Averil Dean's Blog, page 20

What We Keep

Oh, Elizabeth. You’ve charmed me again.

What are you reading? What do you think of it?

Mean

Tell us about the nicest meanest thing you’ve ever done.

Photo by Ellen Von Unwerth

Fuck nice, fuck the back-patting. I once fired somebody because she annoyed me. There were other reasons but they were excuses. I was looking for anything, because the girl was obsequious and snivelly and I disliked her, and when I got the upper hand in the work environment, I fired her. Her husband was out of a job at the time, and the girl cried and begged, and I fired her anyway. I still can see her in that f...

Gilligan

A classic question, revisited: what are the five items you must have on a deserted island?

Is a man an item? No? Well, I suppose I won’t have any jars that need opening anyway.

A trunk full of notebooks and pens.
Deck of cards.
Pocketknife.
Book of collected poetry.
Volume of photographs by my favorite photographers.

Blade

Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

Of course it’s possible. Society would crumble if we all went around spilling the contents of our heads indiscriminately, with no concern for the situation or the feelings of the other party. Imagine telling your mother-in-law that blouse makes her look like a turnip. Or admitting to your boss what you really did over the weekend, or to your lover that size certainly does matter. If you want those people in your life, you’d...

Inkling

Where do you begin?

I’ve got an idea for a story and it’s the desperate kind, the book you have to write, the kind that nags and teases and finally consumes every waking hour, that tightens your throat and makes your nose prickle with tears. I long to get in there and start writing, but I don’t have all the elements yet. Though the characters are bright in my mind, the landscape is dim, and the story—the inciting event or situation—only exists as a vague shape, an unlit house in heavy fog. I...

Death Alone

There are lone cemeteries,

tombs full of soundless bones,

the heart threading a tunnel,

a dark, dark tunnel :

like a wreck we die to the very core,

as if drowning at the heart

or collapsing inwards from skin to soul.

There are corpses,

clammy slabs for feet,

there is death in the bones,

like a pure sound,

a bark without its dog,

out of certain bells, certain tombs

swelling in this humidity like lament or rain.

I see, when alone at times,

coffins under sail

setting out with the pale dead, women in their dead...

Goldilocks

Today’s prompt was suggested by Anna Fonté, who’s been writing lists:

Ten kisses I remember…

A morning-time kiss from a boy named Danny, who lived across the street. He tasted like pancakes and syrup. I still can feel the heat of the block wall at our backs and the gritty desert floor under my palms.
A game of sardines on a darkened golf course. Being discovered in the oleanders by the boy I most wanted to find me, having him do the exact thing I hoped he would. I remember the warm points of con...

Shiny People

This prompt is courtesy of our Alarna, and it’s a beauty:

Pick a quote by a favorite author and say something about it…The more personal and/or controversial the better.

Mine comes from Agatha Christie: “Very few of us are what we seem.”

It’s a simple line and self-evident, but it’s the main concept behind everything I write and much of what I think about. It’s the locked room again, this idea that the true essence of every human being is unknowable to every other—yet we struggle daily with the...

The Collective

A couple of people have suggested that we make up our own prompts for this space—and after reading a couple of ideas for April 30, online and in my Writer’s Book of Days, I have to agree that we can do better. So if you have a question you’d like to ask of the collective, or a prompt to get us writing, let’s have it. The more the better. I’ve got eleven more months of these dailies and need all the help I can get.

Or, you know, just tell me what’s going on in your world. Writing projects, rand...

Gap

Small deviation on the daily prompt business, which is starting to frustrate me. Today I switched to A Writer’s Book of Days for some more delicate and interesting ideas. These are not questions so much as writing generators, so we’ll see how it goes. For April 29, the prompt is:

This is how he (she) looked…

I’m going with the first person who comes to mind, a patient who was in our office yesterday. She works in a big-box store, which is how I imagine she lost a front tooth. Maybe something fe...