Assignment-ish

Before I forget:

Assignment for writers this week:

  • 1) Write for 15 minutes on whatever you wish. Just do it.
  • 2) Take thyself down to the nearest coffeehouse or other public place and eavesdrop on conversations. Take notes on paper or laptop — transcribe conversations to get a feel for how dialogue works between/among real people. Note the cadences, the verbal tics, the pauses and how you can tell how they feel without seeing their faces (in other words, how you don’t need adverbs to tell us how a person says something, she wrote severely.)
  • 3) Write your own dialogue between two people. Make sure each of them want something that they are not saying aloud (inner desire/motivation). Each needs to act out of that motivation or desire. One angry person asking another for a glass of water can be riveting if you play it right. No adverbs!

Ah. That’s better. I haven’t had a chance since Wednesday to write that down. Was afraid I’d neglect it too late, too long.

It’s raining outside, which surprised me today. It’s been so cold, and was foggy this morning — beautiful mist playing around the trees out here on our little peninsula. We truly live in Scotland, in the Outer Hebrides, some days. The behemoths passing in the Estuary are our great whales. Foghorns, Northern Lights, bellowing narwhals, I don’t know. It felt as if we’d struck an iceberg the other night — this huge crash, and resulting rumble. Perhaps Thor dropped his hammer. Probably a ship crashed into its dock. The noise was loud, deep, metallic. A bit alarming if you weren’t used to it. We are. But still, it was loud and a bit worrisome.

It is officially past 5 p.m. on Friday. It is officially the weekend. I just heard the front door close. My man is home. As the King of Cartoons used to say on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, “Let the cartoon begin!”

Yea, verily, amen.

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