Continued Object Writing and NaNoWriMo

I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to keep up my daily stints of ten-minute object writes. I haven’t missed a word offered by the website Object Writing since I joined, even though some words gave me no immediate inspiration, power adapter and ladder being two of those. However, I managed to come up with something in the end, and have included both in a small selection of writing below.

Ladder                     Bandwagon                    Bonus

Power Adapter         Bicycle                          The Relatives

As we come up to November I am seriously thinking about taking part in this year’s NaNoWriMo which describes itself as ‘a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing’, and ‘an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world with a goal of writing a 50,000 word novel by 11:59:59, November 30’. 

The NaNoWriMo organisers stress that the writing is more about output than quality, as the approach forces you to ‘lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly’. I think that might be good for me, as I have a tendency to let go of the flow as I become engrossed in researching some minor detail or editing a section endlessly only to end up chopping it out. Forcing myself to write intensely, leaving research to a later date, getting on with the story and just creating could be a good thing. I have no fear of writing complete rubbish. I’m pretty much used to that!

I’m also looking forward to meeting up with local writers and sharing ‘laughably awful yet lengthy prose’ over a glass of something. Though being new to it all, I will have to gird my loins and brave the getting out and meeting people part. I’m hoping that the fact that I keep misreading the face book page ‘Cambridge Wrimos’ as ‘Cambridge Winos’ could foretell good times to come. Watch this space!

Bandwagon

Hop on the bandwagon, leave you own point of view on the step. You don’t need any baggage – the herd will tell you what to wear, who to vote for, when to laugh, how to love. See what’s trending, follow that. Savour the fifty shades of saccharine coated latest fads and never mind the sour underbelly or the rising stench of warmed-up bullshit.

Who cares if you sail blind for a thousand days through indifferent air? Who notices that it’s a bumpy ride, with your jellied spine continuously jostled and jolted by the whims of others? Just wallow in the forlorn knowledge that you are in with the in crowd. Your envy is the perfect shade of green and you can lay all individuality aside as you roll along with the circus parade.

Object Writing 17

Today’s word - ‘Genre’

The dame running the writing workshop sat on the desk, eyeing me up like she knew I’d be trouble, nose wrinkled in distaste at the stench of our collective wannabe desperation.

I stared at her hair, piled so loosely on top of her head that it threatened at any moment to tumble down. It put me in mind of a haystack after the rain.

“You are going to write a detective story in the genre of Mickey Spillane.” She lisped the last name, sending a fine spray of spittle over the front row.

I licked my lips. It was going to be a long, dry hour. My tongue already felt as if it had been baked on a rock somewhere in the Australian outback.

A ringing phone, way off in the distance, dragged my mind away from the blank page in front of me. It screamed at me, disrupting my thoughts like an irritating child in a supermarket queue.

The tutor dame began to tap the desk with her pen, sending staccato bursts of gunfire pelting my brain, creating a spiral of ragged holes through which all ideas fled like water through a colander.

Who the hell was Mickey Spillane?

Object Writing 16

Today’s word –‘Method’

I’m a person of words, not numbers. A hundred creative ideas may, on a good day, flow from brain, down arm, through hand to be delivered, via pen, to my battered notebook, but ask me a maths question and the buzzing begins.

It starts with a click at the back of my head. It is the sound of the last light being switched off on the shop floor before the foreman goes home for the night, but instead of empty silence there is a hum, which increases in crescendo before zipping round with zigzag speed to plant that frisson of fear behind my eyes. My mouth does its impression of the Sahara, with my saliva dammed and diverted, to form a clammy film in the dead centre of both palms.

So today my thirteen year-old niece asks for help with linear equations. She smiles expectantly and has no doubt whatsoever that I’ll be there for her. So I am.

Rusty hinges squeal as a quick Google reintroduces me to long forgotten methods. Thirty-five years of dust makes quite a pile. Sweeping it aside is as strenuous as raking blown leaves from the lawn, but suddenly I am there, in that zone of flying where you can see the whole universe mapped out before you and all you need to do is reach out and pluck the answers, one by one, from silver branches.

An hour later the cinnamon scent of best auntie lingers at the desk and I smile. It is all so much more than maths.

Object Writing 15

Today’s word – ‘Smoke’

Subtitled - Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!

A thick wooden door, painted red, was set at head height in the chimney – a window into a blackened, soot encrusted world. The smokehouse keeper opened it and stepped back as smoke billowed out, puffing the scent of winter churchyards to softly shade the room in grey pencil.

Inside hung row upon row of twin bodies, nails hooked through their eyes, drizzled with minute beads of oil which threaded downwards over exposed spines to hang like crystals from fanned tails. Their amber flesh, caught up in beams of sunlight spilling into the chamber, glistened and shone like pebbles in a stream.

The smokehouse keeper tossed a handful of wood-chips onto the smouldering embers which lay glowing in the hearth, where they hissed and spat before settling down to send taste trapping tendrils of smoke curling and dancing around the dangling fish. 

Object Writing 14

Today’s word – ‘Tube’

Down in the realm of the dead, a withered place of no return, a tunnel stretches into infinity. This feat of urban engineering, a gateway into the world beyond, is air-conditioned by the chill fear of unknowing and swept daily by the trailing rags of the dispossessed.

Standing on the platform’s hard edge, some ancient fear, buried deep, submerged beneath a surface of acceptable behaviour, screams out. Its echo, trapped in the tiled walls, cries “Do not ride this tube.”

Pulsating breezes, followed by vibrations which travel up my spine, turn me about as some invisible hand in the small of my back pushes me towards the escalator and I rise from the deep and step, blinking, into the world of cars, buses and scurrying workers. I breathe deep, inhaling the full life of fumes and dusty streets, and am glad.

Object Writing 13

Today’s word – ‘Band’

Some alchemy had transformed base metal into echoes of crystal raindrops and thousands of glittering bodies swayed to the exotic rhythm of a steel band, allowing the throbbing rumble to permeate their bones. The lime tang of the music quenched thirsty souls and sent them soaring, flying towards paradise on the pulsating Calypso beat. Light ricocheted from the city windows, sending its discharge out in a sequined rainbow, sewn over a hundred tired evenings by loving mothers, who now, with ample hips swaying, reflected the dance in their proud smiles.

Object Writing 12

Today’s word – ‘Fan’

She woke in terror, drenched and fully expecting to find herself outside on the darkened lawn, staring up at heavy clouds dousing her with a pattering of drizzle.

In fact she was in her own bed. She had become a searing fire, crackling and spitting, her skin liquefied in the smelting furnace as serial volcanic eruptions forced millions of tiny needles through her pores.

Trapped by the extreme weight of lightest goose down, she imagined she heard a faint squelching as if her own body’s moisture was being slowly siphoned off and pumped to pool in the folds of her nightgown. Throwing back the covers she made a grab for the fan on her bedside cabinet. As soon as the paper pleats clattered open she set to work with rapid wrist motion, creating a restoring draught that left her skin once more petal fresh and allowed her to sink back into sleep, no more in danger of melting before dawn.

Object Writing 11

Today's Word - 'Simulation'

Press pause. Hold the blurred images in their frozen motion. Reflect on the race run. Remember the feel of pistons pumping day after endless day as you pounded on, charging ahead with a lion’s roar, driving headlong into the fray. You were an efficient machine, agile and fast, a fearless warrior defending your patch, swerving through bureaucracy with silver grace until a screech of brakes saw you stopped in your tracks, blood poisoned by your adrenaline fuelled career path and dragged down beneath those fathomless depths of red tape.

Look back over the crumbled remains of a job well done and rake over the ashes. It’s there for all to see in the black molten tracks and the stench of burning rubber. You rose too fast, aimed too high and were scorched by the effort to steer your path to the top. If you could hit resume and re-run the simulation of your life what changes would you make?

Guided Visualisation

Doing my writing warm-ups, in the form of ten minute object writes, reminded me of a workshop session I ran for a writing group a few years ago and have also used with classes of children to help them explore their use of the senses in creating writing.

We tried something called ‘guided visualisation’, following a series of exercises based around a tray of 15 random objects I had gathered together.

The exercises invited no-pressure, anything-goes writing and the value of them was that each writer brought unique experiences to the object.

Some writers love these prescribed types of exercises, and others hate them.  Whatever your feeling, it’s worth giving it a go once in a while, because sometimes the results can be exhilarating, sending your stream of consciousness into a completely unexpected direction. 

Exercise 1: "Object Tray Game" – Uncover the tray and give 1 minute to try and take in as much information as possible. Write down everything you can remember in as much detail as possible. This is not ‘Kim’s Game’ though, so don’t just try and memorise the objects – you are trying to write details about each object.

Exercise 2: Ten lines – Choose one item from the tray. Look at your item until you are certain you have memorised everything about it. Then put it back and start writing. Do not look at it again until you are certain you have described everything about it in the best detail you can manage.

If you've done a good job of paying attention to detail, you should have no trouble writing ten lines or more on the description of a simple item. If you're having trouble getting that far, take a help card and use the hints.

Help Card

Use these senses – sight, touch, smell – and write whatever occurs to you.

What do you notice about the shadows the object casts?

What does the surface feel like?

What colours is it and what colours/images  are reflected in it?

Are there any marks on the surface? Any signs of wear? Any scars? Any engraving?

If it has several parts, how is it put together?

Replace the object with another. Again, look at the object, hold it in your memory, and write every detail of your chosen object, no matter how minute. When you've finished check to see what you got right, what you got wrong, and what you overlooked entirely.

Exercise 3: Take a picture of a character. I just print some random pictures from a Google image search. Imagine that you're going to have to identify them in a police line-up, or better yet, describe them to a police artist. Take in as much about them as you can in one minute, then put the picture aside and write down as much as you can about the person.

Repeat with another picture.

Exercise 4: Choose an interesting setting that you know quite well – the shopping centre, the park, an old Victorian house. Try and really pay attention to the surroundings. Do your best to notice everything, not just with your sense of sight, but with all your senses.

Exercise 5: You should have a good idea of a person, a place and some objects by now, so put them together to create a scene in which you use everything you observed. Put some action in there. Put dialogue. But your main issue in this exercise is to create an absolutely over-the-top all-senses-engaged presentation of two people and the space they occupy.

Object Writing 10

Today's Word - 'Novice'

Eyes cast downwards, he feasts on the blank sheet, abandons a mumbled prayer to the scrivener’s god, and lets himself wander lost into the white blizzard of wordlessness.

His tapping nib sends a spray of obsidian blobs, footprints of a Lilliputian army, to mar the serene beauty. They must belong to the pacing monks who clutter up the quiet contemplation of his mind’s cloister.

With creative fervour now burning his cheeks, and mindful concentration fluttering his lashes, his hand begins to move. Soon tight grip cramping words give up a line, then two, before self-doubt snags his sleeve. The careful scaffolding is undermined and blocks crash down, thudding about him, scratching out his thoughts. Back and forth black lines scrape grooves. Back and forth rattles the shuttle as the loom weaves the one truth – there will always be days when you are a novice. 

Object Writing 8

Today's Word - 'Danger'

In a deliberate act of spite, she throws a handful of ivory teardrops in my face. Smooth and shiny they scatter their danger all about me and within the space of a few blinks my body reacts. Violence begets violence from the seemingly innocent sesame seeds. My lips grow, plumped up on my body’s own chemicals, to encase my tongue with gripping numbness that slides down my throat to freeze my vocal chords. A thousand grains of sand tingle on the top of my head, sink through my skull and explode like space-dust on my brain. The sheath about my chest tightens and I begin to burn with a bright vermillion flame that licks my arms and neck. Short, sharp breaths become inadequate and my knees concertina. As I fall to the ground I hear scuffling. A hand rifles in my bag and finds my epipen.

Object Writing 7

Today's Word - 'Council'

Moon circle time again. That once monthly torture that is our family council, but today, for a change, I am safe. I have done nothing wrong. Annoyed no-one. Not taken one single step out of line.

Yet she sits opposite me with a smug set to the thin red thread of her lips. She is waiting. Waiting for her turn with the talking stick.

My stomach takes an elevator plunge. What does she know? What will she say once the smooth bone, encased in sky blue beads, is in her hands?

She points the stick like a gun to my head. A vicious shake of it rattles out my death knell, while the turquoise eye of the peacock feather tied to its end winks cheekily. I’m done for.

A fake smile shrouds her intention. Only I know that she intends to beat me with that stick until the cork explodes from my bottled-up problems and I confess the one truth – I don’t belong here.

Object Writing 6

Today's Word - 'Lid'

She licked the salty grit from her lips and placed both hands on the slab. Ten tons of rough hewn granite steadied her trembling fingers as they roamed over the furrowed inscriptions. Strong lines threaded deep and sharp, a tribute to the skill of some ancient stonemason who had once spent his day chink, chinking away with the cold metal of his chisel.

In the ten minutes it took to lift the sarcophagus lid she lived a lifetime, recalling her life’s study to the humming flow of blood washing clean her veins. Each squeal of the pulley, each thud of the counter weight, elongated her anticipation, stretching it taut and plucked in discordant strains. Finally, with a rush of stale air, it was off. Stepping forward she shone her torch down through the rising dust motes of past time.

Object Writing 5

Today's Word - 'Resort'

I stride through the hotel dining room, trying to ignore the invisible pungent force of decaying rat. A woman in sunglasses and large floppy hat nods a toothless smile in my direction. She wears a striped Bedouin tent and from one cavernous sleeve a withered arm extends to wave an egg smeared fork at me. At first I mistake her for the evening entertainment arrived early – drag-queen face caked in full war-paint, but no, she is just one more in a line of ghoulish residents in this resort for the elderly.

As I step onto the poolside terrace the full force of blaring horns from the too near road stretches my nerves on a blue-rinsed rack. The sound would undoubtedly menace the morning sunbathers if it weren’t for the fact that most of them have long since slid into a world of muffled silence, populated with the underwater noise of garbled whale song.

The wealthy remains of a once beautiful person are arranged on the lounger next to mine, bacon crisped skin spilling out between open slats in her red bikini to hang in low slung swags which threaten to drag her down into the afterlife. On one creased thigh sits an inked in butterfly, lying like a crumpled tissue left behind after her free spirit spread its wings and flew away. Suntan cream pools in congealed clumps in the pitted dimples of her stomach and trickles in slug trails to stain the blue cushion on which she slowly fries, slowly dies. Her bony fingers, overpowered by numerous rings, drape lifelessly over her book – Fifty Shades of Grey – an unlikely choice, unless she thought it was about hair styles.  

Four Early Object Writes 1 to 4

Cast

The reek of donkey jackets, damp lanolin overlaid with fish from the wharf-side, jostles me as I push through the warehouse crowd.

I edge to the front of the semi-circle of men and scan their faces, searching for the nod. Dampness creeps through the corduroy as I kneel, scraping the dice into my palm, and reach into my pocket for a coin. I throw a pound into the middle of the semi-circle of grey concrete and a waterfall of clinks follows as coins rain down, metal upon metal, from the players.

I fiddle nervously with the dice, rolling them through my fingers, feeling dark indentations on cold plastic surfaces. My heart begins to race and a faint trace of sweat forms on my upper lip. An odd mix of fear and hope surges through my veins.

Gripping the dice hard I take myself to the place. Blacking out the crowd I fly to the top of the hill and look down on the city spread out in a net of glittering lights over the darkened land. A gentle breeze ruffles the ends of my hair, calming nerves with the warm, earthy scent of damp soil.

It is time. I open my eyes and regard the shabby coats, the brick wall and the towering piles of wooden crates. Someone coughs – a harsh, racking from a work-ruined chest. I blow on the dice and let hot cider-laced fumes slow time and motion, allowing me to watch my own hand sweep forward through the treacle air.

The dice fly in a straight line, with no wobble. They bounce together, clattering, and glance lightly off the wall. They are cast and I can do no more.

Bus

I scramble amid the crush of locals to get my foot on the step of the dolmuş. Hauling myself onto this cross between a mini-bus, a taxi and a ramshackle delivery van I see that it lives up to its name and the whole spectrum of society is stuffed inside.

Ignoring the olfactory assault of ripe goat, fermenting raki and lemon cologne, I squeeze between the sticky, plastic upholstery and ram myself into a sweaty gap in the rear of the bus, grateful at least of obtaining a window seat.

I share the back bench with a family of four. Next to me sits father, plainly dressed in a black suit, with white shirt primly buttoned tight at the throat. Sun-aged skin hangs in leathery folds beneath sunken eyes hidden by caterpillar eyebrows. His nose twitches above a full moustache, sniffing out the lie of the land as we avoid eye-contact. His wife is suitably veiled in a vibrant clash of florals, topped with a home knitted cardigan, unsuitable, to my mind, in such heat. Small children, one of each, finish the group, in grubby blue school smocks, back buttoned, with sleeves outgrown to reveal bony wrists.

Something alerts me, cries ‘creep’, and I edge further into my corner, holding my legs away from his in calf-cramping torture. The pot-holed road allows him to bump closer until we press knees in fetid confinement. The heat of his hand passes through my linen trousers and I am frozen in surprise. Shock initially brings out the Brit in me and I ignore him, shake my leg, then tut with sharp teeth-sucking clicks. When his clammy palm lays claim to my inner thigh I am galvanised. “Shameful”, I shout, sending a skin tearing stamp down his shin, and leave his wife to finish him off.

Virtue

I can find no foothold in virtue. It is smooth-faced and unclimbable. My body flattens on its polished marble surface as my fingers seek out a crevice which I can utilise in my desire to reach the holy summit.

Endless cold seeps into my bones igniting a small hope that the pride and anger and jealousy that holds me back will be frozen out, no longer to keep me immersed in my own milk-curdling odour of self-preservation.

Onwards, upwards, slow stealth wins out and virtue sits above, within my reach. Imagining her to be tall and beautiful, white robes flowing behind her and eyes shining like the constellations peeping through a veil of the blackest night, I am shocked by what is before me. With pale pinched flesh, adorned in rough squalor, she stoops to lend an aged hand. I let myself slide backwards, unsure now that the dizzying heights are what I really want if the cost is to be worn out from toil, residing shoeless and bedraggled on this barren pinnacle.

Hall

Another wave of smoked mackerel washes over me as I lean forward, wincing at the gritty pain in my knees, to rub linseed oil into the ochre and red triangles of floor tiles. With long, curved strokes I inch my way down the hall, bent over, crawling like a supplicant ready to prostrate myself before the altar of restoration.

The soft rustle of velvet passes close by and hurried footsteps intrude upon the silence, hussling down the hall. I gasp, sit back on my haunches and swing my head towards the diminishing sound. Nothing is there. I stare, cloth in hand, unable to rise.  A sense of dread, accompanied by the tingle of electric ice, assaults me. I am jolted by a silky caress on my cheek, both delicate and repulsive – the touch of spiders’ webs – which disappears in an instant to leave behind a faint scent of lavender leaking into the empty hall.