Time to get creative. I’m going to give you two items, one is a character and the other is a thing. When you put them together, what picture pops up in your head? Write it down. Then write a segment of a scene, 150 words or less, from the picture you got. Don’t look at any comments until you do, then post your results! It’ll be a good lesson in how different writers handle the same idea in unique fashion.
Today’s combo: romance writer & red wine
Rover hesitated, paw over keyboard. “What’s another word for ‘coyly’?” he asked The Cat.
Cat yawned.”Stupidly?”
Rover ignored him. Patty, the feeder, would be home soon and this page had to be done by then.
“The spaniel flipped her ear towards the dashing Rotti. The suggestion was obvious,” Rover typed, explaining the rules to his room mate as he did. “Show, don’t tell.”
“How about neither.” Cat rose, stretched, glared without blinking. “Why do they have red wine? One, the Lady one, is a spaniel and the other is a mutt. Like yourself. When was the last time you had red wine?”
“Of course they must have red wine. They’re having pasta.” Rover muttered, never taking his eyes from the screen. That is, until the phone rang.
That’s awesome. I kind of what to read more…. It’s so very meta but that makes it fun.
“Could this be any more corny? ‘Auburn locks and ruby lips’ sounds like a bad country western song.” Jolene tossed my manuscript on my desk. I twitched at the chocolate fingerprints and dog-eared corners.
“It’s my first try as a romance writer. It’s not like I have a lot of material to work with.” As usual, she completely missed the punchline. Jolene thought that irony was the opposite of wrinkly.
She snorted and turned back to the Duck Dynasty marathon. However, she was right. The manuscript did suck. It was time to change genres.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been working on something else. I just need to check on something. Would you mind helping me out?”
“Oh, you need me to rescue you again? Sure.”
My research said that sweet red wine would hide the taste. There was only one way to find out. After all, a crime writer needs to be accurate.
I find it hilarious that someone named “Jolene” is complaining about a story sounding like a bad country song. Good job
Thank you very much!
Terri
Great picture, I can see this on a made for tv movie.
“Suuunns of bitches”, said Beatrice as she swirled her red wine in the goblet she was using as a pointer. “I gave them the best days of my…of my life.” Pausing to remember what she was saying, Beatrice turned back to the reporter and said, “What were we talking about?”
“Yes,” said the young man as he crossed out some of what he wrote and began a new line . “But back to what I originally asked. Can you tell me more about what you liked about working for the Petunia’s Petticoat Press?”
“Oh them.” Beatrice closed her eyes. Reopening them wide as woken from a nap, she said, “They were a greeeeat publisher to write for.” Swinging the goblet in the reporters direction she said, “Best parties.”
Beatrice looked down at the floor and sniffed. “It was a very romantic time for me.”
The wine glass was empty. The bottle was one-fifth full. Pat poured the overpriced Bordeaux. The bottle emptied as the glass filled. “No such thing as an expensive buzz on. Booze is booze. Coulda gotten equally blitzed for a tenth the price.”
The hundredth rejection letter for Pat’s fifth attempt at a romance novel lay on the kitchen table. “Must be some sort of record for futility.” Pat drained the blood-red anesthetic in three gulps and tossed the glass toward the sink. The toss came up short. The glass shattered into shards.
“Wonderful!” Pat thought of using one of the bigger shards of glass to draw blood and end it all. “I can’t do anything right. Why the hell did I think I could compete with women in a female-dominated genre?”
He walked to his bedroom, crunching glass under his shoes, hoping sleep would erase his latest failure.
Janice scooted the laptop across the bedspread, rubbing her calf where the computer’s fan had left a red welt.
The scene wasn’t working.
Her fingers patted the air, alighting on the tapered bell of the wineglass on her nightstand. She inhaled the earthy aroma of the mature Cabernet and swirled the liquid, anticipating the satisfying tang of it rolling across her palate, and noting how it trickled down the insides of the cup. Tonight’s Cabernet certainly had legs.
That’s it! Janice pounced on her keyboard, typing furiously.
“Raphael’s foot snaked around Carissa’s pale ankle, entwining his leg with hers and subtly imprisoning her. His hand traced her tapered waist as he breathed in her earthy scent. Perhaps he’d waited too long, but he knew a first kiss was most satisfying when the anticipation of it had time to mature. He leaned in, his gaze fastened on her dark red lips.”
“Hey Nunzio, I thought you said this writer chick was loaded? You said she sold millions of books. You said this was an easy job. Where’s all the jewelry? Where’s all the cash?” Vinnie yelled from the bedroom. Thirty minutes of rifling the house had yielded nothing.
“I dunno, maybe she’s got a safe or something. Did you check in that thing next to the bed?”
“It’s full of them romance paperbacks, the kind with the drawings on the cover of Fabio tryin to lay some English broad.”
“Under the bed?”
“Yeah, about a dozen empty bottles down there. This broad’s a drunk,” Vinnie said.
“Well, she is a writer. Most of them are.”
Vinnie pulled a half full bottle of red wine out from under the bed, yanked out the cork with his teeth and took a long drag. Maybe she’s old school and keeps her cash in the mattress?
Fun. I liked this.
I sat down at my computer, like I do every night, after a long, tired day at the office. Working overtime for Big Box R Us was paying the bills but I was never, ever going to finish the novel gnawing away at my brain this way. A perfect ring had been etched in my writing desk, exactly where I set my chilled glass of red wine every night, a daily reminder from my wife that I could do this. I leaned in to grab my writing notebook from its usual spot and knocked the glass over. I jumped up, hoping to keep my glass of liquid luck from staining my jeans and watched as it poured over the edge of the desk onto the new carpet. I knew it was just going to be one of those nights.
Across from him sat one of the most beautiful models in New York City.
Mike Love ordered a bottle of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou Saint Julien
from the vineyards of Bordeaux, France—partly because of one of his buddies referred it, and the French name he thought … most impressive.
The red color of the wine was like Melissa’s luscious red lips; and its ample fruity flavor accented his appetite for her ample body.
The grounded earthiness reminded him of his Mother. Kind, loving and gentle.
While swishing the wine around in his pallet enjoying his reverie, he hoped the sensation mutual.
Romanticism is not my forte…I am still trying to find it.
I thought it was good but mom and romance maybe not as much. I really liked the description of Melissa.
Thanks Sherri
We all know how much our mother influences our thoughts towards women … positive and negative.
The comparison thought that popped into Mr. Love’s brain merely related to what he perceived was his date’s qualities as well.
Thanks for the feedback.
I’m afraid it’s 169 words. I tried.
She sat at her favorite table in the corner of her favorite pub with a glass of red wine beside her notebook. Colleagues called her old fashioned for still using pen and paper to write her romance novels. She told them that it was the only thing truly romantic in her life, the old school way, and that it helped to connect her to the characters on the page. If all she did was tap, tap, tap and a keyboard felt she would completely lose the story.
“Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?”
She looked up at the man across the table from her. Where did he come from? Where had he been all her life? He looked like a man she should be writing about.
She gave him a nod and said, “please,” while wondering what he looked like walking away.
The man pulled the chair out and sat down. You wouldn’t even had known that the pistol in the back of his tight jeans pinched his skin.
Lorne:
Sorry so late in replying. Just back from out of town.
I really really liked this. You sucked me into this woman’s POV and immediately I liked her and wanted to follow her story (love the pen and paper old fashioned thing). But then with the last line you jerked me out and went into an omniscient POV with “you.” It’s in the “Little did she know…” vein. I missed being in the protag’s head…
This comment has been removed by the author.
“Red wine,” Coleman turned the bottle to read the label. “Romance Writer.”
“Who names these things?” Winters shook his head then blew into the action of his rifle and slapped the breach shut.
Sergeant Reed took another bottle from the crate, his huge hand wrapped nearly all the way around it, “What I want to know is what fool carried a whole case of this stuff across no-man’s land.”
Winters raised his periscope to see the German trench, “Jerries probably left it here when they retreated.”
“The label is in English,” Coleman re-examined the label, “there’s no German on it.”
The sound of a freight train split the sky. The mud in front of their trench exploded skyward blasting the periscope out of Winters’ hands. It shattered against the plank floor.
“May as well crack a couple of these open,” Reed said producing a corkscrew. “Probably our last taste.”
Well played, my good sir, well played.
Very cool, enjoyed the scene. I take a glass of that.
“Another glass of the merlot.”
Meghan looked up at the man, his face tired and frustrated. She smiled the smile she always gave a customer at this hour of the night. “You know,” she said as she put a fresh glass on the bar and began to pour. “We do sell it by the bottle.”
“Dear god,” he began, “it’s bad enough I’m alone tonight with not a soul to keep me company but a very stubborn heroine and her lesbian friend, you want me to look like a lush as well?”
He was on glass five. She had nothing to do with him looking like a lush.
“Novel’s not going well?”
His head hit the bar with a resounding thud. “My characters hate me.”
Like it!
As she sat sipping the red wine he’d brought to her, she imagined him dressed like the model on the cover of her latest novel. “What are you smiling about?” He asked leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Just thinking.” She grinned wondering if she could order the outfit on-line. “Hmm, and what is that evil brain of yours conjuring up now?” He made her want to toss her hair back and flutter her lashes even though she’d never have one of her characters act so foolish. “Just wondering how you’d look in a kilt?”
But, of course, he looks good in a kilt . . . ::hair toss::
May I say we have some of the most intelligent and creative followers here at TKZ?