Photo: bernat...
15 November 2011
Wow. It’s been a long time since my last post here. There is not one single post from October, and November is now half over. Oh well. Such is life.
The other night I was at my girlfriend’s place and we decided to have some creative fun. We Googled creative writing games and the one we chose to do involved two words and 10 minutes. We each picked a word (mine was “seashell”, hers was “necklace”) and set the timer. It was go time.
I hadn’t written fiction is ages — it was something I wanted to try again. I was pretty happy with what came out; I feel it hits on multiple levels, has a nice tie-in at the end, and is vague enough to make it interesting. Of course, that’s just my opinion. You be the judge.
It was not long ago that Sandra had all her hair. She couldn’t recall, though, how it felt when the breeze blew through it. These days she wore lots of hats. Big hat, little hats, pointy hats, hats with floppy brims.
She liked the shape of her head, how her ears stuck out at just the right angle. Just the right angle for her to hear the old couple screaming at each other in the apartment above her. Sometimes they stomped around so much it shook her favourite seashell off the shelf.
But it never broke, that trusty souvenir she picked up on a vacation to Mexico three years ago. She had hair then, she recalled, although she’d just had it cut. She cut it for Shane because he once said he thought the blonde girl from Wilson Philips was pretty. Sandra didn’t have blonde hair, but she wasn’t about to dye her red hair. That’s where she drew the line.
He bought her a necklace on that trip. He haggled the poor beach vendor down to four pesos. The overtanned Mexican said it cost him four pesos. But she didn’t believe him. She didn’t trust very many people. Not even Shane. He cheated on her once, once when she had long hair.
A little while back we also had a night of drawing. I used to sketch a little back in the day. I took art class in highschool but I was never really good at drawing things from my mind. I was pseudo-OK when I looked at something and drew it. Since it was my first time drawing in quite a while, and because it was fall, I chose a pumpkin. This is what came out:
Thank you. Thank you very much. 
Oh, and if you want to check me out playing a little geetar, here I am with my roomie, covering Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box”…
Since I’m not doing much traveling these days, I hope to use this space more for creative endeavours. It’s still travel, just a different kind. 
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice! Looking forward to see more on these creative endeavours!
Beautifully drawn pumpkin Carlo!
Haha, I posted a Facebook status about this not too long ago and how I wish I could remember how to write fiction! Awesome. We’re two peas in a pod. You make me wanna pick up my sketchbook.
Hey Carlo- I only saw the pumpkin and heard the song before…got to read the story just right now. “How sweet”…..is all that came out of my mouth!
btw… I value my judgment….usually right!
Loved the jam session! Nice. Looks like a lot of fellow bloggers/writers/friends are reaching back into their inner creative selves once more – writing, drawing, painting, journaling, singing, writing music…. Back to what I call that purer creative self SEO and social media has been trying hard to snuff out.