Hokay, Beatniks!
This week's sentence comes from Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road'.
It's the longest sentence I've set so far, at ninety-four words, so - for one week only - I am going to let you make the choice as to whether you include it in or exclude it from your total of 500 words.
No in-betweens!
The rules you know;
The sentence is:
'I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.'
Enjoy!
18 comments:
I went to college in Lowell MA where Jack was a HUGE cultural figure (for better or worse).
Alan Ginsburg once came to read. He was disappointingly normal looking.
Anyway, this should be fun!!
Cool! You must have been one hep cat, Katherine.
I've already done my story but I won't post it yet.
Fine! I did it. It's over there on my blog. And the irony of it all, after complaining about gloomy Russians.
Woohoo! Welcome (at last), Vanda!
What a brilliant piece!
Awesome writing. Thank you!
D'oh! I just realised I posted Vanda's piece in yesterday's story post but I'll have to change that and post it next Thursday with the rest of this week's.
Confused?
What a dork I am.
What a great book - I must re-read it at once! Oh for the time. I'll try to get this one done Dive. Life's hectic, hectic at present.
Lynn: Ah, the social whirl of the West Country Woman. Hectic can be fun if you don't let it overwhelm you.
Enjoy your hecticity.
If you do manage to find twenty minutes to sit with a cuppa and let your mind wander, I look forward to reading your next story (that's how long it took me to write my last one anyway).
Toodle Pip.
Many good times in a funky coffee shop called "The Coffee Mill" (a play on "mill" because Lowell is a mill town).
I'm early with my post:
http://luxuriouschoices.blogspot.com/2009/09/500-words-early.html
That was fun!
Twenty minutes to write your story?? Jeez, no wonder I've fallen behind. The actual writing takes me a good 2-3 hours...and that's after I've thought about it for a day or three. Then I let it sit and come back to re-edit for another couple of hours. Looks like I need to speed up the process.
I'm actually unclear as to the rules of the activity.
Nice choice, though. It has been a long time since I've thought about that kind of literature.
Vanda has inspired me. I've already read hers which is too strong of an influence on me, so I've got to watch for the next one. I'll be like Lulubelle B--this won't take me any 20 minutes!
Hoorah for early homework! Thank you, Katherine. I'll pop across and enjoy it with my mid-morning coffee.
Lulu: Okay, so it took a lot longer to edit it down to 500 words. Hee hee. I was just trying to goad Lynn (sorry, Lynn) into actually writing something.
Hi, Pilgrim.
The rules are:
Every Friday I'll set a sentence from something on my bookshelves.
Anyone feeling in the mood then takes that sentence and incorporates it into a 500 word (no more, no less) story which they post on their blog. 500 words is a nice short piece that people can read easily on a coffee break.
The following Thursday I collect up the week's stories and link them together with some little reviews and we all go read one anothers.
It's fun.
Petrea: Vanda's story was great. It will be wonderful having such a good writer as you dipping in to our little group.
Pah! My hecticnessiticity (like that? ;)) has nothing to do with social anything Dive. Pah again! :)
Bummer about the pah, Lynn. I hope things calm down soon.
I do like hecticnessiticity. Hee hee.
Can't wait to read these stories!
Me, too, Mme!
Are you joining us?
(hint hint). Hee hee.
I miss these. I have been so swamped. I don't know why this new school year is killing me so much. Heck doesn't everyone teach eleven classes? I don't see any free time until mid-October at the earliest. I haven't even had time to check blogs.
Done.
Way over the word limit but I figure I'd borrow from Lynn's word capacity.
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