Creative writing exercise

If you find me scanning the horizon or hunched over with my ear to the ground, it is probably because I’m searching for a clever creative writing exercise to experience and share. The best leave room for interpretation. Personally, I enjoy attempting to manipulate the exercise. I want to develop an approach that’s unexpected but manages to fit the parameters, hopefully transcending the frontiers of the challenge.

OK, that’s waxing a bit melopoetic. (Phrase-coining alert). Let’s just say you’re travelling from point A to point B, but you want to change the mode of transportation.

That is why I like this particular exercise. It is ripe for interpretation, manipulation and customization: Take one thing and describe it ten different ways.

That “thing” can be anything real or imagined, tangible or ethereal, republican or democrat. You get the idea. There is sky, but there is no limit. One thing. Described ten ways. One sentence each. I’d say “on your mark, get set, go,” but I’ve already started.

The lie you told

The lie you told polluted the room like carbon monoxide – odorless, invisible and toxic. It sounded like a sonnet but echoed like a dirge. I was frightened by how comfortably it spilled from your mouth. You addressed it like an old friend. The language tore through me like shrapnel and ricocheted in the hollowed space between my ribs and spine. Tulips wilted when you exhaled. I could taste the ashen remains of integrity consumed by guilt fire. The weight of the words submerged my body, driving me ever deeper to join other victims of narcosis. The lie drained the remaining light from your eyes. It wasn’t until I tried to find you in its residual darkness that I realized you were already gone.

That’s my ten.

I’ll link here to other great 1×10 descriptions as I discover them. Let’s make a pact never to see the world in the same light again.

1. Describing description
2. My computer’s making a weird noise again
3. Because I just had lunch…