Writing exercises

There is a treasure trove of books about writing out there.  And I've bought or tried more of them than I can count.  Books on style, books on writing specific genres, and of course books full of writing exercises intended to exorcise the most stubborn of writer's blocks.

Most of them are like recipe books - you pick one up at the store and flip through it, fingers sliding over glossy pages with full page photos of food so delicious looking, it makes your mouth water.  And then when you get home you realize that the dishes that looked so good on paper take half a day to prepare or contain greens that your significant other will not touch under pain of death or that the list of spices and ingredients extends a full page and before you know it, you've lost interest in the book before its lovely pages even had a chance to develop creases.  Not that I'm speaking from personal experience here or anything...

So, back to writing exercises.  I'm killing time today between flights.  All in all I have about twelve hours between the red eye that brought me from Seattle to Boston and the evening flight from Boston that will take me back home to Seattle.  To kill time with some sort of productivity I picked up yet another book of writing exercises and I am going to try a few of them.

Norbert (that's him on the right) who is my companion for the trip will be a witness to my efforts.  Somehow I think he'll be less judgmental about my writing than I tend to be. 

Writing Exercise 1

In each group below, choose one word that appeals to you

1. Alabama - Banister - Carousel - Diesel - Exorcist
2. Flatulence - Garage - Harried - Insensitive - Jambalaya
3. Keepsake - Lamb - Massage - Nonsense - Oriole

Use these three words in a story.
Start with: Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around in his wheel!

--------------------------
Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around in his wheel!  All that effort and expended energy and for what?  Every day is a carbon copy of the one that came before it and worse, oh so much worse, a blueprint for the one that will follow.  Something has to be done...  I know it, but the mere thought of the careful planning involved is enough to send me to the kitchen and the comforts of cooking something long and complicated.  Something with multiple ingredients and even more steps.  Something like an authentic Jambalaya from scratch.  I could even make my own sausage, god knows I have the time.

When I'm cooking I can almost convince myself that the wheel has slowed down a bit, that the scenery has changed or at least paused long enough to become nuanced, to offer options.  Options of escape.  The more intricate and complex the recipe, the more spices and exotic ingredients it involves, the better.  The wheel almost stops when hours go by in the quest for perfection in a single dish.

Only it always starts up again...

All right, enough of this nonsense, the banisters won't shine themselves and there's a pile of laundry waiting in the vicinity of the basket.  Maybe roast chicken for dinner with homemade garlicky roasted potatoes and wilted spinach?  Would garlic mask the taste of arsenic?
--------------------------