My morning writing partner and I are using prompts since recently we seem to spend a lot of time staring at the blank screen . Here’s our morning prompt from Writer’s Digest.
Look around the room and pick an object. Write one paragraph describing the object in full detail and a second paragraph explaining where it came from.
Here’s mine from this morning. Feel free to play along, if you’d like, with what’s in your workplace. You can post in comments. Every object has a story:
In my office, there is a tropical tree with four brown leaves; I’m tempted to remove them as I type. There. Now they’re gone. Talk about compulsive. I’m not sure what sort of tropical plant it is. It has a bamboo-like stalk, and wide dark green leaves. I’ve seen this tree in restaurants and office buildings.
The tree used to be in my former boss’s enormous corner office. At that point, most of the leaves were brown because we had someone whose job it was to water plants and he overwatered everything as that was his entire job. Really. My boss would trim the brown away with scissors, a practice I found a bit creepy (but she was also an editor, so trimming is really what we do). While she was out of town at her mother’s funeral, our nonprofit was evicted and I took her plant home rather than leaving it in the office to die. I asked her if she wanted it when she returned, but a dying plant after having her mother die wasn’t what she wanted. Four years later, the tropical tree lives in the desert and is still alive.
This summer I wrote a poem, A Prayer for Ryan Seacrest, in which I asked God to make Ryan stop the cosmetic surgery because every time I saw his new face on a billboard I would almost drive off the road. Now Gawker has tips for noticing the differences in Ryan’s multiple faces. And, trust me, he didn’t used to look like either of these.
Here’s a funny piece by Jon Carroll on how to improve Starbucks (other than retraining the barristas). My favorite idea is the Solitude Corner, a place with no cell phones and no eye contact.
so, it’s time for a quiz. Apparently I’m the most abused form of punctuation around.
You Are a Semi-Colon
You are elegant, understated, and subtle in your communication.You’re very smart (and you know it), but you don’t often showcase your brilliance.Instead, you carefully construct your arguments, ideas, and theories – until they are bulletproof.You see your words as an expression of yourself, and you are careful not to waste them.
You friends see you as enlightened, logical, and shrewd.
(But what you’re saying often goes right over their heads.)
This one is about business etiquette, which is really just common etiquette. Too often, manners are dismissed as snobbishness, but what they are really about is making people comfortable. About a year ago, I took a seminar at work on this very subject and learned that it’s not just a matter of being polite–it’s a matter of making the client comfortable so that you can form a bond with them. The best advice was to repeat a person’s name as often as possible during the conversation, both to make it easier to remember and to make sure you got it right in the first place.
Watch out, there are some trick questions. And at least one that had me really puzzled (number 5.) Why on EARTH would it be okay to preorder for everyone? I can understand having a limited menu, but it seems to me that dietary restrictions and the like would dictate that it’s impolite to make that decision for people. Can anyone shed light on this?
or you’ll be sharing a lot of bacteria with others this Super Bowl Sunday. I won’t as there is a large empty compartment in my brain where an interest in sports would go. In any case, if the idea of double dipping reminds you of Seinfeld, you’ll enjoy the story.
The word “hip” is egregiously misused in Hip Office: Ergonomic Workspace for Those on the Go. Come to think of it, the word “ergonomic” is also misused. I don’t think there’s any way typing in that position is ergonomic….yow.
Now, this looks like an ordinary dog-video at first, but it is not. It is one of those stories about succeeding at the impossible. And I’d add that you can teach a dog to do just about anything with a spoonful of peanut butter.
I seem to be a generalist as far as types of worriers go (presuming I had to choose one of those options). Choose your worrying type at Stop Worrying and Start Living. Yes, it’s Martha Stewart. Gag a little. Then move on.
When Mia was very young, Jim and I were convinced she was part coyote. She is(obviously) part shepherd, but looking at these photos of Charlie, a coyote pup whose parents were shot and who is being raised by a woman and her cat, make me consider the coyote hypothesis for our dog again. And, of course, we do know that we shouldn’t raise wild animals as domestic ones, but when his parents are shot and he is left on your doorstep in Wyoming….
You’re Brave New World!
by Aldous Huxley With an uncanny ability for predicting the future, you are a true psychic. You can see how the world will change and illuminate the fears of future generations. In the world to come, you see the influence of the media, genetic science, drugs, and class warfare. And while all this might make you happy, you claim the right to be unhappy. While pregnancy might seem painful, test tube babies scare you most. You are obsessed with the word “pneumatic”.
I’m labelling this as fun, because it’s a “quiz” but it’s A) More like a poll and B) Utter claptrap.
Time’s Morality Quiz poses the classic questions used in tort classes across America. (There’s also a four page story about What Makes Us Moral, but I’m tired and don’t feel up to reading it. Also, I am irritated by these questions as usual.)
These “moral quandaries” portray a world of black and white, with no option for either self sacrifice or creative thinking (Isn’t there any wine in that cellar? Boozing the child up sounds like a more viable solution than smothering it.)
Also, I inevitably equivocate by wondering if perhaps it is five preschoolers on the trolley track, and the lone man is Hitler. Or maybe it’s five hippies and Christian Bale. Morals go right out the window there.
Gee, why didn’t I know that? I have a shocking lack of herring knowledge.
Lots of people are playing free rice, which donates grains of rice on your behalf per correct vocabulary word. And if you like word games, this is highly addictive. I’m on level 41….and trying to figure out bacillary….oh, now my vocabulary level is dropping as I miss words. Nice. I seem to have peaked at 41, not bad for an earth science major, but not so good for a writer.
So it’s 
