Dueling in Purple

Violet Black and DJ just finished a purple prose competition.

Purple prose is over-writing. It is when a bubbly, over enthusiastic writer uses far too many exciting, colorful modifiers; sensationally sizzling verbs; and excessively dramatic hyperbole. Well... you get it!

Purple prose is bad writing.

But, purple prose has many good uses.

Here are some we discovered:

1. Purple prose is great for loosening up and overcoming writer's block.
2. It helps a writer discover colorful words.
3. It stimulates new ideas.
4. It can be used to breathe life or fun into a piece, and edited for the best portions.
5. Purple prose is fun to write, and creates momentum and energy in the writer.
6. It is great for inspiring melodrama and humor.
7. It is a fun way to explore plot twists and turns.
8. It is especially useful in November when fatigued and starving Nanowrimo competitors are gropingly desperate for words to count!

We had a competition to see which of us could create the worst (or would that be best?) purple prose in three categories. We decided to post it here and let you determine which ones are the most purple. This will get long, so feel free to skim or skip if you like. That is typical of purple prose anyway.

We hope you are inspired, or at least laughing. We challenge you to duel as well. To participate, pick a winner for each category, and leave one or more of your best efforts in the comments. (You don't have to be a member of this blog to participate.)

Category 1: Where you live

A: She looked out her kitchen window at the miles and miles of glorious, flat, spacious, open land. Only an occasional tree or house interrupted the horizon. Nowhere else in all the remaining sphere of the earth could one find the vastness of this marvelous free ranging land!

B: The wind lashes through like a death angel: uprooting all plants except the most strong, demonic weeds. The land is saturated in brown death; the air at times putrid with rotten grain and fresh, brown pies. The sun glares, often bleaching the sky like parchment. The air is so dry you feel as though you are suffocating. Hawks circle, ravens chortle, and the doves sob. But in the midst of this desolation... a spot of green sheltered by elms, and willows, and pines. And there stands a brick house the color of sand -- the place I call home.

Category 2: Where you shop

A: I pushed open the door, and stopped to take in the intoxicating smell. My eyes caressed the items surrounding me, longing to touch and hold everything. Colors were dancing and prancing, trying to snatch my attention. I basked in it all for a moment, taking in deep luxuriant breaths. Joy and passion swelled inside me, longing for just one piece. "Fabric! Oh, how I love you!"

B: She entered Porky's. The grocery store was the only respectable, genteel, gracefully aging business on one side of a shabby, old, run down shopping center. The strip mall, appropriately called, had been stripped of all usefulness, beauty, and respectability. The grocery store was the one remaining spark of life and goodness in the area. Compared to the overblown parasitic commercialism of the larger supermarkets; Sandy loved the smaller, cozy size of this store, and the ever gracious, hospitable, solicitous helpfulness of the employees.

Category 3: Your transportation

A: She climbed into the red monster of a vehicle. At her age, getting into the suburban was like climbing Mt. Everest, and about as dangerous. She furtively reached up to grasp one of the hand-holds. It seemed to be light years away from her desperately extended fingertips. Finally, with gasping, choking breaths, she stretched far enough to grasp it. She lifted her leg up to the floor of the monster, then pulled with her arm and pushed with her leg to lift herself past that vast gaping chasm between the gravel and the vehicle. She pulled and pushed with all her strength, stretching every sinew, straining every muscle, bursting capillaries and veins until at last she heaved herself onto the seat of that cavernous beast. In exhaustion, she looked out over the blood-red hood of the vehicle, imagining that it had gotten its scarlet color by slaking its thirst with her life-blood, which now flowed dripping off its vast cold side.

B: I am sleek and red as a poppy. But I am tough and dignified like an army tank. I prefer to call myself Gladiator, but the ignoramus who orders me around calls me "Suburban". What an indignation!

Sending Up a Test Balloon

Being a writer, I can't just sit back and enjoy an experience. Some part of me is always living in the third person, writing about it, looking for metaphors and interesting imagery.

Today we (Brandon, the kids, and I) are in Albuquerque for the balloon festival. Today is one of the days where the shaped balloons are highlighted. We got up at 5:30 (but it sounds more impressive if I say we got up at 4:30, which is what it was New Mexico time) in order to eat breakfast and get out there in time to see the balloons go up at sunrise.

Row by row, the balloons billowed as they filled with hot air and slowly rose. The shape and colors of each balloon weren't fully discernible until they were completely full and ready to take off. What is that black and white one? Felix the Cat? No, Mickey Mouse. It turned out to be Pepe le Pew.

Then, amid cheers from the crowd, they would rise and float away, seemingly as effortlessly as soap bubbles (and there were vendors, coincidentally, selling soap bubble guns).

A couple of unflattering comparisons arose in my mind about writers, ego, and hot air, but I discarded them in favor of this:

An idea is like an empty hot air balloon. In fact, for me, it's like a balloon that someone else has given me, that I didn't work for at all. I have a lot of ideas, more ideas than I have time or energy. I don't know where they come from, and I don't take full credit for them.

The hard part isn't the idea (for me, but that may vary from person to person, I'm sure), it's making something of it. A hot air balloon isn't much to look at until a lot of energy has been expended to fill it up and flesh it out. Features become obvious that were previously hidden. Finally, the work is finished, waiting to be set free like the balloons bobbing, tethered to the ground.

Then a pilot and some other crew members are needed to make sure it gets up in the air. The final completed work, published, looks as effortless as a soap bubble, but in truth it took a lot of work and guidance by various individuals along the way, more than any casual observer could understand.

There was also something particularly appropriate about this metaphor since many of the balloons that we saw this morning were completely fantastic­--a gargoyle, a goldfish, a steam locomotive, a witch, a haunted house—imaginations set loose in reality.

Out of Time...

I started to read a book by that ^ title (or one very like it) but I just couldn't finish it. It's at the Book Shoppe, now, probably ;-) The subject was time travel -- apropos, yeah? -- a subject, I think, which is very hard to tackle. (I've only ever read one that I really liked -- The Time Traveler's Wife -- so, so good! (Sigh!) I'll lend it, but I must have it back)

Anyway, I'm way off the beaten path, here. So, back on track, here.

Do you ever feel that you are just out of step with time? Like everyone around you is moving on one scale and you're just a half-beat off? That's how I feel sometimes.

I remember seeing a sketch on Saturday Night Live once using that premise. It starred the host, Rob Morrow (Doc. Joel Fleishman on Northern Exposure) as a guy who, while lunching with his friends, attempted to engage in the conversation and interject jokes or funny anecdotes...but his attempts kept falling flat. Like they were just a hair off, one half-step too late. The friends at his table kept looking at him in that uncomfortable way, trying to muster a genuine laugh, yet only managing half-hearted, embarassed chuckles. After several failed attempts, he finally excuses himself to the restroom and instead goes into a time machine sort of booth, resets his time, steps out and rejoins his friends at the table. Now, magically, everything he says just...fits right. And the sketch fades out.

That's how I feel about my writing... like my perspective is just...a hair off; not needed... out of sequence. Like my observations and viewpoint are just...out of time. Almost as if the time for my writing/ viewpoint/ perspective has, sadly, passed.

Now I sound like I feel sorry for myself. That's not true. I can't see anything other than how I see it, so there's no use in lamenting the fact, yeah? Maybe ...my viewpoint isn't commercially viable. So what? One could make the argument that Jane Austen's small worldview didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Her writing was critiqued by the Bronte's (blech. Can't stand them.) as being too naive and innocent. She was criticised for not venturing beyond her limited country upbringing for subject matter. Yet look at the impact her little world -- with the limited society and restricting manners -- has had on the larger literary world.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a Jane Austen, my ego will never be healthy enough to make that claim. What I am saying is this... if Jane Austen hadn't shared her talent with the people in her life -- because she shared her writing with her family and a few select close friends, at least for the most part -- if Cassandra had burnt all her stories in addition to most of her personal letters...imagine what we would have lost! Thank God, Austen showed her stuff to her family. Thank God they thought enough of her writing to seek publication on her behalf posthumously. Thank God her little world and her way of processing it has a treasure trove of interests for those of us who read and reread her works...treasuring them as the priceless legacy they are.

I have no such hope for my own stuff, because I'm 1) realistic and 2) ridiculously unintuitive. Austen had a grasp, in her short life, on the motivations and idiosyncracies of the people who populated her world. I am not sure I have either her intuitiveness nor her fearlessness in portraying, faithfully, the people who populated her world.

It takes courage to write what you know; to be true -- especially if you think it's uninspiring or uninventive or lacking in creative initiative -- to your own viewpoint, world view, 'limited' experience. Yet, you are the ONLY "You" in existence. No one else can have your unique viewpoint, no one else can inhabit your specific time/space continuum, no one else can hold the exact opinions and insights you hold.

Share that "You" in whatever way you can. Someone will find their life enriched by your gift.

Harry's New Book

Saturday I attended the Panhandle Professional Writer's meeting. It was good to see Harry Haines again. I was also looking forward to attending his book singing later in the day. Unfortunately, his books will not be ready until October 15th. Still, it is exciting to know that he will soon see the completion of his second book of a three book series.

It is hard to believe that we had him as a guest speaker just last February. Then he was singing copies of Orphan, the first book of the series.

Orphan tells the story of a colt that is the only survivor of a fatal accident. The colt is taken to Dr. James Robert Masterson, a local veterinarian, for care. They name the horse Orphan. It seems that the horse will become another member of the family, and Masterson's daughter finds Orphan to be the therapy she needs to help her face a deadly bout with cancer. Then it is discovered that Orphan was sired by a valuable race horse. Soon the Masterson's are embroiled in troubles they never dreamed of.

Harry has a talent for keeping a reader in the story -- wondering what is going to happen next. In his upcoming book, Texas Panic!, he again has Dr. Masterson embroiled in more trouble than any of us would want. Here is a brief quote from Harry's web site:

This is the health scare with everything -- a gruesomely exotic disease, unknown dangers, bungling bureaucrats, and a common food item found in virtually every home. ...the sensation-hungry American press finds the story irresistible.

But we don't have to deal with it. Instead, we can settle into our favorite chair to enjoy another adventure as we see how Dr. Masterson deals with this new set of trials and tribulations.

You can find out more about his newest book here, or look at his schedule for book signings and speaking engagements here.

I look forward to reading his new book when it comes out. If you get a chance, send him an email of congratulations!

Twilight

I believe in twilight
The end of day beginning of night
When most of creation sleeps
Resting for a new day tomorrow
Rain is washing away this day
Refreshing the streams and flowers
Before bedtime
The sounds I hear sing a lullaby
Putting me to sleep.

Submitted for mcj by Solard...

It's a humpty dumpty fence - a wall fence
I've been intrigued with it these days
Looking out the sunporch windows
It is held together, the mountain rocks
With red mortar - a standout scene
And I picture humpty dumpty sitting there
Watching the cars and trucks go by
Until one day he turned too quickly
And lost his balance and fell
Being an egg or egghead
And needing glue and reconstruction
We all took turns trying to match
His parts - just like a puzzle
Well, (deep subject) one piece was
Missing when we finished
And we hunted everywheree
In all the grass and under the rocks
Where bugs hide
But the missing piece has never
Been found
So humpty dumpty won't sit on the wall
Without that piece to balance him.

Can you find it?

prose poem by mcj

Life's Interruptions

I've heard somewhere that--life is what happens when you're waiting for it to happen--or something like that. Anyway that's how I often find myself --waiting for "real life" when "real life" is right now. Then along comes something unplanned and takes me out of my routine and leaves me floundering for awhile. Ordinarily I'm a person of plans and habits, and I feel secure when routines are established. And then I ask, "What is real life?"

Anyway, since my husband had a couple of bypasses and spent six days in the hospital, I was forced to get out of my routine. It's been good for him to need me in a new and different way, and it's been good for me to focus on him. And although it's been difficult to focus on a specific writing project, journaling has again been my "salvation" and caused me to think about LIFE and it's many blessings.

I also found a "new and right spirit" within...

Nana

Is it stopping you?

Some of you may know that I attended university, majoring in Speech with a minor in Theatre, and was one class -- three credit hours -- shy of graduating. That was seventeen years ago! My catalogue has long since changed and in order to get my sheepskin at this point, I'd have to make up about a year and a half's worth of classes, at this point... Which is a topic for another blog -- namely not this one ;-) but serves to introduce the topic I'd like to blather on about in this post.

Most of the teachers and professors in Ole Miss's Theatre department had all, to some varying degree, been professionals in the field either before, during and/or after their tenure at the U of M and most of them recited a mantra on a regular basis that stuck with me, in me and went through me during my time as a ...ahem... scholar there. This mantra shaped everything about professional theatre that I still, lo these many years, believe to my core... This mantra was the very reason I suffered depression, battled hopelessness and ultimately why I, to this day, do not pursue a career in professional theatre.

That mantra was this: If there is anything -- ANYthing -- you can do and be happy in this great big world other than theatre? Do it. Leave the acting to those who simply cannot do anything else.

I knew there was a love, a passion lurking in the backstage (see what I did there? hee) of my heart... a desire much deeper and longer standing than any other that came before and, save for my husband and two children, still trumps anything else in scope or magnitude in my view.

That thing? Writing. (of course, you knew I was going to say that!)

At the FiW this year, I was reminded of that oft-repeated mantra of my former theatre professors and teachers because -- and don't ask me who, because I can't remember -- someone said it. They said, "If you can do anything other than write, do it, because you probably aren't going to make a living at it."

Now, in university, my reaction to this identical statement was, as I said, depression, hopelessness, and the sure knowlege that I'd never be a professional actor.

My reaction when I heard that mantra repeated at the writer's conference? "Pfft. I write because I HAVE to...doesn't matter if I ever make any money at it."

I hated that mantra in school -- it stripped me of my future (oh, so the drama!) and I bristled at hearing it repeated at the FiW...until I realized, Heh. It had no power over me anymore.

So...I'm not going to repeat that mantra to you today. Instead, I'm going to ask this question... When you read "If you can do ANYthing other than write and be happy, do it."

Is it stopping you?

Driven To Distraction By Deadlines

Oh Gosh! Is it my turn to write the blog? Did I miss the deadline? We were just talking about meeting deadlines (or not) earlier this week as we gathered around the kitchen table at GrandMary's place for our evening meeting of Pens & Pages.

That very descriptive word "deadline" was born in the POW camps of the Civil War. Just a few feet inside the outer fence surrounding the camp, a line was drawn. When a prisoner stepped a foot or even just a toe across that line, the guards patrolling the outer fence assumed this prisoner was making a break for it and he was immediately shot dead, no questions asked. Thus the dreaded DEADLINE.

I don't know at what point the term morphed into being the final moment in time when something must be completed. As writers, we are now most familiar with it being the time after which a written document can no longer be accepted for publication. In the old newspaper days of melted lead type and linotype operators, it was when the backshop foreman in his ink blackened apron would stick his head through the door to the font office and yell, "Sorry Kiddo! I had to kill that story you turned in late. Not enough room anyway." So the story you had worked so hard to finish was just as dead as the fellow trying to escape from the POW camp.

At Monday's P & P meeting we pondered why our best writing is most often produced when we're working against a deadline, hurrying to finish up in time to turn it in. We had weeks to prepare but dawdled away the time, while the germ of an idea sort of tippy-toed around in the nether regions of our brains. Then with a final burst of creative energy, a lot of stress, a lot of self-reproach, a lot of coffee or something stronger --- Voila! The masterpiece!

Why do we put ourselves through this? Does anyone know a good psychologist who would attend our P & P meetings and offer free therapy for one and all?

Writing When You Can't Write

Her chest was tight and her breathing difficult. Breathe. Relax. Go back to sleep.... She coaxed herself to be calm. It was no good. Anne hugged her stomach. She felt like throwing up. The clock said 3 a.m.. She needed rest, but the exhaustion that first allowed her to sleep was gone. She wouldn't rest anymore... not until fear wore her out enough for fatigue to again release her.

What is Anne afraid of, cancer, a new job, foreclosure, a stalker? I don't know about Anne, but sending my son off to college this week terrifies me! So I get up and read a book until I can't resist sleep any longer, and the next morning I capture all my feelings in a journal entry for later use.

Times of change bring stress. Life careens out of control--much like entering a curve too fast. All you can do is deal with the moment and hold on. Such times often devastate our writing intentions, but they can be a foundation for better writing in the future. The key is to focus on the type of writing that can best be done in the situation, rather than to give up writing all together.

For me, the busyness and stress of sending a son off to college drove out the time and the motivation to do my mystery rewrite or romance rough draft. I don't have time to remember where I am in a story, let alone focus on it. Will I lose days, or weeks of writing, until the crisis is past? When life interrupts my writing goals, journaling keeps me from being unproductive. By journaling in times of crisis, I capture the tension of those times. I step into my writing mindset and examine my feelings. What better time to grapple with describing what it is like to be uncertain, terrified, or harried than when we are feeling that way ourselves?

Life's interruptions can be a writer's road block, or they can be our on-the-job training. Learning to communicate the intensity of difficult moments will bring our writing to life. So step back, observe, write, and maybe, just maybe, you will manage to preserve your sanity in the process. Sane or insane, you will have made the most of the moment as a writer.