Category: Creative Writing

Assignment:
Journal Free Writing
Response:
My boots are leather
They are black and shiny
Standing one foot tall
From collar to heel
The surface is smooth
Leather near the toe is soft
Wrinkles along the forefoot
Showing their age
These boots have been with me
For several years
I’ve worn them for working
In the yard and in the garden
They have been with me
In my studio and out for a midnight walk
My boots are special to me
I wear them for most everything
Keeping my feet safe
Becoming so familiar
For what my boots do for me
I take care of them well
Once per month they are oiled
Once each week they are polished
When they are finally worn out
I will have them restored
I have several pairs of boots
But these are my favorite.

Assignment:
Journal Free Writing
Response:
Laying on the floor
Abs are tensed
The muscles are on fire
Hundred reps feel like an hour
Sweat rolling off my body
Abs, chest and biceps glistening
The more crunches I do,
The more the feeling builds
Somewhere between excruciating pain
And absolute ecstasy
Feeling of accomplishment with every new rep
Ignoring my body’s resistance to movement
Overcoming my mental limits for this type of pain
Pressing forward towards my goal
I must accomplish this
For myself I must persist
Through all of the sweat, tears, pain and even blood
I am the only one who can accomplish this goal for me

Assignment:
Journal Free Writing – Experience In The Garden
Response:
Beginning of July
Everything is so green
The garden is a sea of green
Green leaves are everywhere
The smell is definitely of tomato
Though none of the familiar red berries are near
Overgrown bushes overpower the garden fragrance
Bright yellow blossoms give promise of fruit to come
Cucumbers are growing long and firm
Hanging on the garden fence
Immature vegetables are thin and prickly
If plucked, they would be very bitter
Zucchini and yellow squash
Carrots and Peppers
All growing so well
Okra trees, six feet tall
Nothing in the garden is ready
Just the cucumbers
I have cucumbers up to my ears
I hate cucumbers!

Assignment:
Journal Free Writing – Poem for the frustrations of beginning drawing student
Response:
Pencil in hand
Pencil to paper
Image in mind
Image to paper
Delicately textured is the paper
Fibers catch the graphite
Or the coal
Oils also apply well here
Long, slow smooth strokes
These provide an outline of a shape
Short, quick almost erratic strokes
Those provide texture and shadow
Images do not match
Eraser to paper
Line do not connect
Paper to wastebasket

A lot of the things I have posted recently are things taken from my writing journal. For the journal, I am supposed to use about one page of space (sometimes more, sometimes less) to complete the assignment. There are four to be completed each week (sometimes I don’t do that many, because I write a lot in some). The writing journals can be either from a set topics list, assignments from the text or they can just be things of observations, or other experiments with writing. When I place an assignment as “Journal – Free Assignment: %something else here%”, the “%something else here%” portion indicates a self assigned topic.

Assignment:
Journal Free Assignment – Comparing Day and Night
Response:
The day is hot and filled with energy
There are kids playing and lots of events occurring
The sun rises to its peak at about noon
At noon the ground and the air heat
Sweat is shed during the events of the day
Through athletic events and outdoor work
Looking to the sky reveals a glowing ball of gas
The sight bringing with it glare and spots
Day is focused on activity and on getting things done
Everything is rush, rush, rush
The elapsing of time is very present
Every moment the sun is giving us light is precious
The sign of a well used day is the coming of a relaxed night
The night is cool and the world is calm
Children are asleep and events slow to a dull roar
The sun has set but the moon glows vividly in the sky
During the night the air is still warm, but not very hot
At night the occasional chill moves through the air
Causing a goosebump here or there
Laying on the ground, staring at the sky
Planets, stars and the moon, all reflecting a delicate light
Night is the cession of day, it is a time for emotion
Emotions flow freely at night and people companion each other
The time seems to go on endlessly, the clocks go unwatched
While abundant, the time of darkness is special and not to be wasted
The sign of a well used night is the rising of the sun and a new day
/*
feels a bit unfinished and needing work. Symbols aren’t coming through with the level of emotion I want. I feel like I have no structure, and no place to go with the work.
*/

Assignment:
Journal Free Assignment – Computer Science poem
Response:
If, then, else
For, while, do
Variables are set
Constants are too
While is very free
While For is limited to three
If helps you decide
Go this way or that
If the value is true
This option we do
If the value is false
Follow the else, it requires no halt
With Do there is no ifs
Operations happen now, no matter the result
Infinite loops are no fun
They start and they never know when they are done
Increment your counter
Check the counter twice
Upon successful completion
Place the loop on ice
Brackets, semicolons and the like
Found prevalent in the code
When it comes to the language of English
These devices do not hold the mode
With the semicolon we end a line
Concatination with the period is not far behind
The symbol of equal evaluates nothing in this land
If you use two, then you can
For operations we frequent
A functions must be written
Special data type situations may exist
A class will serve to fix em
Lines of code are composed
Then lines of code are compiled
For this to happen, we wait a while
If all went as it should, then the program will run real good

Assignment:
Select a famous poem and rewrite enough of it to spoil the original
Response:
Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening (Frost)
Whose moods these are I think I know.
His thoughts are in his head, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his moods fill up with snow.
My little psychiatrist must think it’s queer
To stop without a pharmacy near
Between the moods and frozen lake
The darkest situation of the year.
He gives his Diagnostic and Statistical Manual a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The moods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—
A Dream (Poe)
In visions of the dark knight
I have dreamed of war departed
But a waking dream of chivalry and right
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That noble dream – that noble dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely joust guiding.
What though that knight, thro’ storm and night,
So trembled from afar
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth’s day-star?

Assignment:
List and describe your obsessions
Response:
Obsessions, Obsessions
Cared for deep and with impulsions
Often ignoring other emotions
One of my most obsessive is paper
Paper of thin and wispy is not my fancy
Paper in colours of creame and ivory do not suit my taste
Words stand out on sheets that are bright white and heavy
My paper must be at least thirty-two pounds per ream
And shine with no less than one-hundred eight lumen
In recent days, I have strayed
No longer the purist
Now using heavy parchment
Paper made from compressed exotic materials as well
Even as I stray, I still demand only quality of high
Laser printed text stands boldly against the white
Text printed the darkest of blacks
Crisp laser letters never bleed on the page
A difference of night and day
The appearance of the letters is half the message
Paper with clean printed text
Or with neat calligraphy
Weighted with strong resilient fibers
Documents of integrity require obsession

Assignment:
Journal – Describe a dream

Response:
Spinning downward, flashes of light
I can’t determine which directions are left or right
The smell in the wind blowing fast
Seems to be from my past
My grandmother’s bread-pudding
I land on my feet running
The surface upon which I land
Is no land at all
I am on the moon
Near a spacecraft that is unmanned
I walk out across the plane
Dust flies around as I stroll
There seems to be no where to go
As I stand on the pole
I stare down at the globe below
The planet is so round and blue
The oceans are a very pleasing hue
Clouds circle the ball today
I become suddenly scared of the height
I can see down, afraid of a fall
But where would I go?
Which way is up? Which way is down?
The floating station comes by for its daily pass
It is much bigger to me than Earth
I reassure myself that the truth is in mass
Once I find a way away from here, there will be a return of the girth
I wake up quite suddenly to the sun, realizing gravity again
I feel almost as though I am floating to the bathroom
There is a spewing of rhymes, couplets and things
Oh why did I fall asleep reading Butler last night?
The things that man says just are not right
I am physically back in my world
However, Butler’s words still take a toll
My mind still has not had a chance to become un-twirled
Varying parts of self remember their role
I remember little of the world I have just visited
Though experiences of that magnitude tend to stay in my head
Notes:
Butler refers to Robert Olen Butler, the author of “From Where You Dream”, a textbook for the course