A Southern Cross?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:17:53 EDT

[another Friday, here in Beantown, with networks on every side, but not a bit to waste...]

Let's start with a flower. Pick a number from one to six, if you please?

1. dandelion
2. snapdragon
3. hyacinth
4. peony
5. fuchsia
6. thistle

Got your flower firmly in hand? At least lingering in your mental gaze, scenting the keys with its subtle perfume, crying softly for gentle rain or even *shudder* tap water? What color was it, again? And is it damp with dew or dry, so dry, even drier than the desert sand and sun that turned it into dust?

Ready? Try another one to six.

1. blithe
2. joyful
3. sparkling
4. merry
5. laughing
6. beatified

An emotion? A feeling, with stirrings from your toes, from your hips, from the pit of your stomach, even from underarms dripping sweat? Are the eyes of your emotion brimming? Shut? What about that old mouth and tongue? Are the hands clapping, wrapping around quaking shoulders, or quietly folded in ecstasy?

and the last one of our trio for today (one to six, of course!) is taken from the australian FAQ, part 5 of 6, where they provide an introductory Strine Glossary from A to Zed:

1. barrack - verb
2. Bullamanka - place name
3. dag - noun?
4. dunny - noun
5. fossick - verb
6. sandgroper - noun

though the meanings are likely a bit shonky at best, even a stickybeak would have to laugh at the fitness of "rainbow sneeze." Don't chuck a wobbly, don't winge at yobbos, just figure it's a Yankee shout and pay your tariff...

knackers? Who's going to squeeze them, eh? And I suppose you're going to show us your map of tazzy and try to tell us that's a fair crack of the whip when it's really crook?

[sorry, got carried away there. Back to the gibby.]

Now, one vegetable burgeoning, one emotional upwelling, and a word of Strine in hand, think! What could these odds and ends have to do with each other? Suppose your character is eating the flower, feeling the excitement in one or more of their cavities (abdominal or plain ordinary dominal?), and listening to the screeching of a traveler from down under (no, not the plumber!).

One sentence to start, one sentence to bind them, one sentence to keep them in the dark?

"Did you ever really look at one of these?" he said, and dragged the back of his hand across the tears on his cheeks.

[for those who may be joining us for the first time - HI! - oh, and if you want to, feel free to write something, using the provided sentence as a starting point or not, using whatever helps you from this exercise - or ignoring it completely if you like!]

write soon?

[WARNING! SPOILERS FOLLOW! If you just can't wait to find out what these funny words from oz mean, I've included the definitions below. But if you really want to have fun, write your story (poem, vignette and oil, whatever) before you read the definitions - after all, we need to decide who is going to be boss, and then tell those words to do what we want them to!]

The way they see it:

1. barrack - verb - to cheer on a team at a sporting event
2. Bullamanka - place name - imaginary place even beyond back of Bourke, way beyond the black stump
3. dag - noun? - dirty lump of wool at the back end of a sheep, also an affectionate or mildly abusive term for a socially inept person
4. dunny - noun - outdoor lavatory
5. fossick - verb - to hunt for gemstones
6. sandgroper - noun - resident of western oz

A Basket of Joy?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 23:55:38 EDT

Drawing on "Teaching Your Children Joy", by Linda and Richard Eyre, ISBN 0-671-88725-4

From Chapter 1. Preserving the Joy of Spontaneous Delight

"...On one hand, we admire spontaneity; we speak of the free spirit, the unconventional, with at least a lingering trickle of envy. On the other hand, we associate maturity with words like _sophistication_, _reserve_, and _proper_."

"There are many ways to encourage and sanction a particular behavior; perhaps the best way of all is by participating in that particular behavior yourself. (And perhaps the great benefit of preserving the natural, childlike joys in our children is that we may recapture them in ourselves.)"

Some of their suggestions:

1. Get excited with children
2. Help them relive spontaneous joy moments by remembering
3. Do spontaneous things with them
4. Make spontaneity a high priority
5. Play surprise-oriented group games
6. Open packages
7. Put new surprises into old fairy tales
8. Do things with children that are a little silly and that show how acceptable it is to enjoy unexpected things.

So, today's exercise is about putting surprises into stories. Here's what we're going to do. Start with a scene that is a little bland, fairly predictable. Got it in mind?

Pick a number from one to six.

1. a joke - what's the punchline?
2. a sealed, wrapped box - and what's inside?
3. a newspaper - and what's the story that makes your character jump?
4. an envelope - with fanmail from some flounder inside?
5. a purse (backpack, briefcase, etc.) left behind - by who?
6. a picture - of what, who, when?

So work this bit of business into the scene, teasing us with the background piece, having one character pick it up, put it down, the other fondle it, then forget it for a few lines, wait a while (note the comma spice just sprinkled wildly hither and yon?) and at last - reveal the surprise!

What surprise?

Only the writer knows for sure!

Short start? How about...

He touched it as though he'd never seen it before, shook his head, and looked me in the eye again.

Don't forget - this is the merest background (counterpoint? Embroidery? Contrapuntal scribbling?) to the main ploy of the scene, wherein our hero(ine) revels in showing off his/her ambitions, goals, hopes and fears - and is crushed, thwarted, even tripped up through the wicked machinations of the epitome of eeeeevil - the antagonist! So don't lose the arterial pulsation of your beating heart in the baroque stitching on the edge of the open vein, but don't ignore the value of small surprises and disclosures charmingly evoked.

(Bill says I've got many and many a word to misuse before I rest these weary little phalanges, so I'm doing my best to exercise a variegated collection of entities through all their intersections, unions, and disjunctions. So don't spare the malaise, mustard and relish, just slather them all over the fine literary heap of a Dagwood special into which we shall sink our canines.)

in thesaurus disquietus