Let Yourself Listen

Writing is about getting something down, not about thinking something up.... Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out of it.... We can either "think of something to write about" or we can write about what we happen to be thinking about.

Initiation Tool

This tool encourages you to lighten up and stop taking writing so seriously that it is frightening.... Tell the storyteller five things you'd like to hear stories about.

Post-apocalyptic second coming
Lesbian prostitute in Victorian London
Steampunk Western involving culture clash
Terrorist invasion of preschool where President's daughter attends, heroic actions of preschool teacher who outwits the terrorists and saves all the kids, except maybe that one mean one you know will bite it from the beginning
Quest story centering on a woman, in the tradition of The Talisman, Earth Children, Outlander, etc.

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memory

expanding my culinary horizons

After last night's culinary debacle, today's culinary surprise was particularly welcome. My dear friend Rukmi brought me lunch! Rukmi is Sri Lankan. She cooks the best food. I ate a fish and egg croquette, lentil curry, saffron rice, all with delicious chicken and what I thought might be tuna. I asked Rukmi what the meat was, and she told me it's all chicken. "The flat, triangular meat? With the spices? Is it tuna?" She laughed lightly. "That's a wegetable," she said, in her lovely Sinhalese way. "Oh, yeah? Like a beet?" That made sense, because it flaked like tuna steak or like beets might. "It is jackfruit." Jackfruit? Jackfruit! I ate jackfruit today. Rukmi told me all about it: she used canned young jackfruit she bought at G & L Market on 22nd St.; fully grown jackfruits are gigantic and if one fell on your head it could kill you. When fully ripe, jackfruit is full of big pods that each have a seed in the middle, like a p...

in which I get knocked down

Sickness saps my energy, both physical and mental. It's surprising, really, how seldom I get sick, since I work in a petri dish. When I do get sick it lays me low and happenings that I might normally take in stride just completely knock me down. Last week I was diagnosed with an embarrassing viral infection, the symptoms of which on their own couldn't possibly have dragged me this deep down: sores in my mouth and throat that blistered and peeled and made every mouthful feel and taste like shredded pennies; an itchy rash around my mouth and nose and on my chest. Compounding that: knees that felt packed in hot wax, the backs of my eyeballs aflame. No fever, so no H1N1. Negative strep. Malaise. But I soldiered (martyred?) through most of the week at work, because I could, and some of the other teachers had to stay at home with their diverticulitis and kidney stones. On Thursday night my laptop died. On Friday night I felt I could deal with my weekend obligations. DH went out of t...

chock-a-blog

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