Short Cuts and Succinctly Yours Catch Ups

There’s no excuse for my being late with everything other than the fact that I’ve been working on—what else? Microfiction. 

It’s amazing to me, the tricks I’ve seen students go through in order to get their word counts UP. Two inch margins, abnormally gigantic handwriting, etc. One wily teen even cut the bottom off his paper. 

And now here I’ve been struggling to get my count down. I’ve hit “Tools>Word Count” so many times, it seems to have become one motion. That working and shaping, weighing each word until the piece is down to a magic number is an exercise that takes more discipline than most diets I’ve been on.  

But in the end, when prose stands there looking lean and mean, I feel like a winner on "The Biggest Loser." And best of all is rearranging and finding the piece magically under the word limit. It’s never more clear what a luxury words are.

Here to give me plenty of practice in the endeavor is Grandma’s Goulash, where we are encouraged to use the photo as inspiration for a story of 140 characters or 140 words.

The first is from two weeks ago and the second, from last week. I hope Grandma or someone else will tell me if I’m breaking rules by posting so late. The bonus word in the first was “widget,” and in the second, “fragrant.”

Week 149:

Though Twiggy was grounded, she wasn’t one to put down roots. While everyone else in the forest was happy swaying softly, Twiggy wanted to chase widgets and dance. (139 characters.)

Week 150:

On a fragrant spring morning, Princess Anne happily signed the wedding register. She knew the witch had given James an extra arm, but she always liked her men hand-y. (138)

(I know this must be a famous illustration because I've seen it before. But I can never shake the impression that the guy with the red cape has his hands laced on his stomach and a third protruding from his cape. Must just be me.)

What lasts in the reader’s mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created:  laughter, tears, pain, joy.  If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what’s it doing there?  Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.  ~Isaac Asimov

Succinctly Yours Week 148: The Grass is Greener on the Other...Head

Another snow day here, so I am hanging out like a furry escaped convict (see previous post for that reference). 

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours! The idea of this meme is to use the picture to tell a story in 140 words or 140 characters. The bonus word was “quake.” I wonder if it still counts if you change the bonus word’s tense? Hope so. I have two this week, at 138 and 139 characters:

When Mama told me about the birds and the bees, her knees quaked and she blushed pink all way to her roots. My face went pale when I saw what was going on in the petunia bed. 

That's what you get, young man, from legalizing pots! You will quake down to your terra cotta toes when you sprout—what is that, you say? Legalize what? Oh. Never mind. 

That was a nod to the beloved Miss Emily Litella for those of you who remember her, and not a political commentary, I promise. This picture—not to mention today's snow—makes me miss summer!

Gone Soft

The first time was in the dark of night. It was my sister who turned me on to it; she’s always been a bad influence. I was stuck at home during a snowstorm. I figured no one would know, no one would see. But that once was all it took. After the first time, I couldn’t do without it. The thought almost made me panic. I drove across town to get it. I had to have more.

I even tried a cheap knockoff in the attempt to support my microfleece habit. Instead of the real stuff, I threw some pajamas made of the crappier kind into my cart while buying groceries. And worse—though microfleece is not by nature one of your sexier fabrics, some misguided designer had tried to make this garment look snazzy by putting a sparkly thread in the furry fleece. Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect: it looked like a Yeti who’d run away from the mountains of Nepal to become a Las Vegas Show Gorilla. A Sadly Sassy Sasquatch. An Abominable Snow Ho.

But that’s how bad the addiction was, you see. I had to have it anyway.

I thought it would be heavenly warm (it is) and heavenly soft (it isn’t). The problem is those darned shiny threads—they jab. Who needs a bed of nails when you’re sleeping in a garment of pins? Like an idiot, I washed it thinking that would soften it somehow. I also thought it would help wash some of the store germs off. Now I can’t return it.

So it sits in the giveaway bag, ready to transform some lucky thrift-store shopper into Trashsquatch, the South Pole-Dancing Bigfoot. I can spare it now, though. I found a pair of microfleece pajamas that make me look like a fuzzy convict. Except instead of doing hard time, I’ll snuggle up with a good book and do soft time instead. Ahhh.

           

The receptionist, wearing mostly her bones, but also a black blouse, a very short black skirt, black tights, black shoes, and deeply red lipstick, checked around and said Robert could do me in about twenty minutes. ~Elizabeth Berg, The Pull of the Moon

Pink and Succinct

Thank you to Grandma's Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours and inspiring another post! The goal is to keep it under 140 characters or 140 words, and the word of the week is erode. My offering has 107 characters:

Enthusiasm for Mme.Vivant’s afternoon dance class began to erode until Hannah, who was tutu tired, was relieved of her relevé.  

Hope my teaching friends enjoy getting back to work this week after our multiple snow days!