. Spinning .

I reread some of what I wrote yesterday, and though it would undergo some heavy editing if there were reason for it, for stuff written off the cuff there are some bits and pieces of value in the exercise.  (Sorry for the propensity towards rhyming poetry which a good night’s sleep has done nothing to resolve.)

The most obvious idea to come out of the exercise (aside from the natural inclination to remain in rhyme mode once knee-deep in it) was that I forced myself to come up with eight different story lines, eight totally unrelated narratives to cover the topics in a complete story arc with conflicts and resolution within each. 

And…in under five hundred words or less (in most cases, under 200).  That’s something new for me, although I suppose each entry here at Spinning is in reality a short to short-short story in itself. 

There are many writing websites that give you one theme a day to write about.  I simply don’t do well under pressure unless it’s self-imposed, and with nobody standing over me with a whip, I won’t do it unless I want to do it.  Yet I wrote over 2,500 words yesterday, and more importantly, came up with some degree of inspiration to make each story unique.

Though it sounds like I’m blowing my own horn here, what really amazed me was the channeling of the creative energy and the ability to stop and switch focus to each plot at hand. 

Maybe I’d have the discipline to go pro some day after all!

Okay, applying gluttony to areas other than just food, I can count it …

"Good things come in small packages," her mother prompted Eloise, for Eloise was little for her age but smart.  She understood her mother’s love, she knew that she would grow someday, but still she ordered cake instead of tart.

And all the smaller she remained, all the larger her eyes grew.  A horse and not a pony; a pumpkin, not a pear; she always headed first to pet the elephants at the zoo.

Each night at evening meal Eloise heaped on the mashed potatoes, great slabs of beef and boats of gravy on her plate.  Of course, she’d grow, but oh, so slow, and as with all else in life, of slices out of time she wanted more.

Her little brother Heath was more than four years younger, and yet he towered above her in quite no time at all.  She sanded down his shoe-soles, tied him to a tree, and yet despite her best attempts he grew so tall.

One Christmas Eve she heard the sound of sleighbells on the roof; rose and ran downstairs to find St. Nick himself with satchel black with char.  With blue eyes wide and anxious, she asked him for a prize.  “The biggest, bestest, heaviest and most,” she did demand.  But he reached out and showed a tiny gold wrapped box within his fuzzy mittened hand.

“No, no!” she cried, “I want much more than that small golden gift.  I want the stars, the moon and all the sky that they are in!”

Santa frowned, but nodded, pulled a present from his sack; it was so big it nearly knocked Heath’s Lionel off its track.  It bent the boughs of the Christmas tree, it reached the kitchen door, it made the wood floor creak; but Eloise smiled and nodded, with a promise not to peek.

So early Christmas morning, Eloise snuck right down to see, what Santa could have left that wouldn’t fit beneath the Christmas tree.  She tore the ribboned wrappings, stood to reach upon a chair.  But when she got it open, the box was filled with sky and empty air.

Well this has been a productive day, in Spinning weblog anyway, and here I am still stuck in Susie Sing-Song cadence mode.

With one more sin to bring to light, (although I find it hard to see the harm in Gluttony, and regularly do indulge) I suppose it’s fine to rhyme my way into the night.

Really though, it’s been fun to come up with this little series of sins, and tested some skills (and fouled up many) to just freely write what came to mind.  "Lust" is still my fav, I will admit.  And in all truth and honesty, this day was also filled with imagery (sorry!) as storyboards haunted me (last one!) from past New Media projects.  Perhaps that test I posted several days ago on colors and words has bothered me enough to try to overcome my text-based left brained mind.

It’s after dinner now, and I have eaten at the trough (heh-heh) or table as I should refer to sitting down at meal.  And stuffed full to satiety, I hope to work on Gluttony, and end this little dalliance with the Seven Deadly Sins.

The matter of the Clatters is a legend of the West, and how they saved their little town of Hard Times in Montana.  Mr. Clatter was a short-fused man, his wife a boiling cauldron and their seven children followed suit in order.  Their covered wagon, people say, was patched and tattered by the trip from Massachusetts to Ohio and the Trail.  The holes were shotgun blown as Mr. C. was often prone to grab the trusty muzzleloader in conversation while Mrs. C just fired away and children scattered.

But way out west was just the place for folks who liked to face-off in a loud and ringing fight till the smoke blew over.  And their neighbors learned to shut their ears or sigh and call on Jesus and in one instance, did just that and ran for cover.

Winter winds and tons of snow befell the pioneers one year and soon they had to cluster in the town.  To share the wood, to pool their food, to vainly hope for something good to come their way from out East on the railway.  By the end of that grey January the people swore against the saints, but silently of course, except the Clatters.  Who railed and ranted happily until it came to be that Old Engine 97 slowly hissed into the station. 

With no more coal and little wood, the train was bound to stick around until the local doc had an idea.  They needed food, to sell their wares, they needed what the great iron monster offered.  So for the cause without a pause the Clatters (good folk underneath it all) were harnessed for their energy and spitfire.  Mr. C. proudly blustered beside the engineer and let off steam enough to run the train to California.  And Mrs. C., though quieter without her man, was driven and inspired by folks who welcomed all the fire that she could muster. 

So all survived the winter blights, and in the April moonlit nights, the weary Clatters quietly went to bed.  Exhausting all the pent up rage, they spent the years without the waging wars they shared for years in younger days.  But sad to say, and this is true, that Indians came and scalped the crew, although some say (and not that it really matters) that the family fumed and fought, and one and all they blew their top, a fitting end, I suppose, to all the Clatters.

There was a place far down the road and up the hill around the bend where peaches grew as big as canteloupes.  And in the crisp of autumn air (quite crisp here, crisper there) the apple-laden branches glowed red and groaned.  Winter snow was never brown and muddy with the dirt of roads but like a sparkling diamond necklace lay coiled and long.  Dressed in crystal facets that threw rainbows in the sun, the snaking road led up and up and to a home.  But what a home!  No mansion, still its windows gleamed with firelit light and applewood scented air rose from its chimney.  Hand-hewn timbers framed the rooms and quilts of satin roses matched the filmy curtains smiling on the window sills. On the porch, along the front sat a wicker couch, two chairs, a table, and on the tree out front there hung a small child’s swing.  It was a place that welcomed you, it was a place serene, and yet the only one who lived there was alone.

He was a man who knew the land, he’d lived there all his life as did his father and his father’s dad before him.  They’d all put something in the house, strong hands to build and plant and from the harvest they would put up the precious fruit.  It was the sweetest (everyone just knew) and their grapes would sing in deep red wine (though no one in the town had ever sipped the brew).

It rained out there just in time to fill the well, or sprout the fields or plump the fruit to let it ripen in the sun.  But in the town the black clouds hovered, rained hard to wash the soil away and the strong wind blew weeks or even months in rows (or so they claimed).

The man was old, last of his line, and yet he had no visitors at all, no conversation, nor any friends to share his bounty.  His lawns were green but greener still were all the people round him in the miles of yellow brittle grass of the county.

It took some days in winter nights for someone to notice lack of lights, another day or two before they thought to check.  But old George Stone had mellowed some, and so he cautiously made his way one day along the hill and down the road and round the bend.

The man was buried in the town, surrounded by the folk who’d frowned before him at his father and his dad.  With no one left, the land was gone to those who scorned yet hid desires to run and quickly claim it for their own.  Divided up, the house torn down, and old George got the apple trees but in five years he’d never plucked the fruit. 

It rains there now from clouds that moved from town along the grey rocked snaking road, and up the hill and round the bend and on.

Yes, I realize that slander is not one of the commonly listed sins of seven, but I’m having a hard time accepting gluttony as a sin and thought I’d make a substitution.

Don’t really know what started me off on this trail this morning, and I notice the change in tone and humor as I go.  Have three more to do, those of Anger, Envy, and yes, I’ll do one on Gluttony, and simply make the list at eight.

Once upon a land they held their crowned heads high and danced majestically with green-blue oilslick colored feathers spread out wide.  Their beauty was a sight to see, they drew the crowds yet strutted free among the groves and village streets to screech their song.

They had no need of mirrors for they mirrored each other’s swell, although perhaps a bigger, taller display of eyelashed eyes was noted here or there.  They fought and preened among themselves, too loudly once to foreign ears who snagged them, bagged them, shipped them over seas as royal turquoise as themselves.

And now they stand with tails closed shut as people watch and prod them to display with bits of bread or plastic spoons they shout and toss their way.  Their colors fade, their feathers dust, but ah, one spies a special prize and proudly flaunts around what he has found.  And once again he struts the pen, oblivious to the laughter at the streaming toilet paper he drags behind him on the ground.

There was a maiden, fair and lean, whose beauty went beyond what’s seen, in that her generosity of spirit.  She willingly would share her charms in any (and all!) takers’ arms and yet still moaning with delight, she wanted more.

Lush and lovely were her mountain peaks, many peeked into her valleys too, but soon she found herself with woe and child.  "I cannot take the time to nurse, I cannot take the time!" she cursed, and doubled up her daily dose of loving.  Eventually, this fertile lass, took to her bed but never read, and sprouted in her fields every seed there planted.  She grew and grew but never stopped,  she never dressed and never shopped, but lay there laying in a steady stream of callers.

But time is one that won’t be quirked, and though the lady never worked, she too (as must us all) pay price of lust.  It was about two years or more, but all the folks who lived next door were still amazed the day that she exploded.

I knew a man who liked to write and bought himself a pen from his allowance.  His only flaw–he didn’t like to work and when he wrote he found he couldn’t sell his story.  He also liked to paint but couldn’t pay for pigments nor the place to store the canvases in piles.  And then one day he came across a painter on the street and ‘fore the man could sign his name to one, he bought it.  He went up just three blocks and sat and wrote his name and then he charged another man a double price and went back for another.

Now this went on for quite a while, and soon he wearied of the walk and struck a deal as marketeer and bought the right to sign as well.  It worked out well until the brusher saw his friend get rich while spending his own take on paint and stretchers.  Before the grumbling could be heard, and quick as light the artist signed in front of sidewalk crowds that searched for pens as one ran out of ink.