Writch's Coven Begins - Assignment #1

Greetings, Folks:

And by folks, I mean the official participant-members: CapCloud, csharpe, More_Ignorance, sunberry, and last - but not at all least - PVilla (EDIT: and now Sisyphus67 too).

So first of all, let me welcome you all and thanks for your interest. Ultimately, this group is to help ourselves while helping others. So you can start by patting yourselves on the back for taking a bold step in the right direction.

Secondly, I want to set the proper mood and expectations. I have but two points to touch: leadership & participation.

On Leadership: I'm not "leading" this group - I'll just be the facilitator, coordinator. So that means, I'll keep the calendar, make the announcements, admin the threads, and "enforce" participation.

That being said, then you'll wonder what do I mean by lead, and who will lead it? Quick answer: you all will. That is, we'll take turns, voluntarily or by vote (i.e. "peer-pressure") in choosing a theme or assignment. CapCloud has characteristically took the initiative and accidentally volunteered with his reply and suggestion assignment from the Pre-Commencement News post. I'll cover that, and kick-off the first assignment after one more formal note on informality.

On Participation: To set expectations about just how loose and informal this group will be, they'll be no enforcement of keeping on-topic - just keeping active. That is, you don't have to do the theme, but you have to "bring something" to the table by the "due date" and you'll be expected to give feedback to any and all the other's contributions, whether they're on-topic or not. Fair enough?

OK, then. Without further delay, here is Cap's assignment:

Now, this is how I propose we'll pull this off: we'll post each of our responses in the order of the list above (Cap excluded, because he started). So, first me (Writch), then csharpe, then More_Ignorance, then sunberry, and lastly PVilla(EDIT: now Sisyphus67 is last). Each writer will have about 72 hours to post their paragraph after the person before them has posted.

PLEASE, NO FEEDBACK on other's pieces YET - not until after PVilla (EDIT: now Sisyphus67 ) put up his. After we're all done, we can post responses. Suggestion:One post with the name of each contributor other than your own, and a line or two of your thoughts or recommendations for each writer; more extensive advise can be in a separate post, but be sure to address it to whom you're advising.  There'll be no time limit for when your feedback is due, except we'll have a about a week after PVilla's (EDIT: now Sisyphus67's)contribution, then on to the next assignment.

So within the next day, I'll post mine below.

May your muse inspire!
Writch (Rich)

Clarifications:

I realize that this was a circle exercise in CapCloud's class, so as you hand off to one to your left, you'd get one from your right. But in the interest of simplicity, we're just passing one around. That's my modification to this initiatory task.

However, Cap, when sitting down to attend to this, I kept vacillating on what the assignment was: am I to expound on your description (of your face, of which I have not seen)?  Or am I to add to yours my description of my own face?

Could you clarify for us all?

You get to do BOTH! Yea!

Everyone must do this for their own face: that's the real assignment. The additional phase of the pass/write was to practice what one can do given a seed.

So I think everyone do their own face and post it. THEN, write paragraph two from the person above in the order. I would get Sisyphus67 as my paragraph two assigment. (Writch gets Cap, Csharpe gets Writch, More_Ig gets Csharpe, Sunberry gets More_Ig, PVilla gets sunberry, Sisyphus gets PVilla, Cap gets Sis)

BUT for NOW, EVERYBODY should be doing Step One and posting as they can.

Clear enough?

Well, I don't want to hold this up any longer (my bad, folks). I was hoping Cap would answer back sooner, but then Life also threw wrenches into the works.

Here's mine. Five minutes for this:

How many times have I looked at him? As many times as he's looked back at me, I suppose. And we're still strangers. His eyes show a welcoming tension - cool and distant grey irises but tempered by the crinkled crows feet at their corners. The grey hair on his head and the strays sneaking in on his eyebrows and razor stubble betrays the pretended youth of a prominent dimple while he smiles at my scrutiny. "What?" he asks, lifting an eyebrow. I only answer with a wink.

Next?

The eyes, it's always the eyes.  Not brown, not black, just deep.  Staring at him, the men have a choice, a hand shake or a punch.  Two scars draw the attention to the confident chin.  One inch long half-moon scar crowns the left side of his jaw, the other one of life's marks is directly under his lower lip.  Fifty maybe sixty, left ear lobe was pierced many years ago when only pirates and gays wore earrings.  Cleanly shaven with a not-so-new razor, his smile is welcoming and sincere and glosses over the two chipped teeth from  a forgotton "wrong place at the wrong time" .

Cornflower blue was the color of the crayon in her son's hand.  Held close anybody could see it perfectly matched her eyes.  Piercing and icy at times others warm and inviting.  Her shaggy mane hastily put in a makeshift updo glistened in the sun.  A stranger passing by turned back and noticed something a bit irregular. Her eyes and hair almost distracted one enough to not realize the red rash over her nose and cheeks, oddly butterfly shaped.   It almost gave her an appearance of a berry.

Keep up the good work! when everybody is done with Step Two, we'll start the critique round (if that's OK with Writch...)

His features look...indistinct is perhaps the best word, the lips, a vague shade of blue/grey that isn't too far from the hue of his cheeks. So pale those cheeks. Yet darker than I ever saw them. The visible pores that reward those of oily complexion for their years spent working in dirt, more distinct than ever against the pale, almost white, skin so devoid now of the life that once filled his face.

Ok, sorry that was six minutes, But it's late and hard to think! (But easy to cheat :)

I know the order is mucked up, but I figure I was third anyway and it's probably better just to get stuck in, no?

Roger that, Cap'n.

Oh, and if anyone is concerned, my proposed order above is (obviously) out the window. It's a free-for-all. Looks like we only need csharpe's for Cap to get us to the next step of his assignment.

Over.

Edit(3/10/09): Whoopsies! Looks like I forgot Sisyphus; I'm glad he remembered himself! My deepest apologies, Jeffrey.

His eyelids were starting to droop at the edges, gouging the laugh lines even deeper beside the pale blue orbs.  The irises closed ranks against the morning sun and his brow furrowed out as a visor as his gaze swept across the valley below.  He could hear squirrels scolding him, and he smiled broadly; his dimples cut jagged lines down his cheeks to a jaw that had spent almost as much time clenching as it had laughing.  His nostrils flared as he slowly drew the scents into his memory.

It's quite alright.    

Since everybody knows the order (see above), go ahead and work on Step Two as soon as your Pardner posts.

I suggest you 'quote' their paragraph(with the 'quote' button), then write your bit. That should keep things orderly :)

This was the land of his father, every square acre he knew by its light and shadow, every hollow and swale held a story for him told by the elders that raised him. To be seperated from it, would be akin to losing a twin to a drowning. By the dawn light, sun just warming the outer layers of his cloak, he drank in the details as they turned from dim grey to living pink. In his heart, awakening there, too, was the sense that this land was his now...and he was it's last defender.

     He knew his own face and yet, when he saw it in a snapshot it always seemed like someone else, or maybe just that he never felt how he looked, the same way he always thought it sounded like someone else when he heard a recording of his voice.  Sometimes in the morning, before work, he looked in the mirror and laughed at the wrinkles, and the beard running to gray and the hairline receeding faster than the ice pack.  He would give a fist pump, exclaim "Yes!" and "Bring it on!" thrilled at the thought of growing old and passing (all in his natural time, of course).  Then he would grab the scissors and with an aggressive snip or two whack the slight comb-over he'd begun to cultivate in times of weakness.  Satisfied he would not succumb to the fear of death, he would trim his abundant moustache and beard and head off for work.

Not a bad man, just someone I don't know very well.  But he's always around, never done me any real harm, and most of the time stays out of the way.  But those eyes...I know they'd gotten him into trouble more than once, as he was always a sucker for the praise they seemed to engender from women.  Heck, he wans't complaining, exactly, it felt good to be living alone, after all those years he could only refer to as "the troubled times".  But when I look into those dusky pools of steel I see that he still misses her, and that it's not about to change anytime soon.  Then he surprised us both when he said out loud,
"I heard she's moving back up this way."  I look him in the eye.  "What?" he asks.

Some years ago (it wasn't that long ago was it?) , shortly after he'd graduated from high school, he'd taken some acid at a party and forgotten his own face. In the bathroom upstairs he'd stared into the mirror for what felt like hours, amazed at the stranger he saw there. The features that he'd been so wraptly witnessing the maturing of in the preceding teenage years were still the same, but that night he saw the first inkling of his real self. That self was the one he  woke up to these days and laughed with so amiably, the one who wasn't so different from everybody else. They were his eyes alright, and that was his nose, his cheekbones and his ever revealing scalp, but they weren't Him. He was more than that, and the knowledge had given him strength when dealing with the many mini-tyrants one meets in a lifetime. This was no petty beaurocratic boss or snippy waiter that he was facing today, but he knew that he'd be able to keep that same fluid calm no matter what news Dr Billingsworth brought him.

 Looking closer at the face, his eye color could finally be seen but it seemed so immaterial.  His wraith-like appearance was lost among his co-workers.  Their work among the dirt too made them indistinct.  Only the words on their signs separated them from each other: :"Unionize!," "Better work conditions," "Down with the corporation."  His sign in particular simply read, "No more." 

When she felt the stranger’s stare and looked up, he sheepishly feigned a gaze at her son.  She had become accustomed to the stares, most of which were more curiosity than repulsion.  When ever a brave heart would catch her look, she was kind enough just to smile her captivating smile as if to say, it’s ok, you can look at my butterfly.  And if that exchange of glances was with a man, the man was sure to comment to himself, what a heart-stopping beauty, if only . . .

This is EXACTLY what we want to do here: Step One makes you look at yourself and choose the words you want to put out there. Step Two allows someone else into your stream and interpret your words, bend the story to places you never thought they'd go.

Wait for Step Three: if Writch has no other plans, we'll critique and decide as a group whether you want to press this exercise further or move on to Writch's plan.

After my post here with my 5-mins-of-Cap's, as it were. We'll start the crits in no particular order - catch as catch-can.

P.S. Sorry for all my delays, folks - I got a move coming up in a week with school districts to joust and desk-load at work as well .