B” rated horror film,
complete with broken shutters hanging askew. I trotted reluctantly in the
Realtors wake and tuned her out as she blathered on about the house needing
just a little TLC to make it wonderful. SQUEEK, went the front steps as I
climbed. CREEK, went the front door as it groaned open to a cavernous foyer
sporting a, you guessed it, dusty chandelier. I literally did an eye-roll when
I noticed the drop cloth covered furniture and thought, all this place needs is
a menacing dude walking down the stairs with a bloody axe and it would be just
perfect. At least, the home held no sense of dread. It was just old and weary
and unloved.
At this point, the Realtor’s chattering was becoming as annoying as
being pecked to death by a chicken so I wondered away, taking time to actually
look at the house. An amazing river stone fireplace caught my eye and I headed
toward it, even through the dust you could see the varying colors. It would be
the room’s focal point when cleaned, light from its fire reflecting on the
polished wide planked floors. My eyes traveled around the room, no longer
seeing the dust and the hard work it would take to make this place livable, but
seeing the craftsmanship in the crown molding and the woodwork, picturing a
future Christmas tree placed prominently in front of the bay window. OK, so
this dinosaur had some potential, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, so
I wandered on through room after room, coming to the back of the house where I
was met with shuttered French doors. Curiosity getting the better of me, I
peeked inside, pause to register what I saw, then threw the doors open wide and
simply stood there in awe. I was Dorothy opening the doors to Munchkin Land for
the first time. Never in a million years would I have imagined this house
sported the most breathtaking gardens I had ever seen. Trellises with fragrant
wisteria created an archway to
Dang, I was on a roll. I could really see the house, felt like I was
really there. I may have to save this one for inspiration on a future novel. 10
minutes was definitely not enough for me on this one, but as I said before,
it’s a writing exercise, not meant to be an entire story. So onto the Day 8
Challenge:
You’re eating an ice cream cone. I have never had, nor will I ever be
able to have one, so let me live vicariously through you and please describe it
to me. (For the record, I love ice cream; this is just a writing exercise and
not a true scenario.)
You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write.
Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what
someone else has written. Go.
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