Set your timer to 10 minutes and start writing. Your opening sentence should be "The year was flying by, half gone already..."
Remember you can write in any style or format. When you are finished cut and paste your 10 min piece in the comment thread below OR put a link to your own blog or area where you write online.
The year was flying by, half gone already, and what have I achieved? Nothing. What am I even doing in this country anyway? I'm not sure anymore. God it's so depressing. I should stop ranting, it's not helping.
ReplyDeleteBut I was expecting much more when I came here. You know, the wonderful country of respectful people, a lot of adventures, excellent food, and—I'll be honest—a nice Japanese girlfriend. Is it too much to ask? I mean, I am a guy—of course I want a nice girlfriend. She doesn't even have to be super cute. Just someone nice. Who said it's an easy country? It's a bloody lie.
I can't even buy food if I don't have money. This non-working holiday hasn't made me any money. Don't think I'm happy eating gyudon at Yoshinoya every day. I'm French; I care about food. Everybody says that my crepes are excellent. The other day, my friend brought this chick here so I cooked some crepes and she liked it. She said, 'this is the best crepe I've ever had.' Well maybe she was just being polite. But she was so nice! When I asked her number she seemed more than glad to give it to me. Then why hasn't she replied yet?
I really should stop ranting and start doing something. Maybe I should start going out again. I haven't gone out for ages. I mean, if you have this super-fast internet connection, why bother? I can have a 'decent social life' hanging out online and talk to people. Well OK, I didn't really mean I had a decent social life; I was just being sarcastic.
Well, I guess I'll go back to sleep again. Maybe things will be better tomorrow.
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ReplyDeleteThe year was flying by, half gone already. Her wrinkles disappeared, as they had last year, and the year before last. Because it wasn't as dry as it was in the winter, she'd say, when I voiced my wonder like an annual ritual. She wasn't that type of women obsessed with looking young. How she managed to remain wrinkle-free was a mystery to me and her and our friends.
ReplyDelete"But I don't look young," she said. "You never say I look young."
"You said you don't like looking young," I said. "You do look young, as a matter of fact. But I know you don't like me saying you do."
"No, I don't," she said. "And I don't look young. You're just being nice."
"You do."
"How young?"
"You look thirty-five."
"See?" she chuckled. "In fact, my skin is less wrinkled than it was in my twenties, but I never look twenty-seven anymore."
"More wrinkled? Why?"
"Broken heart. Lots of alcohol. Lots of sex. Little sleep. But I still looked somewhere between twenty-five and twenty-nine."
I gazed at her glossy cheeks. "Why do you think you don't look that young anymore?" I said.
"The years," she said, tilting her head a little. "I can't hide the years hovering behind me. That's why I don't like looking young."
Oops...accidentally deleted the first one. sorry. kaori
ReplyDelete"The year was flying by, half gone already..."
ReplyDeleteI heard the flapping of the wings and felt the sudden hot air pushing down on me from above. Plastic bags and paper trash and one bent umbrella fluttered down the road. Looking up, I saw a dragon the size and the color of a stealth jet swooping down on the city.
“Mother fucking year,” I muttered and raced into the nearest building. Swerving between innocent civilians who had not even noticed the year flying by. I bumped into several, eliciting groans and curses in my wake.
The elevator door was closed, so I ran up the concrete stairway, expanding my stride so as to ascend three steps in each stride. My heart pounding, yelling at me to stop. I ignored it, though, and kept moving upward. Through open windows, I could see the year gliding back and forth down the main throughway of my beloved town.
The locked door slowed me down, but I pulled out my pistol and shot a few rounds around the knob and pushed my way through the cracked wood.
I ran onto the top of the skyscraper and sought the year flying just below cloud level. When I thought it was possible, I leapt outward and fell a few stories down straight onto its back.
I rolled in a judo move as I hit its iron-like scaly back. The move took up much of the impact, but my right shoulder still felt as if a bulldozer had ran into it. Dizzily, I ran straight along its long narrow neck that curved upward, reminding me of a coconut tree.
It bellowed with rage and smoke that smelled like a pile of tires on fire enveloped me. I grabbed the horns and shot straight into where its brain should be, but nothing happened even though I expended all of my ammunition.
Damn, this year will not get me I thought and plunged my pen through each eye. The year tumbled downward toward the edge of the world. It bounced and I was flung off its back before it went over the side. My fingers found a crack in the cliff and I managed to hang on even though at least two were definitely out of joint.
My other hand found a steady hold and I pulled myself over the edge. Gasping with breath, I heard the chirping of a new year. It jumped up and down a few feet away from me. It was a bright and green, the size of a small robin, but with every second it was growing larger.
I decided to go way out of my comfort zone, and start writing romance from a female POV:
ReplyDeleteThe year was flying by, half gone already. Ophelia wondered if he would ever get round to asking her, or showing her any more than the meaningless courtesies they exchanged when they were out hunting. The sight of his trim body, clad in hunting pink as he bestrode his horse, made her heart flutter every time they pursued the baying hounds.
She remembered the New Year's Ball at the Huntingford-Barkers' - how they had danced together. At first, his arm around her had shied away from her bare flesh, exposed by the backless gown she had been wearing for the occasion, but by the end of that wonderful evening, his hand had come to rest firmly but lightly, caressing her as they danced the final waltz of the evening together. And then the pressure of his hand in hers as they formed the circle for "Auld Lang Syne". Even after nearly six months, these memories of him were as strong as they had been immediately afterwards.
Why, oh why, did he not make a move towards her, instead of making eyes at that stupid Helena, who couldn't even ride for toffee, and whose only attraction seemed to be her golden curls? She had been told by her mother that nice girls should not be "forward". But was she really a nice girl? she asked herself as she lay in bed, half-asleep. Maybe it was time for her to stop being nice. She wondered what would happen if she took hold of his hand while they were out with the hounds one day, and then fell asleep, with this happy dream in her mind.
The year was flying by, half gone already. That was somehow depressing, and that didn't make any sense. She'd met all her targets and not made any errors of any significance. Jun seemed happy with her work, which meant that Section Chief Watanabe probably was too. A couple more years and she'd make Team Leader. Maybe even less. Few people had aced the academy quite as convincingly as she had.
ReplyDeleteSo things were looking good, but each time she told herself that she could almost hear her voice crack under the weight of its own falsehood. Held at bay by her own pride and fear, there was always the whisper: "What is wrong with me?"