Category: Creative Writing

Assignment:
Free journal assignment. Reinterpreting textbook concepts into a story form.
Response:
[Journal] – June 6, 2007
Exploring the White Hot Core
The room is quiet and dark, the air cool and dry. For a brief moment that is all that exists. The click of a button press resonates throughout the room and then a dull glow violates the darkness. The glow is emanating from a soft liquid crystal display. The host body takes its seat in front of the display, as both the conductor as well as the audience for tonight’s performance. Upon the host body taking its seat, the orchestra begins to play. A very soft melody reaches out across the room and fills the space with life. Trumpets, violins, the cello and the piano, all singing their own way to be part of the whole. The slow waltz feels the room, but there are no dancers to be seen out here in this vast space. To find the dancers we must dive deeper into this experience.
Follow the music until it reaches the space where it ceases to be vibration and is instead turned into electrical signal. Follow that canal deeper and deeper into the mass. Halt! Ahead there is a massive storm, an electrical cloud, this is our stop, the main event is about to begin. The world outside these walls is irrelevant. The outside world contains logic, details and a lot of opinion. In here is the world of yearning, of characters and most importantly, the world of the dreamer.
You are here for one reason, to try your key in the lock on the front gate of the subconscious. There will be no time to take notes if that door does open, the thoughts fly free and fast, catch a dream if you can, ride it to its heart and never look back. The storm is slowing and the environment in this space is becoming very still, so absolutely still that motion seems eminent. The space goes dark for a moment, then a spotlight comes to point out the front gate to the subconscious. A confident, deep female voice with enough authority to be a self proclaimed deity speaks “Approach the gate and its subordinate channels, attempt your key, dreamer.” You move slowly to the main gate, and press your hand to the plate, nothing happens, all is silent. You move to the first subordinate passage and place your hand on its door, same result, you are denied entry. You attempt the second subordinate entrance, the entire door shakes and a trumpet fanfare rings throughout the space. The door is gone, replaced by a blinding yellow-white light, radiating from within the chamber to your mind’s eye. Stepping through the passage, your body shakes with anticipation of events to come.
Inside the chamber you see things you’ve never seen before. Creatures that do not exist in the world of the normal and the rational. A bright red mustang with hooves of gold, and a mane of the finest silk. A turtle with a shell of steel and skin of velvet. Anything is possible in this world. You begin to think of the impossibility of it all, and the light in the room grows dim. You feel as though your access to this special place is being threatened, and you focus really hard to eliminate the thoughts of the logical. You circle the thoughts in red and blink twice, the thoughts are removed and the illumination restored to the room. When the lights come back up, the room has changed, different impossibilities exist here now. Rivers are running from floor to ceiling, boats are too. You see a young woman across the forest, she waves to you and then signals you to come to her. She made no visual signal, but you know she signaled for you. Her face is fair and even, her hair straight and blond. Her physical features are so perfectly proportioned, more so than anything you have ever seen in that other world. You look into her perfectly blended blue-green eyes and realize immediately that she isn’t a whole person, she is just the most beautiful shell you have ever seen. She has no name, she has no purpose, she doesn’t even have emotion. As you think that last thought, she creature has emotion, you willed it upon her. She has received your sadness for the situation she is in, and she blames you for not giving her a name or a purpose. She yearns to have revenge upon you for this horrible thing you have done. How could you not give this being a purpose in your plot? You begin to feel guilty for not thinking to give her depth, or a family or even a lover. You look around the room for more inspiration, you see the boats going up the river. Her clothes change, she is in a white uniform with a white hat. A glossy name badge appears on her chest, “Captain Jane Nautical”. She introduces herself “Hello, I’m captain Nautical, but my crew calls me Captain Jane”. She aspires to command a large naval vessel and make her mark on history by traversing the seas.
During your journey through the chamber you meet many other characters. Some are characters you know from your past, some are characters belonging to other dreamers who you know, some are characters you don’t know, but yet seem oddly familiar and others are characters that are foreign to you, who you will get to know in time.
In the middle of the festivities and fun, the sound of an antique clock striking its hour rings through the chamber. The voice returns, “Dreamer, your time is up, you must now leave, but if you return promptly at the same time tomorrow, I will show you more of my world”. You are swept as if by a great wind from the chamber, back to the ‘lobby’ and finally, like a blast of air from a trumpet you are blasted from the canal. You are back in the dark room. The liquid crystal contains a large amount of text, none of it yet making sense to you. The music ends and the lights of the room turn on slowly. You rise from your seat and exit the room, remembering the promise of the great voice, with the words “return tomorrow” staying most clearly in your mind.
You survived your first trip to the core, tomorrow is another day and you must rest for your return. Awaken dreamer, you are ready to begin.

Assignment: Journal free assignment – Poem about ceramics, without using the words “clay”, “vessel” or “wheel”
Response:
Cold, damp, firm
Spinning faster, and faster yet
Hands wet, touch it
Smooth, creamy to the touch
Press in hard, it reacts
It bends to the will of the hands
Press in, its tall
Press down, its fat
The reactions are exact
The movement is fluid
As if pushing water,
Captured without gravity
Only two dimensions
Height and Width
Up and Out
What one side does
The other respects
Press the thumb into the center
Pull towards you
The space opens
Negative space is created
Thumb and index finger together
Pinch a lump from the bottom
Unroll the lump up the wall
Feel it stretch beneath the fingers
Swift, smooth motions
Graceful pulls
Gentle curves
Easy touch on
Easy release off
Open further
Shiny surface
Glistening body
Stretching further
Almost about to burst
Standing rigid with soft tension
One more pull will collapse
No more spinning
Curves like rolling hills
Color of light chocolate
Standing tall and wide
Smooth rounded lip
The work is done
Strike below on the steel head
Fingers beneath the foot
Twist and lift
The world holds its breath
No machine creates that reaction
Throwing lines are still visible
A million finger prints
Identifying creator of this bowl

Assignment:
Write a poem using 4 of the following: A simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, 2 symbols, a paradoxical statement, or hyperbole.
Response:
A single candle
Lit with the intensity of a thousand suns
The flame jumps and dances
Quietly speaking to anyone who will listen
Like a quiet mourner in the night
But the existence of the flame is life, not death
The flame persists throughout the night
As the glow of morning approaches, the candle is short
The dew falls, the flame grows weak
As the sun rises, a new life gives birth to death

Assignment:
Write an interesting version of an existing recipe
Response:
Today, my young student, you will learn to make a special lasagna. It has four major parts, the red sauce, the bechamel (white sauce), a ricotta filling and then the structural components.
You will need a small bundle of lasagna noodles, two large handfuls of a ground red meat of your choice, a palm of chopped allium cepa, three bulbs allium sativum, a few dribbles of olive oil, three medium love apples (peeled and chopped), a generous pinch of sodium chloride, a small pinch of basil and oregano and a few cracks of ripe peppercorns.
Place the pasta into a pot of dihydrogen monoxide once it has reached 374 degrees kelvin if you are at one atmosphere of pressure. If you are in a situation that causes you to have an irregular pressure, please calculate your proper boiling point based on the assumption that dihydrogen monoxide will boil at the temperature at which the vapor pressure is equal to the relative atmospheric pressure1. At this point you may include sodium chloride in the dihydrogen monoxide if desired. Remove the pasta from the dihydrogen monoxide and sodium chloride compound, and immediately submerge it in dihydrogen monoxide at a temperature near 277 degrees kelvin until all of the other steps have been completed. Preparing the pasta first ensures that all other required compounds remain stable until they can be cooked.
Cook meat, allium cepa and allium sativum in a saute pan until the red pigments fade away, but do not allow the meat to begin turning brown. Use an osmosis process to remove fat. You will then add the remaining ingredients and cook quickly until the sauce is thick. This should take about thirty to forty-five minutes. Preheat baking apparatus to 477 degrees kelvin.
Next you will prepare the bechamel. You will need 118 CC homogenized churned fermented cream, one small hand of ground wheat grain powder, enough bovine lactic fluid to fill a 10cm by 2.5cm cylinder, an equal amount of fowl broth, one cube of fowl bouillon, and an additional small pinch of sodium chloride.
Heat the churned cream slowly until it de-coagulates, then add the wheat powder. Agitate briefly with wire instrument for one minute. Slowly add bovine lactic fluid, fowl broth. Heat to the appropriate point of boil for your atmospheric pressure. Continue agitation with the before mentioned instrument. Perform an oral examination of bechamel, and add boullion and/or sodium chloride if needed.
The final sauce is the ricotta filling. For this filling, you will need the egg of one chicken, 473 CC curdled dairy whey, 225 CC grana curdled cream and a pinch of sodium chloride. Open the egg, and empty its contents into a bowl, agitate briskly. Add the remaining ingredients and agitate slowly.
The last part is the assembly. For this you will need all of the compounds you have composed in the previous steps as well as an additional 1000 CC of grana curdled cream and 473 CC curdled whole bovine milk. Obtain and lubricate a 33cm by 23cm baking dish. Place some meat sauce into the bottom of the dish, just enough to hold the pasta in place. Lay half of the noodles on the sauce, and half of the remaining meat sauce, half of the bechamel, half of the grana curdled cream, half of the curdled whole bovine milk, and half of the ricotta filling. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.
From room temperature, bake at 477 degrees kelvin, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more, until bubbly.

Assignment:
Rewrite a fairy tale into a poem.
Response:
-The Ugly Duckling-
Why must I be so different from the others?
Outcast, Shamed and Insulted
Fearing what life might bring with its next day
Disappointment, strange looks and degradation
Hiding myself more and more each day to adapt
Can’t let the outside world see the real me
Now things have changed
I know myself now
Is it safe to come out to the world?
Will the torment from my past cease?
I know myself
I know I am a beautiful person

Assignment:
A sestina has 6 six-line stanzas and concludes with a final three-line stanza. In addition, each of the 6 stanzas uses the same words at the end of each line (but not in the same order). And, the last three-line stanza must make use of those same (6) words. Your Task: Write a Sestina.
Response:
Chocolate!
Warm, delicious chocolate from a dream
It seems as though I never have time
I need that chocolate in my blood
Oh how I crave a taste
I must be good, for now I will have water
I lack satisfaction from water
I need my cure, pure, sweet chocolate
All I need is a taste
Please don’t ruin my dream
I will give my blood
To have chocolate all the time
Boiling is my blood
Sweet is my chocolate
Bland is water
Chocolate is the dream
I need time
Time to taste
When I sleep coco is in my dream
I awake craving a taste
As soon as my alarm goes off, it is chocolate time
I splash my face with water
Cooling is the effect on my blood
But I still want CHOCOLATE
Why can we not all find the time?
Doesn’t everyone crave chocolate?
They must, for it is much sweeter than a young bull’s blood
The healthiest treat on Earth is water
Water can never parallel the chocolate taste
Oceans, lakes and waterfalls of chocolate fill my dream
The confection has a rich texture and taste
Lets not make haste in making the delicacy of chocolate
Antioxidants? There are none in water
Chocolate is good for the blood
Remember the benefits of chocolate at snack time
Remember chocolate for the sweetest dream
Dreams of chocolate
They taste sweet all the time
Chocolate is thicker than blood and water

Assignment:
Assemble a poem from various lines of a tour book, website, or other travel companion/resource
Response:
– A Cruise to Remember –
God himself could not sink this ship!
We place absolute confidence in the Titanic
Southhampton, Cherbourg, New York
Sails from New York 20 April 1912
Onboard swimming pool, a gymnasium
Turkish bath, libraries
Fastest, and the most luxurious ship afloat
Owned by the White Star Line
Titanic is unsinkable
*lines collected from varying Titanic resources and White Star Lines leaflets.

Assignment:
Imagine a person who uses public space as if it were private space. Write a description of this person in any form you chose, describing his/her actions.
Response:
He stood there, in the cookware section of the department store, staring intently into the bottom of one of the finest polished steel skillets in the store. His hair was neatly styled into rows of spikes held in place with gel. His muscular arms sprouted from his tight tshirt like tree branches, glistening in the artificial light above him. The shirt clung firmly to his muscular chest and well-formed abs. The rest of his clothing, just a simple pair of running shorts and athletic shoes to accent his two trunks. His face still staring into the pan, his blue eyes fixed on the object of his glance. He reaches down into the two quart saucepan beside him and pulls up his razor. He pulls the blade quickly through the layer of foam on his face, once, then again and again until his face is clear of the foam. He returns his razor to the saucepan, then opens the lid of the roasting pan on the shelf below where his skillet hangs. A small cloud of steam rises from the roasting pan. He reaches in and pulls out a small cloth, which his then uses to wipe his face. He returns the cloth to the pan and then turns to leave. When turning he is confronted by a young woman with golden hair. She inquires to him “Sir, what are you doing?” his cleanly shaven face turns bright shades of red before he responds “Ma’am, I am running late, as I often do, and neglected to shave, and this spot seemed as good a choice as any”. The woman smiled and nodded, and the embarrassed gentleman excused himself and dashed off to his station at the sporting goods section of the store.

Assignment:
The task is to write a ten-line poem. This poem must include a proverb, saying, or familiar phrase (examples: as fast as greased lightening, one foot in the grave, the whole nine yards) that you have changed in some way. This poem should also include five of the following words in it:
cliff, blackberry, needle, cloud, voice, whir, lick, mother
Response:
My dear hummingbird, you visit me every spring
You leave me every fall
You mother your young so near the needle of the pine tree
I spy you grabbing sweet nectar from the blackberry blossom
That is a taste we share, as when the berries are ready, I too will get a lick
You seem to have no voice, only great speeds with which to communicate
When I lay on the lawn to watch the clouds, you zip by, with not even a sound
I wish I too could move at your speed, but in the summers, I prefer to read
Your presence makes me happy hummingbird, you are my friend
Look before you whir my dear hummingbird, for my window is a rather steep cliff

New Category: Hobbies > Academic > Creative Writing
http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/archives/hobbies/academic/creative_writin/
Under this heading I will post things I’ve been working on this semester in my Creative Writing course at CPCC. The posts will be in the format of Assignment as assigned and then my response to the assignment.
Assignments that are particularly long may be linked to in an entry as a separate file.