Nov 12, 2014

TWS Weekly Wednesday Writing Challenge 11.12.14

Set your timer to 10 minutes and start writing. Your opening sentence should be 

"He believed in ritual and routine..." 

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.

5 comments:

  1. "Wake up and smell the poutine, she said. RIGHT NOW!

    He groaned, and through the mungy funky grok of hangover agony he tried to process her words. He didn’t smell any poutine, and he wouldn’t have eaten it anyway, of if he had, he could nt have kept it down. Even the thought of water made him nauseous. He closed his eyes to shield them from the photonic assault of the morning sun. Or was that moonlight, blinding him, searing his retinas, his cerebral cortex, his very limbic system He opened them again — closing them made him dizzy, a dangerous vertigo that could, he thought, by centrifugal force alone, drag his stomach contents out of him and douse the walls with them.

    He wondered if she’d meant Vladimir Poutine, president of russia, and a man with, it must be admitted, a particular tang all his own. He wondered if he had the spelling or pronunciation right. But why would vlad be here, in his house, bringing his eye-watering stank with him? It made no sense, he reasoned. Vlad was much more thoughtful than that, too considerate to inflict his power on someone in this state.

    Which was which one? He sudden realized he didn’t know where he was or where he’d been recently. Or who was demanding he smell things so insistently. Or how he knew so much about the president of russia. Or who he was. Or what. He raised a hand. It was covered in hair, and at the end of it, instead of the familiar liver spot-dotted hands and properly manicured fingernails, was a hoof.

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    Replies
    1. kind of scary in a very funny way.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous11:57:00 PM

    He believed in ritual and routine, and I believed in staying in bed until the bars opened, subsisting on whatever delights could be foraged within arm's reach. And so our days would go: he would sleep little and lightly, resentful of my life signs, stacking each breath and wriggle on top of the grudge Jenga. In return, I would lie in, with a vengeance.

    At 5am, he would cease to occupy my space, bursting out of our cocoon to do whatever it was healthy, well-adjusted people liked to do under direct sunlight. When I awoke an unspecified number of hours later, I would wince, stretch my belly out like some kind of ass-backwards feline, then thrust my arms and legs into the corners of the bed, feeling their coolness. Somehow, like this, I got to feel like I was a giant embracing the whole bed. That made me lonely.

    When I felt lonely, I didn't want to get out of bed. So when my phone buzzed, as it always did around this time, I ignored it, to spite him, and because I didn't feel like being seen being lonely, not by him or by anyone else. He would find me by moonlight, aloft on the loving arms of my oldest friend.

    http://carolinehutchinson.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/cablowrimo-ritual-and-routine/

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    Replies
    1. my favorite line is
      "he would sleep little and lightly, resentful of my life signs, stacking each breath and wriggle on top of the grudge Jenga. In return, I would lie in, with a vengeance."

      Delete
  3. He believed in ritual and routine. Why, his current position and every future advancement depended on strict adherence to this core belief. M had no doubt that nothing good came from tolerating unchecked freedom in a chaotic and troublesome world .

    However, much to his disgust, a small nugget of doubt would sometimes take refuge in his thoughts and refuse to depart. Like a long forgotten song from the past resurrecting itself. Just this morning he’d broken out in a cold sweat right in the middle of the weekly conference call on subversive terminations across Corp C’s controlled regions. Important law and order statistics became mixed up with the rantings of cerebral narcissists. Round and round his mental ticker tape circled: 2,348 rounded up and terminated…absolute power…1,400 trapped in city L zone 6… corrupts…1 km block elimination authority granted… absolutely.

    Fortunately, the inner turmoil was short-lived. Don’t worry, mes petits philosophers, I’ll take my time. M smiled at the innocent vulgarity of this delightful put down and dressed for dinner.

    Sixty one minutes later he checked in his locational and biological marker IDs at the ambassador’s residence and took his place at the head of the table.

    All was in order.

    Dinner was a mere formality, an annoyance to dessert that was waiting, all hot and sumptuous, in the lithe form of the ambassador’s consort. He’d arranged for the old goat to be tied up for hours resolving multiple diplomatic and legal hurdles to an agreement he’d already brokered weeks earlier. Getting screwed over was all part of the fun. A thought that excited him no end.

    “Bon appetit, my dear Ambassador. My aides will answer whatever questions you may have this evening. Alas, I cannot stay for long. An important cultural exchange awaits me.” M smiled politely and then emptied his glass in one long satisfying gulp.

    http://markmccluretoday.com/ritual-and-routine

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