Just got back from the Indiana University Writing Workshop. I got to spend a full five days with a bunch of literature geeks just like me. It was heaven on a stick. Nothing like rubbing elbows with some of your favorite authors including Aimee Bender and Robert Olen Butler. If you haven’t read either of them (and also Clint McCown) head to your nearest independent bookstore and pick up their work. You’ll love it.
Now, here’s something a little fun to try for yourself. It’s a writing exercise. Every 15 seconds or so, someone blurts out a word as you’re freewriting and you have to work that word into whatever sentence you are jotting down. During my exercise, the words appearing in ALL CAPS are the words that were called out. Here’s what developed for me:
The GOAT hopped over the fence and into our yard and knocked on the door. “HELL,” I thought, “he’s here for the recycling early today. This little BUBBLE we lived in was getting too crowded. That BASTARD wasn’t eating our garbage on a regular basis and now we were covered in THERMOSES and cans and all sorts of dirty napkins and NOODLES. It looked like a war zone and they had to close the YMCA pool because the kids were getting bacterial infections and the SURROGATE mothers couldn’t conceive.
So, JUXTAPOSE that with what layed outside the bubble where the CLOWNS lived. Where it was all clean and fun and big hair and you can see why the goat was pissing me off. He was still standing there by my RAILING waiting for me to open the door but I wasn’t going to let him in my CORRAL or anywhere else near my house. He DOLLOPED on my door again and I hid behind the curtain because that goat could smell out anything, even the SWEAT off an ant and I knew that he knew that I knew he wasn’t getting any of my goddamned cans.