Haikus to Finish

As I have been searching for something that looks fun, and not really succeeding, I decided to write some haikus- in a quick story thing. I apologize Mika if I am infringing, but poetry is an important part of creative writing too.

"Bloggings end is near
I will do other homework
Now, since I must go

Goodbye blog, I hope
To never see you again
Goodbye, blog, goodbye"

The girl stepped away from her computer, sighing as she stretched her neck and looked around. 'Finally done'.  Closing her books, she was just turning when a shrill scream sounded through the door.
"Are you coming?!! I have to go!" her sister screeched impatiently.
The girl jumped straight up, then practically ran through the door and away.

Fortune Tellers

To set the mood.


Today I had quite a lot of fun writing about an encounter with a fortune teller. Quite random. And a seriously fun concept to mess with.
The official assignment was "Your character has just forked over hard-earned cash to have their fortune told. Sitting in a dark room with lots of smoke, your character hears what? And how do they react?"


I am going to warn you: what I wrote is quite long. Also, to avoid confusion, because I know I didn't specify, it is a man. Or a least in my head it was. Could be taken either way I suppose.

"The lady snatched greedily at my poor bill, the last one I have on me.

“You may go inside, to see what fortune awaits you.” she intoned. I think it was probably meant to be mystical & mysterious, but the effect was ruined by her reaching into the folds of her shirt-apron thing and bringing out a wad of cash to count.

The tent she had vaguely gestured to was quite shabby; it looked like it had been completely purple in better times. Now, it was splattered with brown, and occasionally a bright red, which I shudder to think of how it got there.  There were even cobwebs hanging between the fold of the door and the awning thing. I went in fearlessly, telling myself it was just for fun, like horoscopes.  No one actually believes those, but they sure are fun to look at.

“Who awaits the touch of fate?” A weathered voice came from the corner. It was very stereotypical, with the fog surrounding my feet, and the only light coming from a real oil-burning lamp next to a table with a glass ball on it. The person behind it, however, was entirely different. Yes, she was female, but the voice must have been a recording because she looked to be 10 or 12. She was wearing a flowy, draping wrap that went past her feet under the table, down the little pathway made between the curtains & cabinets and whatever else, almost to the door where I was standing.

She looked at me, standing there dumbstruck by the door-flap. Her small, oval face scrunched up a bit, impatiently. “Well, are you coming? I would prefer to get out of this itchy thing before midnight!” She said in a decidedly not-weathered voice. Then she started to tap her foot impatiently, just a bump under the fabric.

I walked over, seeing no choice with this demanding little thing. “What do I do?”

“Just put your hand on the crystal, and let it feel your essence.” What were they teaching children these days? She was completely serious about it.

I reached over to the cool clear ball. It was smooth, and shiny. It looked like something I could get in a dollar store. Until it lit up, spilling a bright greenish light all over the walls, me, and the girl.

“Good.” She nodded approvingly, having placed her hand on the other side of the ball as mine. “It likes your feel. That means that you have Nature’s approval. After all, crystal is rock. And rock is natural.” Her finger was jumping up and down, across the ball in time to her lilting speech. She had some usual characteristics of a fortune teller, I suppose. “Do you camp often? The crystal says you feel like Earth. That would be your element then.” I was totally confused. This girl talked a mile a minute about nonsense.

“You know, the element attached to your horoscope? I think you're probably a Capricorn? That’s an Earth element.”

I stared at her. How did she know that?

“Okay. So I was right. Well, you feel like one. Anyway, my crystal says that you really need a pet. It says you're lonely since your last girlfriend broke up with you. Why were you even with her? She seems really mean.” The girl pouted. As if in response, the light turned a deep, bloody red. “Once, a lady like her came in, then saw me and said some awful things about me. I don’t know why. I mean, I didn’t even say anything, except played that recording that Lena says I have to. She says less monkeys will come in if I don’t.” I don't particularly want to know what she means by 'monkeys'. Although I do have a guess.

The girl continued to talk tapping her finger which her spooky changing colors crystal ball. I knew it was probably electric, that she had a button or something under her wrap, but she was hitting right on target with whatever she said about my life. It was like she had a map to my -personal - thoughts and feelings.

Including, of course, but not limited to berating me for my desire to get back together with Jenna. She seemed to really hate her, even though from what I could tell she just knew her from whatever that crystal ball of hers told her. 

She also told me my locker number from Grade 11 in high school would bring me great fortune. I told her I didn't know it, which was necessary lie. I thought. The karma was almost instant, though.

“Of course you know it!" she shrieked, easily loud enough to be heard outside the flimsy tent. I think she did that on purpose. "Its been the code to your lock on your stalker Jenna shrine since high school!” Holy mother of computer software. How did she know that?!!!

My eyes were wide and staring at her as she looked at me smugly. "I don't like being lied to. Fate did not like that either. Just go outside." I knew I was dismissed, and I was too astonished to even care that i was being ordered around by someone roughly 12 years my junior. 

Opening the tent flap, the greedy lady looked at me and laughed. I looked away from her, only to be assaulted by the sight of just the person I did not want to see waiting in like next. 

Jenna just looked at me and laughed. 

The fortune teller's voice floated to my ears somehow, from behind me "Can you keep her away? She looks mean.""

There. The ending may seem a bit rushed, but I only edited it once, so it's pretty good for that. I like it, anyway. Was fun to write. Usually I'm not so mean to characters, but this was just too fun.

The Alphabet

Is really hard to write sentences in the order of.

My next chosen assignment was "To spark new and unusual ideas, have students work alone or in small groups to write a sentence where each subsequent word begins with the next letter of the alphabet" 


I don't think it sparked much other than frustration. In the end, I split my sentence into several absolutely nonsensical sentences, creating a paragraph with little to no connection from one sentence to the next. 


"A balloon called Derek endeavors for great help in jolly kooky laments. Moreover, no one pardoned quaggas randomly searching trees under vacuums. Witty xylem yodels zealously."


However, it is a great expander of knowledge and vocabulary. For example, I learned there is an extinct type of zebra that they are bringing back to life in South Africa through genetic things, called a quagga. How this relates to creative writing? The word is a noun that starts with 'q', a relatively rare thing. And it's really cool, so I just had to use it in my paragraph. They look like this: 

I love quaggas. 


And now that I am finished with my off-topic, I will show an example of an alphabet song. This is about how to pronounce the letters, just in case you don't know. A catchy song, too. Although I don't recommend watching it past about the first minute, because it just repeats itself.

Strawberries

So the first activity I have decided to do was one of those descriptions ones. I was asked to: 
"Describe your favorite food in intense detail. Include the taste, but also the other senses. How does it smell, feel, look? Does it make noise when you eat it? Now, describe it again in a way that seems completely unappetizing."


So I did. 


My favorite foods are strawberries, by the way. For the 'good' version, this is what I came up with. 


"The ruby red fruit vibrantly fights to be seen behind the many, pin-head tiny seeds that cover the surface. The top of the cone shaped fruit is covered in a leafy bush that is coarse, scratchy to the touch. The inside is a delicate peach pink, with a light, fresh, happy scent that wafts towards you from the infused inside, combined with the gentle squelch the sweet fruit releases when bit. Juice floods your mouth, providing a sugary tang with a touch of sourness that combines to create a sensual illusion of summer."


It's always fun to describe something to within an inch of its life, I must say.  As for the bad version, I've never done it before, and it definitely has some potential too.


"The unhealthily bloody looking fruit clashes nastily with its floppy olive green appendages. The many little seeds are extremely reminiscent of aphids, crawling over a bloody corpse. The inside is slimy with sickly sweet smelling juice. There is a cavernous space, surrounded by fuzzy feelers coming off the center of the gum-pink flesh. When bit into, it makes a sound made as accurately only by a rubber boots coming out of knee-deep slimy mud. The fleshy quickly turns into a sticky mush, that combines an incredibly awkward flavor combination of sweet honey & manufactured lemon."


And this is roughly what I was working off:

A lovely, bloody stock image. Taadaaa.

Strange Little Mini Excercises

In this world, there are a lot of teachers. Some of those are called 'creative writing teachers' . 

These teachers generally tell their classes to do strange little assignments that apparently (to the eye of the student) have no meaning, and are astonishingly hard to start or finish (oftentimes most people are sitting staring blankly a a piece of paper). 

So I have decided that I will find some samples of these little mini exercises and do them, just to see.