Author Archives: thefallenmonkey

About thefallenmonkey

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Primate that dapples in writing when not picking others' fleas or flinging its own poop.
19 January 2010

“Snot” (you heard me)

By thefallenmonkey

*jabbing fists up into sky repeatedly in excitement*  Yeehaw, kids, today we get to have some silly, gross fun.  You may have noticed that I skipped over page 5 of Room to Write–I did so intentionally not because I discount the value in that exercise, but, rather, because it is one best undertaken on one’s own on an actual sheet of paper.  You see, my dear friends, page 5 was about writing an entire page of “junk”–utter feces that you know is bad and write because you know it’s bad.  In this way, you can reflect on how much knowledge you do indeed have on good writing, as  you have to know what’s good in order to know what’s bad.  Make sense?  The cathartic moment of that drill is to then rip out that sheet of paper, crumple it, and toss it in the rubbish bin.  Ah, we’ll all have to try that one…sounds orgasmic.

The Prompt:

All right, so to finally get around to today’s exercise, then:  SNOT.  Yup.  Write a full page about snot is what Goldberg profoundly asks us to do.  When finished, reflect on how you felt before, during, and after writing.  Consider if there’s anything worthy that could be included in one of your writing projects and/or brainstorm other possibly offensive topics that you could tackle.  This is like sweet karma for my dual-mucus reference in our first freewriting activity 🙂

Response:

SNOT.  Pick it, lick it, flick it at someone you hate, or store it under the table top.  Yeah, you go ahead and pretend that your fingertip never happens to wander to your nostril, hesitating at the threshold in trepidation of the darkness within, then penetrates through only to delight in the tickling of the hairs lining the nasal cavity as the fingernail goes spelunking in search of gummy treasure.  It whistles as it works, and, when it hits paydirt, shovels up a hearty scoop, greedily trying to carry back to the light more than it can muster.  It attempts to go back and pick up what falls behind, only to lose another sizable clump of slippery sponge, and as it feverishly attempts to recover that latest bit, it sheds even more.  Time out.  The fingertip calls it.  It exits momentarily to give its epidermis breath and reassess the situation.  Cupped within the nail is a miniscule glob of goo with a nose hair projecting out of it–that’s worth something, at least.  Wiping the semi-precious cargo onto the quilted square of two-ply toilet paper, the search party ventures back in, regretting that there’s not enough room in that cave to bring reinforcements.  The fingernail drills deeper and deeper, its strategy being to plow the remnants of what it previously left behind further up the passage until they congeal into one super gob that it can hopefully hook itself under and up and scrape back along the upper lining in dragging it back to the open air.  The risk it runs is severely high, however:  it is possible, just possible, that the nail will in fact shove too far and, not having the grip it thought it did, end up tossing the booger into the narrower recesses of the sinus, where not finger nor fingernail can ever pass.  Beads form upon the fingernail as it contemplates this scenario, shortly before it curses itself in having the thought, as now it needs to fear self-fulfilling prophecy, and as it thinks very hard with whatever equivalent of grey matter a fingernail might have to think with in trying not to think pessimistically, it comes to and…doh!  The Super Gob is gone.  Tucked into the nether reaches of the nasal passage as unwillingly anticipated.  Defeated, and not a little sullen, the fingernail allows itself to be dragged out by one pissy finger for a royal berating back at camp.  Meanwhile, the gob nests where it thinks it’s safe for the time being.  It causes discomfort to the nose and giggles at its being the source of a high-pitched whistling every time its human host tries to breath.  It sits there contentedly, feeling victorious and stronger than ever in its new super-fun super-size, until….being without a nose, it cannot distinguish in particular that the stinging it feels also smells of mint, eucalyptus, a dash of clove, perhaps?  It only knows that it BURNS, and its super-fun super-size doesn’t seem so formidable any longer.  Indeed, it’s losing its goo to a mucus-slide, as its sides go from gelatinous to slippery liquid oozing back down towards the light.  It tingles and elongates and slides down through the shining, tickling hairs, amassing in a puddle inside the soft, powdery fibers of a tissue.  Coughing and hacking as if it had a throat with mucus inside to cough and hack up, the liquefied snot reconvenes with the rest of its original self (spotting others it recognizes fallen into the same paper wad—“Grandma?  Uncle?  Is this Heaven?” it asks).  Before yielding to a final defeat as it tears away at a piece of the white tissue to wave in surrender, its eyes, if it had eyes, fall on the key to its demise.  Shaking a fist as though to curse the gods (and as though it had a fist), “Olbas!” it cries…”Olbas!”

Reflection:

Yowzah.  Okay.  Um, to reflect on that, then.  Well, before writing, I was very excited about the topic, as it gave a chance to make up a lot of nonsense while still being able to be descriptive of something real that I have quite a bit of experience with (oh come on, like you don’t, too).  After the series of reflections that the previous prompts asked for, this was the first delving into fiction.

While writing this, I found it coming to me almost unsettlingly easily, making me think along the entire way, “Wait, I think I know exactly what that would look/feel like,” and then question, “Why in the hell do I know that?!”  As I saw the bodily components become “characters” in their own rights, the debate was then how realistic to maintain the “tale”…are the nail and the finger a single unit, or separate entities?  If those or the nose and the snot themselves are, in fact, characters, then to what extent do I anthropomorhize them, for being body parts in and of themselves, can they have body parts of their own to enable them to see, feel, smell, etc?  How to maintain consistency, and to what extent must consistency be maintained when it is approached as fictitious?

After writing, I felt rather relieved because it was a challenge trying to come up with different descriptors for something so disgusting, and I had been feeling embarrassed about how gross I was getting while at the same time reveling in the freedom of it.  I felt satisfied with the closure I gave, as Olbas Oil has been a true beacon unto this sinus-sufferer this winter season.  It felt like sweet redemption.

So, if I had to contemplate other social taboos that may be worth exploration in my writing, the first things that come to mind are: poo, sweat, dandruff, eye crust, ear wax, pubic hair, semen, yeast infections, menstruation, belly button lint, toe jam, scabs, drool, belching, farting, and diarrhea.  Have at it, if you dare…

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Descriptive Language, Genres, Short Story, Writing Elements, Writing Prompts

18 January 2010

The Impact of Words

By thefallenmonkey

The Prompt:

Page 4 of Room to Write asks us to describe the first incident in which we were affected profoundly by words.  In describing this, we should address what led up to the encounter, our physical reaction to it, and anything else that was happening simultaneously.  We’re free to fill in the gaps with fiction, if we please, and perhaps construct it as a poem.  I’m going for prose, but you do what you will.

Response/Reflection:
I can’t swear that it was the first time words ever profoundly affected me, just that it’s the earliest memory that my pea-brain can pinpoint right now.  It’s arguable, after all, that I was first profoundly affected when I first learned how to read, but I don’t recall there ever being a “Eureka!” swell of emotion then; it’s more so the appreciation that I can attach to it now in retrospect.  I think of the metallic-spined Golden Books that kicked off my reading career, and my red paperback of The Story of Ferdinand that certainly made its place in my heart–but, again, a meaning established in my adult years when I so needed to hear truths put simply in my ever-increasingly complicated world.  And I wish I could remember the first orally articulated words that may have moved me, but I think it would have to be when I myself took on the challenge of words, the composition of them in forms of my own choosing if not creation, that stands out as most pivotal to the writing life I’ve embarked on since.

I think it was fourth grade when I submitted my first “book” into the running for my elementary school’s Young Authors Contest.  It was an anthology, actually, a collection of poetry that I carefully entitled, Poems of Modern Style.  I suppose I classified them as “modern” based on the youthful and pop cultural content they covered (the ’80s punk aesthetic being a component) as well as the fact that I did, with the exception of a few haikus, create my own poetic structures to follow.  It’s difficult to recall what exactly led up to these choices; I can only assume I chose the poetic medium because I couldn’t think of a plot around which to develop a decent story of any length (not to mention I’d probably noted the failure of my previous year’s prose piece, something about a lost bunny or puppy trying to find its way home.  The dialogue was painfully monotonous; I clearly knew nothing of dialogue tags at age 7).  So I suppose I had a range of miscellaneous ideas floating through my head that did not necessarily follow a cohesive theme, yet could adequately be dumped under that catch-all descriptor of “modern.”

The poetic form gave me the freedom to explore all these ideas in flowing form or fragmented sketches.  Yes, I was 8 years old and an avid Shel Silverstein reader that was of the school of thought that all poems had to rhyme, so constrained myself in this respect, but it was rules like rhyming or the number of syllables measured in those haikus that really did prompt me to stretch and squish and swap words to comply with those forms without sacrificing meaning.  That would be, then, when I caught the first glimmer of understanding how word-rich the English language is, that there are so many degrees of meaning even among synonyms that we are at liberty to play around with all sorts of words in trying to find the specific ones that truly convey what we’re seeking to say, whether in isolation or combination.  Poetry forced me to think more deliberately, weigh each word’s worth more when there were so few alloted to a line and so few lines beyond that.  Sure, I certainly remember cranking a couple of those out, feeling satisfied enough on the first try and ready to move on, but there were others that taught me the value of revision and being a discerning reader of my own writing.  I further recall that I had drawn illustrations to accompany each poem, demonstrating that interplay between word and image and how they create meaning in synergy…or maybe it was also because I loved to draw and thought it made the pages pretty.  (It did.)  I painstakingly copied the final versions down onto construction paper of alternating rainbow colors and bound it all together to submit for the judging.

This process acquainted me with the eye-strain and sore hand muscles that accompany writing, but also with how these symptoms of pain were salved by the flutter in my stomach that signaled both the thrill of creative achievement and the anxiety over what others may think once I placed my baby in their arms.  And even the agony of anxiety was utterly diminished when they announced the results:  I was a finalist.  I didn’t end up winning, but I had made the top four, and that was the first external recognition I’d received of my words that wasn’t just a grade on an essay.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have relied on outside reinforcement, but it was the validating boost this shy girl needed to affirm that what I’d worked so hard on and genuinely enjoyed all by myself was something of merit that others could enjoy too.  In the short-term, it inspired me to tackle an illustrated “novella” as a sixth-grader two years later for that same contest (I won, even got to go “on tour” reading select chapters in different classrooms) and cemented a love affair with words that will stay with me for a lifetime.


Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Genres, Memoir, Musings on Writing, Poetry, Writing Prompts

16 January 2010

Lack of Memory

By thefallenmonkey

The Prompt:

Spinning off the previous prompt, Room to Write now challenges us to freewrite on what we DON’T remember.  This can consist of memories we’ve tried to recall or wish we ever had, or can be entirely sarcastic in the vein of, “I don’t remember asking you for your opinion.”  And because it is freewriting, we are to write continuously without pause. so it won’t necessarily make grammatical sense.  Before I get started, I’m going to make a quick run to the loo so I can concentrate, otherwise, I’m going to write a lot about not remembering my bladder ever hurting this badly or the last time I soiled myself.

Ahhh…that’s much better.  Okay, now I’m ready.

Response:

I DON’T REMEMBER the exact moment or day when I first met my husband, I just remember knowing at that precise instant in time that I wished I had met him before the boyfriend I was dating at the time.  I don’t remember ever being the first to say, “I love you,” because I don’t remember ever being one to willingly succumb to the mistakes most women make.  That said, I don’t remember why I let myself over-analyze those first relationships so much and not assert my opinions more.  I don’t remember when I first started doing so, finally, but I’m sure my husband sure does as my first real victim.  I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember why I let myself go ahead and choose a college major that I wasn’t passionate about, and I don’t remember why why why why why why I let myself go forward with that career as long as I did.  I don’t remember when exactly I ever felt I had a clear grasp on my future and what I was meant to become.  I don’t remember so much about my grandmother, as she died when I was only five years old, and I don’t remember why, when she was alive, I was so shy any time she spoke to me.  I don’t remember why I was so afraid of Minnie Mouse when I was three and at Disneyland that I started bawling and made her cry, too, in turn.  I don’t remember much about my grandfathers, other than what my parents have told me about them, as I was not even alive when they still were.  I don’t remember having a close relationship with my longest living grandmother, who I knew until my adulthood, as I don’t remember ever knowing how to start a conversation with her and be genuinely interested in most things she had to say, at least, not until it was already starting to be too late.  I don’t remember why I didn’t make more of an effort to know my extended family better, other than perhaps because I felt close enough to my immediate family members, that the rest weren’t necessary.  But I don’t remember so much of my ancestral history, how So-and-So is related to What’s-His-Name, and I won’t ever remember these things after the ones who do pass away and won’t be there to remind me.  And thinking of that terrifies me of all that I’ll cease to remember over time, all the details and breaths that we each take in each other’s company that we should be recording in our minds and hearts because of Time, that fickle and fleeting mistress that ultimately takes all away and the memories that went with it when we take them to our grave.

Reflection:

Hm.  Not so thrilled about this one.  That was really, really hard.  I mean, it entails trying to remember what you don’t remember and trying to do so nonstop without thinking about it too much.  I never fully let go of it like I was probably supposed to because I knew I’d end up spinning off in some other direction and deviating from the task at hand, God forbid.  I understand the principles of writing and keeping with a theme and maintaining consistency in plot and characters, etc., but I wonder if my problem right now, the reason I’m having difficulty getting on further with my novel, is that I’m too insistent on holding onto this kind of control and that to get where I’m planning to go really does require letting go and going off the beaten path, that that will actually be the true path to the end goal, even though (especially since) it’s not the shortest point from A to B.  I guess I shouldn’t be reveling in this as though it’s some big new realization…I’ve known it all along, and these exercises are reminding me that I was not remembering that…

Huh.  Isn’t it something how things can come full circle like that.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Freewriting, Genres, Memoir, Writing Prompts

13 January 2010

Memory

By thefallenmonkey

The Prompt:

On page 2 of Room to Write, Goldberg challenges us to another freewriting exercise, this time not being allowed to stop until filling 2 pages.  I’m going to be writing mine on a computer screen, so I’ll just keep going until I’ve written what I estimate would fill 2 journal pages.  The other parameters we are given is that we are to begin with the words, “I remember,” and launch into whatever memories we can recall, however recent or long ago and however accurate or real they are.  The idea is to again tap into that mass of grey matter we cannot consciously access, and if we get stuck, repeat “I remember” until additional memories dislodge.  Wish me luck, and the best to you as well!

Response:

I REMEMBER squinting in the sun for what felt like at least 5 minutes because my older sister had told me that staring at the sun was a sure-fire way of having to get eyeglasses.  I remember always wanting to wear eyeglasses as a kid, to the point that I did, in fact, stare directly at the sun on a cloudless day and eventually received a tortoiseshell pair with fake lenses for Christmas (interesting that it was only two years later, in 8th grade, when I really did need glasses, and was prescribed my first pair after being diagnosed with far-sightedness and astigmatism).  I remember also always wishing I could wear braces, once again getting that little gem of a wish granted by freshman year in high school.  I remember wanting a lot of things as a kid that I eventually did get, or never got and realized it was the best thing I didn’t, but one thing I remember always having and always savoring was the happiest childhood with my siblings and parents.  I remember my sister dancing in a baby pool with me even though she’s nine years older and wrote song lyrics to dance by–I believe the song was called, “Twisting by the Pool.”  And yes, we did the twist.  I remember in much more frigid weather, my brothers who are seven and ten years older than me chasing my BFF and I around the snow-covered backyard and pelting us with snowballs.  I remember my sister building snow fires with me in the “cave” created by that giant evergreen in the backyard when the heavy, wet snow weighed down its branches to offer us dark yet dry seclusion within.  I remember wiffle-ball games in that backyard, my brother whipping a ball at me so fast and totally on purpose and it smacking me directly in the thigh and leaving a very big, very red mark.  I remember standing in the grasses of that backyard in solitude, taking in the warmth and happiness of a summer vacation sort of day, and how sometimes when I looked into the clear blue sky, I would see what I called my “fairy”:  it wasn’t anything that I made up nor actually believed was a fairy.  It was a strange sort of translucent illusion that looked like a flower with layers and layers of petals, and these layers and layers of petals would appear to rotate inward as though on some sort of circular conveyer, rendering the image a glowing and flashing clear light of movement that recurred to me time and again without apparent rhyme or reason.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, diminishing, perhaps, with my childhood like beliefs in Santa and the Easter Bunny.  Maybe it was my fairy, my very own private one, my guardian angel that is still with me even though childhood fancy doesn’t allow me to see it anymore.  Or maybe it was just a since-healed impairment in vision caused by staring at the sun for a long, long time.

Reflection:

Whew, okay, that wasn’t so bad!  It was interesting to find in that process how quickly the memories got flowing one after another once I got started, so much so that my fingers couldn’t keep up half the time.  I really think I could have gone on endlessly, when you consider how many different years in different locations and spheres of people you can reflect on, but go figure that I ended up focusing on my childhood backyard most.  I was all of a sudden transported to that arena where I spent so many summer and winter vacations playing with my family, friends, or just on my own, and while I didn’t get very descriptive of it in my writing, it was as though I could see every blade of grass and leaf to be had back there.  Clearly, that setting was a meaningful stage for those initial developmental years, and I think if you try this exercise yourself, you’ll learn something about what you value.  You may even be taken into negative memories, which could be that much more telling of you and the meaning you make as you move within the world.  I really hope some of you do comment on this with your own freewriting, as it would be fascinating to see what you unearth and how you evaluate it.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Freewriting, Genres, Memoir, Writing Prompts

12 January 2010

“Diving In”

By thefallenmonkey

The Prompt:

To kick things off, I’m beginning at the beginning.  Page 1 of Room to Write prompts  us to “dive into writing by choosing any one of the following words that have more than one meaning:  bear, cleave, lie, sewer, tear, or desert.”  The idea is to freewrite without thinking, never stopping, and if truly stuck, just keep repeating the last word written until you’re out of it.  Making sense is not the point.  Ready?  Am I?  * deep breath *

Response:

LIE lie to me you lie there in your stinking sheets wrapped in sweat mucus tears stains and you lie to my face behold that that that that lying lie there bait me with baited breath your soul swells sinks stinks and yet you think of me lie to me heave atop me spoil me spoilt the milk your nectar nectar nectar nudity becoming you seemingly impossibly I walk there too drifting apart the start so long ago such nonsense you came to you came atop me you bludgeoned me berated me beckoned me fiend.

Reflection:

Okay, my first thoughts on that are that it was really, really hard.  I found myself constantly pausing to write more deliberately and having to work hard to force my mind to free itself…in a nutshell, too much thinking.  It was also difficult doing this using a keyboard vs. pen, so I may switch to handwriting for prompts like these and just transcribe it here after.  For now, though, I’d like try out a screen-purifying software available for Mac called WriteRoom that replaces the clutter of the monitor screen with a plain black background and basic green font–in essence, reverting to the way word processors looked a couple decades ago to bring the focus back to WRITING.  Words for words sake.  Must say I love it.  I’m going to try freewriting on another word, then, using the free 30-day demo of this tool, then copying it back here.

2nd Response:

SEWER plunging to the depths of the sewer we rake through the sewage and stumble upon a sewer feeding the eye of her needle with threads woven from hair gone down the drain it’s coated in mucus and filth yet she’s smiling she darning socks with it she’s reaching down into the funk and pulling up another clotted handful of it and wrapping it about her arm for safekeeping she motions to us to try on the sweater that’s resting in her lap she wants to make sure the arms are long enough and we say we’ve heard of hairshirts before lady but this takes the cake we’re off and puddle-plunging our feet growing larger with swells of feces compounding on them with every step as the water splashes up to our hemlines and ruins our clothing with putrid stains and we hear the little lady calling after see bet you wish you had a new sweater to change into now!

2nd Reflection:

Hmm…WriteRoom definitely helped clear away distraction.  My other conclusion?  My mind is a strange and twisted corridor to meander through, and I blame my sinusitis for the repetition of mucus in both entries.  Sorry if my subconscious made you gag, folks.  Not all posts will be like this, but I have to say I’m a big fan of the freewriting exercise.  I remember my Sophomore English teacher assigning us the first few minutes of the day to this, which we’d keep in the same notebook and later use to generate poetry.  Not saying that I’m seeing any pearls of wisdom in what I churned out tonight, but I must say my brain actually feels like it just lifted freeweights and exploded past brittle picket fences that had been keeping it hindered.  Definitely a useful tool for breaking out of a rut.

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