intro to abuse

           “James Martin” 

            I turned with anticipation, eager to see who was calling me. Actually, I didn’t know if I’d truly heard it because it wasn’t like a real greeting. Just a name. Maybe I was imagining it—trying to put what I wanted to hear in the air.  I looked and I didn’t see anyone except this black guy dressed in a polo shirt and loafers with rolled up pant legs.  Then I looked again.

Abuse

By about midnight on Sunday night, everyone else had pretty much gone to bed. Kevin is downstairs and I don’t really know what he is doing. I guess it didn’t matter much to me, because I was working on a hugely important lesson plan.  I never gave him any indication that I wanted him to stay overnight, he never asked if he could. I assumed that he would go back to Bettendorf or Davenport or wherever he lives or stays or…whatever he does. 

impulsive and forgettful

Write about one of your faults 

           My flight was scheduled to leave at 7:55 am.  I arrived at the airport at 5:00 after sleeping on the floor in my friend's English teaching center that is located half a city closer to Moscow Domodedovo airport than my room.

clunk, clunk. clunk--an old man sprinting

I jog up to my chosen starting point, and put on a colossal burst of energy as I cross the stripe on the asphalt. My whole body shakes. I begin well, concentrating… “knees, toes.” I’m actually thinking about running on my toes and picking up my knees. Supposedly, this is what one must do to run at the absolute fastest pace possible. 

The HIT!

The Hit

Every year, the coaches tell the seniors that they should play the final game—even their entire final season—like it was their last. This was it, our last football game. My team, the Newell Panthers, were visiting Wall Lake to take on the Comets.

To the hog house

To the hog house

I didn’t bother opening the wooden gate because the latch sometimes didn’t fall back into place cleanly and you’d have to fiddle around with it. I’d rather just climb over. Fences are so cool. People can climb over a fence, but cattle—much bigger, tougher, stronger—have to stand on the other side, watching.

the unemployed writer

Unemployed writer

I’m an unemployed writer. Oh, yes, I write, but nothing goes anywhere except to my own self-published blogs. I really need to break into the business and become a successful writer. I don’t need to get paid. I want the satisfaction that comes from producing something that others think is worthy of distribution.  If I start getting some stuff out there, whether it is at online publications, or in local newspapers, I will find the encouragement needed to keep going.  Then, maybe we’ll get around to thinking about payment, and then the best seller, and the notoriety, yada, yada, yada.

Customs officials don't care. Why would they?

I leaned on a metal table, faced with the fact that my flight was taking off in 20 minutes.  It was leaving the ground in 20 minutes. It was nearly a certainty that I would not be on it. Hell, if I had been honest with myself, I would have realized that there was 100% certainty that I would not be on it. 

Kevin saga

This is the second lengthy writing for the creative writing class:

                I walked into the Weeg computer center hoping to get some stuff printed out for my lesson quickly, and then take off for a wedding in Des Moines. It was Saturday morning at 7:30, and the place was already full of people.  I was heading into one room to look for an assistant because I couldn’t get the computer to recognize my floppy disk when I heard him.

dialog, no tags or extra info. just speech

The assignment is to write dialog without any tags (he said, she said), without adjectives, adverbs—just dialog.

The first 9 lines are from the memoir. The rest is might logically have happened in a similar situation.

Is Kevin still here?

Yeah, he’s downstairs.

How long is he staying?

Good question.  I said he could crash in my room last night, but didn’t say anything about tonight.  I’m actually not sure what he intends to do.

Plot--"Can this narrator (me) get this girl to love him?"

Plot.  The assignment is to establish an MDQ (Major Dramatic Question) and stick to it.  My question was, “Can this narrator get this girl to love him?”

“Does anyone have a bit of paper?” asked Lucy. “I want to get rid of my gum.”

            Without missing a beat, Kaitlyn said, “Give it to me.” She took the gum, put it in her own mouth and swallowed it.

“THIS is the girl for me,” was the thought that popped up on my Google glasses.

description

The assignment was to describe a room in our memoir.

I had the room set up for studying.  It was in a former fraternity house that was converted into a rooming house.  I went home to find some boards from around the farm.  I tried to find some clean ones without many nails or splinters sticking out of them.  With the boards, I’d made a loft so my single bed was up in the air, and the desk on the left side down below.  On the right side was my chest of drawers.  I had the computer on the desk and a single chair. I had just enough room to sit on the chair and not hit the mattress. The desk had a drawer for pens, and a drawer for ‘stuff’. My books and notebooks were within reach. I had to step into it, twist a bit, and kind of wiggle. It was cozy. When I was in the chair, everything about it said “study.”

character--what is love

The assignment was to write about a character.

Julie.  It was December 31, 1995. We lay down the night before we went to Thailand—I was unsure what would happen between us.  My fingers found their way over to her thigh, and I guess that was all the invitation she needed to slide over and put her face on mine like she was trying to lick the place where my molars were removed 20 years ago.

bike through Italy

This is the first lengthy submission to the creative writing class.  I reworked something I wrote a couple years ago.  If you would like to see photos that compliment this story, go to:

italianbikejob.wordpress.com.  There, you will find several posts about the 'worst day on the bike'.  

something your not good at

The assignment:
Write about the first time you realized you were bad at something.  (For example, the exact moment you hit the wrong note in the piano recital in the school auditorium in front of everybody else's parents.)  

I’m a poor decision maker. I DIDN’T go into acting. Why? Because I thought it was a career for other people.  What stupid thinking on my part! What had I done my whole high school career? I had acted in the school plays—I had the lead roles and I have loved it!  I had been in speech contests: as a freshman, I earned two I ratings—the highest ranking available. Did I enter any other speech contests?

5 events that have made me who I am

The assignment:  Write about 5 times that have changed your life. This could be firsts or simply events.  Make them about 100 words.

Walking onto the Ultimate Frisbee field, 1992

“Want to play?”  The words were simple, but they opened up a new world. My life can be separated into two parts, BU (Before Ultimate) and DU (During Ultimate).  It’s an ongoing love affair.  Since that afternoon outside the student union in Iowa City, Ultimate Frisbee has been part of my life.

Reintro to writing -- Gotham Writer's Workshop

I'm resurrecting this blog.  I began it when I took a creative writing class six years ago.  I'm taking the same class again.  Here's the introduction:

Nothing unusual about my writing life.  

running may 2012

            As you know, I like to run.  It hasn’t always been thus.  There was a while back when I had knee pain.  So much so that I begged my sister to give the recommendation for a doctor who could give me an MRI in less than a week because I was leaving the country.  Because she knows everyone and she is a powerful person, or because I was just lucky, she DID help me find someone.

Friends

            Dad sent out a short essay that concerned a guy he knew.  Robert Petersen was a cattle buyer years ago who became the President of IBP. 

Slugging Johnson in the gut

Out the corner of my eye, I saw David Bonde, prim and proper with a new hair cut—a straight line across his forehead. He pranced over to the carpet a few feet from the other boys. He took out a brand spankin’ new football card carrying case that housed a gross of cards. A gross was something outstanding at this time in our lives. The only other time we’d ever heard of a gross of something, was firecrackers. And firecrackers are cool. Now, another gross had also made it into the cool category: a gross of football cards.