Free writing

 I have, over the years, occasionally done free writes with friends. 

This is our latest production:

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Free Write: Quote from a Book

 

Prompt: A quote from Diane Johnson's L'Afaire. "It was clear the driver was hurrying on his rounds, perhaps fearing the people would be stranded in the worsening storm."

Goal: To write ten minutes using the prompt without stopping.

Note: Julia and Rick knew what their ending was before they started. D-L had no idea until she had the three-minute warning to finish up. It was clear to her that it could be a chapter and her ending would morph into chapter 2. The fun of these group free writes is the similar and different each of us takes.

Rick's Free Write

To say that Pierre was distracted was understatement.

His daughter had announced that morning that she was leaving home, and slammed the door. As he watched her strut down the street, small suitcase in hand, his wife, Emilie, had one of her anxiety attacks.

It had taken an hour to get her calmed down, and even then she was still touch and go.

He had to make his deliveries or he wouldn’t get paid. But he decided to look for Marie first. She wasn’t on any of the streets around. Probably holed up at her friend’s, Samantha, the American expat. Or had hopped a train to visit her boyfriend at Uni. Snobbish prig.

He finally had to abandon the search and start delivering his dry goods to neighborhood shops. Instead of the usual cheery greeting, he got a lot of gruff “You’re late”’s.

Two more deliveries to go and the rain was coming hard now. He pressed the accelerator to round a corner and heard a thump about the same time as the lightning and thunderclap.

Should he investigate? No, he had to deliver before the customers closed their stores.

Marie lay on the side of the road, bleeding and soaked, and unconscious.

D-L'sFree Write

It was clear the driver was hurrying on his rounds, perhaps fearing the people would be stranded in the worsening storm.

Jacques wanted to go faster but the danger of skidding was too great.

As the wipers did a semi-good job of keeping the windshield clean, he tried to look for any skiers but saw none.

Global warming? Bah! Global cooling. This winter there had been more snow than there had been for the last 12 years.

What was that up ahead? It looked like a woman and a boy running, skies slung over their shoulders.

He braked and skidded. If they hadn't jumped, he'd have hit them.

They rushed to his van, threw their skies away and jumped in.

"Go!" the woman yelled. "Go!"

It was then he saw a man emerge from behind the row of pine trees lining the road. He had a gun, some kind of hunting rifle.

He stepped on the gas, praying he wouldn't skid. A bullet pinged off the back of the van. "Get down," he yelled to the woman and boy.

Only after three curves, did he feel they were safe from the gunman and he slowed to a less dangerous speed.

"Do you want to tell me about this, or do you want to go to the police station? he asked.

Julia's Free Write

”It was clear that the driver was hurrying on his rounds, perhaps fearing that people would be stranded in a worsening storm”.

She didn’t often take this route, nor public transportation, but with her grandson sick in the hospital, she realized more how fragile life could be and was not willing to take any extra risks, especially with the latest weather forecast predicting a bad storm.

She still had her driver’s license at 85 and was sometimes afraid of losing it.

She made it to the hospital and had a very good visit – her son and wife were there as well, all hoping that having survived the avalanche that killed several of his friends, he would make it.

None were believers, yet in times of crisis, thoughts tended to send up a “prayer”.

And she was on her return trip and the storm had truly broken. A flash of lightening, a deluge of hail. Just as he skidded off the road.

In the front of the bus, she was the first in the water: St. Peter was there to meet her. As she looked at him, she said “fair enough, I’m glad you took me and not Joel”!

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. www.dlnelsonwriter.com

 

Middlebrow

I am middlebrow                            

 

A word long forgotten although it isn’t even that old, when I came across it today, I

Thought now there’s a good one that needs to be resuscitated. Like that is possible in a world of ever-shrinking words and vocabularies. Straight from http://www.wordsmith.org/

 

MEANING:

adjective:	1. (describing a person) Having tastes and interests that lie somewhere between sophisticated and vulgar.
	2. (describing a work of art) Neither sophisticated nor vulgar.
noun:	A person who has conventional tastes and interests.

 

Maybe I could relabel it “mibro” and it would catch on?

 

Free writing

For many years, I had a friend living with me that is a professional writer.

Visiting her in Southern France she, I and another friend used to sit in a coffee shop, one of us would pick a person passing by, then we would write about that person for 10 minutes. Such fun – sometimes the stories were similar, but often totally different.

I have been fortunate to pick this hobby back up with her and her husband. Below the results of our most recent free write.

I can highly recommend free writing – any subject, your imagination and ten minutes can produce wonderful results.

Free Write The Old Man

Note: We found a rather scruffy man with a full beard and long hair in the café as our free write prompt. 

Rick's Free Write

He was sitting at the corner table in the back, where he sat every morning about this time – except Friday and Saturday when the boulangerie was closed. (I know, odd days not to be open, but this was a small village, and the residents did as they pleased, regardless of convention.) I nodded to him as I sat down at a  table kitty-corner, and he dipped his head slightly, comme d’habitude.

We never spoke. Well, not never. Once, months ago, when I first encountered him, when I was new to the village, I had tried to engage him in chit-chat. But he didn’t reciprocate. Just kept munching bits off his croissant and nursing his espresso.

I’d guessed he was in his 70s, like me, but looked older. Shaggy gray-on-gray hair and unruly beard. A weathered face that suggested working the farm fields for many years. Presumably retired, but then again, maybe 9:30 in the morning was the end of his chore time at the farm.

I watched as he struggled to his feet, then shuffled toward the door, partly dragging his left foot. Maybe he’d be run over by something. Or just severe arthritis.

He left, comme d’habitude, without a word.

I wonder what he thought of me.

Julia's Free Write

He is in the bakery CUM MINIMART EVERY TIME I GO IN.

I imagine he is a daily customer although he never seems to interact with anyone.

I further imagine, sleuth deduction based upon appearances, slightly scruffy around the edges, that he has no one at home.

And what was his life?

Where did he work?

Where in this small village does he live?

Born and raised here in the village?

A farmer who no longer has a farm?

An industrial worker?

Has he travelled – if only into the neighboring town? Or has he always been only here?

More questions than answers, until…

I mentioned him to friends in the village: “Oh, didn’t you know? He had a major construction company, travelled all of Europe doing business. Then when his whole family died in a fire 30 years ago, he sold it all and lives on his own in that mansion on the hill.

Remarks: story based on similar stories of two other men: one oe whom is Martin Gray, author of “For Those I loved” and a man in the next village over from mine, whose name I don’t know.

D-L's Free Write

Olie's coffee grew cold, but he was in no hurry to go home.

Home. Hah!

An apartment. The only reason it was furnished was that his son insisted he take furniture from the house he and Lydia had shared for 47 years.

The waitress knew better than to ask him if he wanted another cup of coffee.

He had perfected his growl, launching it through his thick beard and shoulder-length hair.

He thumbed through the Tribune de Genéve. War! War! War! The world had gone crazy.

His leg hurt. He shifted it. He wouldn't tell his son, who would insist he go to the damn fool doctor.

The café buzzed with people, two, three or four to a table. Blah! Blah! Blah!

A woman entered with a brat, a boy of maybe three or four.

Olie scowled imagining that the brat would throw a tantrum if he couldn't have whatever.

Instead, the boy walked over and stared at him. "Why do you look so sad? Did one of your reindeer die?"

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at:. www.dlnelsonwriter.com

 

Rick created the art work using Midjourney.

 

Complaining can be ...

 Useful and productive.

10 days ago it was the 24^th anniversary of my husband’s death.

I still live in the same village and do try and go up to the cemetery a few times throughout the year, especially on the day, if I am in town.

 

Our cemetery is currently being renovated – a construction site full of its own problems and literally everything is being changed except the accumulated graves.

I was able to go up on the day, but when I returned on the weekend, there was absolutely no way of entering the lower part, where he is buried.

 

I took photos and wrote an email to the Mayor’s office, trying not to be totally nasty, but I did emphasize that this was NOT admissible.

 

I duly received an answer saying that obviously the access was badly marked (actually none as there is a wall, there were gates where the construction company enters, there were barriers in between upper and lower parts and there is a fence with construction “paper” on the other two sides. Perhaps an animal could enter: a human not. But they did say that they had discussed it during a meeting of the construction team. I answered that I would check this weekend.

 

I did and imagine my surprise, a totally acceptable opening and they even put down the white

Pathways in order that we didn’t have to walk on mud!

Sometimes complaining gets results!

 

 

Laughter

The National Geographic put out, at least in 2014, a lovely book containing quotes and photos for the 365 days of the year.

Today’s caught my attention.

 

A French writer, Jules Renard, wrote

“We were put here on earth to laugh.

We will no longer be able to do so in purgatory nor hell.

And, in heaven, it wouldn’t be appropriate”.

 

Not sure that I want to go anywhere where laughter isn’t appropriate. Sometimes even

The most solemn occasion or sad circumstances bring on a laugh if nothing more than to break the seriousness of the event. Life without these moments would be dull indeed.

 

 

 

Life’s little moods

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)

 

And loss is loss, be it a day, a month, a year, a decade or even 24 years.

February 2, 2000 was one of those days, my children lost their father, I my husband.

And if the tragedy of the loss has diminished the remembered pain survives.

 

Putting away grief – and the Christmas tree – are some of the hardest things to do.

Today I did both.

Theophoric

Was the Word-a-Day today and I must admit that when I saw it, I immediately thought – ok they’ve come up with a new name for these evangelicals who think that the whole world should be ruled by religious laws and are euphoric on their own brand of fanaticism.

 

Disclaimer: I am not picking on evangelicals, as the same religious fanaticism can easily be applied to many throughout the world.

 

But in context of USA politics which we are all following closely, evangelicals came to mind.

 

But then I stopped to read the definition and to my surprise it had nothing at all to do with what I surmised to be the definition. Rather it simply means “Having or derived from the name of a god. »

 

So, if needs be, yet again a lesson in ‘don’t think that you have the absolute, or even the best, idea of what anything means’.

 

 Wordsmith.org  the beauty of language

A beautiful day…

For no reason – or for many reasons.

 

First bright point in the day to come was the sun.

Breakfast was the usual, but the coffee is always good.

Then my son and his family visited and we all took a walk

To the lake to feed the ducks and the odd swan.

Enough bread for ALL of us to toss at will.

Watching the two-year old trying to feed – precious.

Lunch was over abundant at Le Lotus Bleu.

The short nap and coffee afterwards just wonderful.

Soon I will see friends for cocktails (or mocktails

Depending upon age and mood).

A wonderful and beautiful day.

 

 

 

Braverman Greenspun

 

 

 

A walk around the square… or

 20 minutes to kill.

 

The other day I needed to take someone to an appointment which wouldn’t last long. As there were no parking spaces in the immediate vicinity I went “the other way” and found myself in part of the original Old Town of Geneva, but not on the cathedral side.

 

20 minutes took me first to the Henry Moore statue up on the bluff overlooking the city and across from

 

Reclining figure: Arch leg

 

The Museum of Art and History (MAH). Intriguing the red digital put out of seemingly endless numbers. I will need to ask the next time I am there what it is supposed to mean.

 

 

Then backtracking towards the car I came across a statue to the Admiral Le Fort – who served Peter the Great. Fitting as the Russian Orthodox church is not far. But again, why a Geneva, admiral of the Russian Fleet?

 

A beautiful sunny day that raised more questions than it answered.

The P.S.s of life

In a lovely little book put together by Eliakim Katz called “Old Age comes at a bad time”, which, in turn is a quate from Sue Banducci, Arthur Schopenauer, a German philosopher said “The first forty years of life gives us the text; the next thirty years supply the commentary.”

 

Ah, but we are living longer now so I am going to add a P.S. the next however many one gets are the asterixis, the quotes, the exclamations points, in short the punctuation.

Perhaps at 71 one adds an Asterix whilst explaining one’s text or commentary, then one starts quoting one’s younger self, only to end up putting exclamation points on getting through the day with minimal aches and pains.

 

Let the P.S.s come.

 

 

The beauty of accidents

Now I know what you’re thinking: accidents – beautiful – not in my world.

But I am talking about a very minor accident: a waitress who spilled water.

It beaded on the black table sets and made a very pretty pattern.

 

No, not all accidents cause beauty, it’s enough that this one did.

 

 

Miracles

As Albert Einstein said « There are two ways of living one’s life: as though nothing was a miracle, or as if everything was a miracle”.

 

The second version is obviously the better attitude.

 

I have had my share of “miracles”, two of whom are my sons.

 

Today is a celebration of that wonderful day when our first-born arrived in our lives.

46 years later he has become a wonderful man, husband and father – as well as a person who is straight, honest and – with the advent of the family – more aware of the specialness of family.

 

Starting small

 With the writing that is. It will take awhile to get back in the groove so to speak - a phrase that was popular in my youth, but that is probably no longer ever used.

I have mentioned several times how much I love “A THOUGHT FOR TODAY” from Wordsmith.

This one is from several years ago, but ever so pertinent to our lives at the moment.

With a world filled with seemingly only bad news and problems one needs to keep Joseph Addison’s (1672-1719) saying in mind.

« Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for«.”

I also take note that he ended his sentence with a preposition – something that I have spent my whole life trying to avoid. I guess there’s room for change.

 

Write, write, write

 

Write, write, write

Said my older son,

Write, write, write,

Repeats my younger one.

 

There is no season,

There is no time,

When for any reason

It’s not fine

 

So write, write – right!