This Week in Writing

The Five Senses

~Dan Wakefield

In Now Write!, Sherry Ellis has compiled a marvelous assortment of writing exercises from published authors, exercises they use in teaching or to stimulate their own creativity. Today, I'm working with this exercise from novelist and journalist Dan Wakefield, who says he uses it as part of his workshops on "Releasing the Creative Spirit."

Our senses are "doorways to our own stories," Wakefield says. Using the "idea" of one of the senses can evoke memories from our past which bring stories to mind. In one workshop, he writes that the "simple suggestion of the taste of bacon to a group of factory workers" inspired one of them to write a moving story that was evoked for him. "The heart of the story was that as a child, when he woke up and smelled bacon frying, he knew it would be a good day in his home; if he woke and didn't smell bacon, it meant his parents had hangovers from drinking too much the night before, and things in the house would not be pleasant."

Wakefield suggests taking some common foods, such as the taste of applesauce; the taste of popcorn; the taste of hot dogs; the taste of coffee; the taste of chocolate, and writing everything you remember about it for the ten minutes. Write as if you were telling a friend what you would remember...don't edit or second guess yourself, just let the story "come forth."

You could also choose sound memories to evoke stories. For instance, the sound of an alarm clock; the sound of a dog barking; the sound of bells ringing; the sound of a far off train whistle.

~grab your notebook, pick a sensation, and start writing...here's what I came up with:

Hot Dog Heaven

Call it a reward or call it a bribe, whenever my mother and grandmother went shopping at the big Sears store on Dix Road, I was eager to go along because I knew a hot dog and orange soda would be coming my way.

The snack bar was right inside the door, and conveniently located next to the shoe department so there were places to sit. As soon as we walked in, my eye was drawn to the electric rotisserie case, plump hot dogs turning invitingly on their individual spits. I was always allowed to place my own order- one dog, plain, and a small orange pop. My grandfather, who acted as chauffeur and babysitter on these shopping expeditions, would pay for my food while I settled in a seat. The lady in the shoe department always had a smile for me, and didn't seem to mind that I was using her department as an eating area.

Oddly enough, I barely remember the taste of the hot dog. I'm sure it was good, but the whole ritual was almost more important than the food. Most of the time, I'd probably had a good lunch at home before we came, since our shopping trips usually took place in the early afternoon. Just getting that hot dog, nestled in it's steaming bun, and lying neatly in that white paper boat, was the most exciting part of the day for me.

I remember gobbling it up pretty quickly, because once the hot dog was done, then my grandfather would take me to the next best place in the store for the second part of my reward/bribe~the book department!

This Week in Writing

Each Monday I plan to post a weekly writing activity taken from my current reading and study on the craft of writing. This activity will be one that I have chosen to work on myself, and invite all of you to be my "writing buddies" in the effort!

The Narrative Time Line

(The Right to Write, Julia Cameron)

Cameron assigns this activity to her writing classes, along with Morning Pages. The Narrative Time Line is a "longhand, autobiographical account" of your life, best written in five year intervals. "Grab a new notebook, your fastest pen, and preferably a writing buddy," Cameron writes. Prepare to write for one hour, and when you set pen to paper, focus on the major events and people in your life. Try to avoid delving into too much emotional detail (you'll have the opportunity to do that in another activity!) Cameron recommends this activity should be completed in several sessions over a period of one month.


What's the point? "What arises from this exercise," Cameron says, "is a sense of fascination and self worth regarding the events of one's life. Inevitably, certain episodes and people beg for deeper writing than the mere facts will allow." These incidents and people will form the basis for another writing opportunity later on.

"The rewards of the Narrative Time Line are enormous," she goes on. It helps you win a version of yourself that is "self-determined and autonomous." You can "make connections that have eluded you," even in years of therapy. And, you may discover that your own life contains some fascinating material!


I'm off to my favorite cafe, new notebook and pen in hand to begin my own Narrative Time Line. Grab yourself a second cup of coffee or tea and join me, won't you?

Sunday Scribbling-Wicked

"I'm sure you must think I'm the most wicked thing ever."

Susanna watched her friend Alaina delicately scrape up the last bits of chocolate edging her desert plate and lift the fork to her moist lips. "Mmmm," she sighed, closing her eyes and tilting her head back slightly, savoring this final morsel of a dessert that had been meant to share between the two of them. "I just can't help wanting to have it all...even though I know I shouldn't."

If only Alaina had been speaking about this slice of chocolate torte, Susanna thought, eyeing her friend with a familiar mixture of envy and distaste. Taking the last sip of her coffee, now grown cold and murky at the bottom of her cup, Susanna replied in the way she knew Alaina expected her to.

"You're not being wicked, exactly," she ventured, wishing she had the courage to lay bare her true feelings. "But you could be setting yourself up for a lot of problems and heartache down the road with this relationship."

"Susanna, honey," Alaina said, "if I worried about what might happen 'down the road' I'd never have any kind of life at all." With a characteristic toss of her head, black hair coming to rest languorously over her shoulder, Alaina leaned across the table conspiratorially. "Besides, I just cannot ignore this marvelous chemistry between us~it's irrefutable."

Susanna sighed, having heard this tone of voice many times in the 20 years she and Alaina had been friends. Not for the first time, she wondered what had drawn the two of them together, back in Mrs. Allen's seventh grade history class. Susanna, though pretty and popular enough by junior high school standards, was certainly no match for Alaina's fiery beauty and burgeoning sensuality. Even in those simpler days, Alaina's desires were not easily sated. Susanna remembered her friend's dangerous relationship with the mechanic at Steve's Garage, who had been less than pleased when he discovered his eager girlfriend had lied about her age, and was in eighth grade at St. Andrew's. Try as she might, Susanna had been unable to convince her friend that dating a 23 year old wasn't a good idea. Green eyes alight with excitement, Alaina had merely tossed Susanna's objections aside. "Why shouldn't I do whatever makes me happy?" she said.

Alaina glanced at her watch and reached into the slim Prada handbag lying at her elbow. "Have to run," she said, placing a twenty dollar bill on the table. "I'm meeting him at the Hyatt for drinks before we head to the airport."

Susanna knew that this "he" was the latest in a long string of Alaina's forbidden lovers. Mostly older, mostly married, usually rich, and always completely smitten with her dark beauty. Susanna couldn't help but feel fascinated with this woman's ability to entice any man she wanted, and even those she didn't. There is something almost wicked about her, Susanna admitted to herself. Yet, somehow, I don't think she realizes it.

Alaina leaned down and brushed Susanna's cheek with an airy, Chanel scented kiss. "Darling, you do worry so," she admonished. "Haven't I always managed to come out of these things on top~so to speak!"

Susanna's narrowed eyes remained on Alaina's back, cutting an elegant swath around the other diners on its path to the door. "Perhaps you have," she thought, taking her cellphone from the leather case she wore attached to her belt. "But you know what they say, my wicked little friend...all good things must eventually come to an end."

Clicking through her speed dial directory, Susanna stopped at Martin's number. Dialing her husband's phone, she hoped she could catch him before he arrived at the Hyatt's lobby bar. She had a feeling he would want this conversation to be held in private.

links to more wickedness

Sunday Scribbling-Slippery

Trent told her how slippery the roads would be - warned her, actually, as she was grabbing her jacket from the hall closet, sending the heavy wooden hanger ricocheting around the rod and clattering to the floor. "You'll not want to be walking very far, Daisy," he cautioned. "It's a solid sheet of ice on them sidewalks."


"I'll be careful," she had promised, not wishing to worry her brother, just desperate to get away from the stifling atmosphere in the little house they shared. Though now, inching her way along the street with each step a potential disaster, Daisy felt her body become more tense than ever as she struggled to maintain her balance on the icy road.


Gritting her teeth, Daisy ached to stretch her long legs into a free and easy stride, to march purposefully along as if she were heading toward some positive future. Yet once again, she thought ruefully, I'm tiptoeing along in baby steps, just doing my level best to stay upright. I'm always being careful - careful at home, making sure Trent is taken care of, careful at work, making sure all the numbers add up right at the end of the day, careful with Davis, trying so hard not to slide down that slippery slope and let myself fall into love with him.


By this time, Daisy had made her way onto Main Street, where at least some small effort had been made to clear the snow and ice from in front of the storefronts. But the east wind blowing off Lake Erie kept sending more snow flying in swirls around her head, lashing her cheeks with stinging pellets that settled onto the pavement like dusting's from a jar of baby powder. Relaxing her posture and lengthening her stride, Daisy passed the nearly deserted shops and restaurants, remembering the phone call from her sister Lauren that had sent her barreling out of the house on this angry winter night.


"Daisy, you're letting life pass you right by," Lauren had proclaimed, as if telling Daisy something she didn't already know for herself. "You're almost 35 years old! You've got to quit being so darned cautious about everything and take a chance now and then. Why, where would I be if I had never gone out on a limb and...."


At this point in the conversation, Daisy dropped a steel barricade in her mind, letting the words of Lauren's familiar refrain slam themselves against it and lie in a soundless heap just short of her consciousness. It was all so easy for Lauren to say, with her happy marriage, two perfect children, and fancy city career. Lauren wasn't the one left holding the bag when mom and dad were killed in that train accident, Lauren wasn't the one who took over the family business and became responsible for Trent's care.


Daisy could feel her heart racing, and noticed the first inkling of dull pain at the back of her head announcing "migraine coming soon." She tried to quicken her step, noting that she had come out on the other side of town and would need to double back through Harden Park in order to make it home. Dusk was settling over town, leaden grey skies darkening ominously over Daisy's head. She shuffled warily across the slick road and into the park, wishing she had taken a few extra minutes to put her Igloo's on.


Within a split second, Daisy felt her right foot fly from under her, her left slipping along behind it. She wrenched her back and flailed her arms about, trying to keep her body upright, but the ground beneath her was solid ice, and she didn't stand a chance of righting herself. Her tailbone jarred as it hit the frozen ground, sending shock waves of pain running up her spine, and cold wind lashed her face as she went careening down the hill into the valley that ran along Hayden Creek.


Stunned and shaken, her head throbbing in a full blown migraine, Daisy came to rest in a heap at the bottom of the hill. As her heart began to slow its frantic beat, she recalled the sensation of sliding out of control down the hillside. To her surprise, exhilaration began to replace fright, and the misstep that sent her tumbling became reminiscent of an insistent hand at her back providing a nudge of encouragement.

"That was certainly throwing caution to the wind," she thought, grabbing hold of a tree trunk for support and gingerly getting to her feet. "But, actually, it wasn't half bad." Breathing deeply, she faced the slippery uphill battle ahead of her, and started inching her way carefully toward home.

Sunday Scribblings-What's Your Sign

Even before she saw the rumpled bedclothes beside her, Teresa knew that Lawrence was already up and gone. A cold emptiness exuded from his side of the bed, one she felt sure had woken her from a rather pleasant dream.

"It's not a good sign," she thought, running her hands across the indentation in the sheets where his lean body should be sleeping peacefully. "Today of all days, he should be here." Although his intentions were magnanimous, allowing her to sleep while he dressed for early rounds at the hospital, she somehow felt cheated when he rose before her. Denied the opportunity for their customary good-bye, she was usually out of sorts for the rest of the day, and plagued with a niggling little fear that "something would happen" to him, and her last memory of him would be some trivial, nearly forgotten moment from the evening before.

Scooting over into the indentation left by her husband's body, Teresa curled herself into his space and buried her face in the pillow, inhaling the scent of his Prell shampoo and Irish Spring bath soap. She liked it when they started the day as a team - after all, as two Gemini's they were fated to work as a pair. The sign of the Twins, perfectly matched astrologically to one another. Teresa smiled, recalling that moment during their first meeting when she had posed the question which usually earned a derogatory chuckle.

"If you don't mind me asking," she had ventured, taking a sip of the rum and coke she had nursed throughout the evening, "what's your sign?"

Lawrence hadn't laughed, he had only raised his lovely thick eyebrows and regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. "Gemini," he answered. "June 12, 1978."

Teresa felt sure the whole room must have heard the bells that went off in her head at that moment, for here was the man she had been looking for her entire life. Perfect twins, they were, born on the same day. She had smiled at him, knowing that their fate was sealed.

Lost in this happy remembrance, she must have dozed off, and was startled to feel a warm hand cupped protectively around her belly.

"Happy birthday," Lawrence's deep voice whispered in her ear.

"Same to you," she answered sleepily, turning to wrap her arms around his neck. "Where were you, anyway?" she asked, still sulky that he had left her to waken alone.

"I went to get your present," he replied, dangling a thin plastic bag from Walgreen's in front of her face.

Teresa grinned and snatched the package from him. "I never thought I'd be this excited about a present from Walgreen's," she quipped. Tearing into the box, she removed the pencil shaped stick from it's container and headed toward the bathroom. Lawrence held up both hands, his fingers crossed hopefully.

"No need for superstition this time," she told him cheerily. "I'm already positive of the outcome. After all, aren't we the perfect pair?"

Sunday Scribblings-I Have A Secret

"Your secret is safe with me, " Damien reluctantly told his sister, reaching across the scarred wooden table of their favorite booth in Crandall's Pub. Her pale blue eyes, mirror images of his own, welled with tears as she smiled her gratitude.

"What would I do without you?" she asked.

Hopefully, you'll never have to know, he thought to himself. His thoughts wandered over all the times during their lives she had placed him in this position, entrusting him with some information about her life that must be kept secret. Perhaps it was all part and parcel of being a twin, sharing every aspect your siblings existence, knowing their personality inside and out. At times, the weight of all this knowledge weighed heavily on Damien's heart, making him feel too full, as if he had indulged in excessive amounts of rich food.

And yet, Damien thought, picking up the check for the beers they had downed during the telling of this latest tale, Denise knew so little about his life. He smiled ruefully to himself. He did have a secret or two of his own, after all. This first year of college life had provided several opportunities for some interesting personal encounters.

"Damien, are you listening?" Denise asked, as she shrugged her shoulders into the black leather jacket she had started wearing when he outgrew it during his senior year of high school. "I asked if you were going home for Christmas vacation this year."

"Most likely," he answered. "Aren't you?"

She just stared at him, her face clearly expressing disbelief that he would ask such a question. "After what I've just told you," she said, "how could you expect me to spend 10 days there? I was hoping you'd stay here with me," she continued. "I really don't want to be alone - especially now."

"Right," he replied absently. "I suppose I could stay," he went on, although even as he said it, he found himself wondering how to explain this to their mother, who looked forward to the Christmas holiday with childish anticipation.

"Good," she said, tucking her arm through his as they pushed through the pub door and into the frosty winter night. "You'll square it away with Mom then, won't you?"

Damien knew Denise took his acquiesence for granted, as she did his willingness to safeguard her confidences. His sister was one of those girls who managed to find trouble around every corner and set both feet squarely in it every time. From the moment they emerged from the womb, he had borne the burden of her neediness, hiding the evidence of her mistakes, taking the blame for her wrongdoing to protect her from their father's wrath.

Damien glanced at his sister, walking briskly beside him, a pleased smile playing across her lips.
As ususal, after unburdening herself of whatever secret was troubling her, she became relaxed and carefree. While Damien continued to stockpile these secrets of hers, allowing them to fester away inside him, unable to share them with anyone.

His eyes narrowed as he trudged along the dark pathway toward their dorm. Denise began whistling "Jingle Bells," her breath marking the rhythm in the frosty air. Perhaps, Damien thought, it was time to make some changes in their relationship.

"Guess what, twin sister," he thought, "I just might have a secret to share with you, too."

Sunday Scribblings-Eccentricity

Karen had never seen anything like it. Everything in the entire room was white - the trio of candlesticks on the white coffee table, the grand piano tucked in the alcove, the two high backed armchairs set at right angles in front of the white laminate wall unit, the plush carpeting, the smooth ceramic tile, all of it pristine, icy, perfectly white.

The slender elderly woman didn't so much walk as glide soundlessly toward Karen, her hand outstretched in greeting. Virtually indistinguishable from her surroundings, her perfectly coiffed platinum hair framing her patrician features, the warmth of her smile lent some relief to the starkness of their surroundings. "Sylvia Warner, " she said, her voice low pitched and elegant.
"I'm very pleased to meet you."

Karen blinked, pulling her eyes away from their amazed inventory of white furnishings. "Thank you," she said. "I'm looking forward to working with you." What an understatement, she thought. Karen had admired Sylvia Warner's poetry for years, and included it in every one of her poetry workshops. Being hired as her personal assistant was the opportunity of a lifetime. Surely just being in her presence would provide the inspiration she needed to revive her own creative process. Yet, how could a woman whose poetry was filled with colorful, evocative images, live in such colorless surroundings?

"Please, come in, sit down," Sylvia invited her. "When we spoke on the telephone the other day, we only touched briefly on the responsibilities of this position. I'd like to discuss in more detail..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed Karen's eyes wandering around the room. "It's quite different, I know," she said.

Karen quickly refocused her attention on the woman in front of her. "I'm so sorry," she stammered. "It's just that...well, I've never seen a room quite like this before."

"Yes, of course," Sylvia continued. "And I admit, it's rather eccentric of me." She sighed and pursed her lips, obviously wondering how much to reveal to this stranger sitting in front of her. Karen returned her gaze with what she hoped was polite interest.

"You see," Sylvia continued, "after my husband died, I just couldn't seem to bear the assault of color on my eyes. It was almost as if, without him, all the color had been drained from my life, and I wanted - no needed- my surroundings to reflect that."

"Yet, your poetry," Karen said, "it's so vibrant and full of - well, color!"

Sylvia smiled wanly. "It was," she said. "Lately, I have not been able to write in the same way at all." Her eyes, unnervingly blue in a face so pale, were suddenly awash with tears. "In all honesty," she said, "I find myself unable to write at all."

A chill ran down Karen's spine. Suddenly the pervasive lack of color seemed ominous to her, as if the oxygen had been removed from the room along with the pigment. There could be no revival of creative energy here, in this room devoid of color, devoid almost of life itself. She quickly rose to her feet. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Warner," she gasped. "I don't think this will work out after all."

The thin hand desperately gripped Karen's wrist. "Please," Sylvia whispered, "I am in need of your assistance. I can tell just by looking at you that you would understand, that you of all people could help me find my way back to color again."

Taking a deep breath, Karen stopped. Could this woman possibly know the depth of the void in her own life? The way all words had stopped for her a year ago, on the day her six year old daughter Katie ran into the path of an oncoming car. From that day forward, nothing but darkness had existed in Karen's heart and mind, a darkness far removed from this woman's surrealistic world of white.

Karen stared down at the slightly gnarled fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. This was the hand that had written some of the most touching poetry Karen had ever read, poetry that blossomed in her spirit and allowed it to soar. Was it possible that together they could restore a small bit of the vibrancy that had been snatched from their lives?

Sensing Karen's acquiescence, a sigh of relief escaped from the older woman's lips. "Thank you," she said softly. "I can't tell you how pleased I am. Now, let me fix you a cup of tea," she said, turning to leave the room. "I have something special that has been waiting for just the right moment, and I believe this could be it."

Within moments, she had returned carrying a large white lacquer tray, a lace cloth draped smoothly over it. Karen's eye was drawn immediately to two bright red cups with gold handles, set smartly on matching saucers.

"When I disposed of all my colored china, I set this red tea service aside," Sylvia said. "I suppose I was hopeful that someday a bit of brightness would return to my world."

Setting the tray on the coffee table, she smiled and gently touched Karen's hand. "Perhaps I must reinstate the color into life myself," she said, "not wait for someone or something else to do it for me."

She offered Karen the brightly colored cup, curls of fragrant steam rising from its rim. "Please," she said. "Join me."