Look around the room you are currently in. You’ll find fabrics, woods, metals, all manner of shapes, possibly sounds, colours— things that make up our “everyday.”
Look for any one element that catches your eye, that resonates—even if you don’t know why at the moment—one basic element of “every day”—and write about it. Explore it, in poetry or in prose, in some way that reflects its nature—or what you see, or come to see (via writing about it) as its nature.
He looked at the cup of coffee, the little bubbles forming around the sides and the stained table cloth before him. He lifted the cup gently, the warm smoke slithering into the air in curls, closed his eyes and breathed in the whiff of the dark brown coffee. It had the strong aroma of the dried coffee seeds from the southern hills. He slurped a little from the cup and closed his eyes, as a thin line of foam formed around his mouth.
It was ten in the morning. A clear sunlight, almost rebellious in bearing, lit the rooftop, making small puddles of shadows near the wall, where the birds- mostly pigeons and sparrows and sometimes an odd crow rested. All in all it was a good summer morning.
*****
*Southern Hills: Most of the coffee production in India comes from Southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
*I will incorporate your feedback and include this piece in my next publication.
Thank you for posting, Tarun! Ah, coffee, a most basic element indeed. I cannot move without it, let alone write.
The effect of SAVORING is what most comes to me here, yes!
A few things: we start with seeing a tablecloth, and we close with a rooftop. Is the table on the roof? Is he sitting or standing? I do love the thought of a morning coffee on a rooftop, and it makes me wonder about what he sees from there. But I do so like how you begin with the coffee in hands first, and then gradually reveal the expanding world and day... just as coffee is and does for my own mornings, and those of all coffee-drinkers, I suspect! Waking us up to see around us.
The phrase "southern hills" is good as it tells me that he really does appreciate his drink--he knows it, in detail, and he cares. There's something almost sacred/prayer-like to the opening lines here. (Maybe steam instead of 'smoke'? I wonder... And if you want to have a dash after birds, you need its counterpart after 'crow.' Dashes usually come in twos unless the close of the sentence replaces the second. Mechanical notes here!)
Your title is "The Art..." You might carry this idea throughout and deeper. Instead of "puddles" of shadow, you might refer to the scene as painted or drawn or...? some reference to visual art... though you could incorporate other art forms, too. Look for other opportunities to add notes of "art."
You have only one adverb here--"gently"--but you could take your time to describe how he handles the mug so that the reader absorbs the idea of "gently" but also sees the sacred and the art in this moment... Does that make sense?
I really like this little piece. Take your time, let it grow--it could be quite a bit longer. Coffee is a special substance indeed. Deserving of an ode, yes! Very good.
Thank you Alison for such a detailed analysis and review. This has given me lot to think about and work on. I am very grateful for your insights and would work on the piece.
Tarun, post it back here--would be good to see whatever you might do with it. (As I sit here, sipping my coffee, in its enormous thermos that keeps it hot for as long as I work this a.m....) Here's to Coffee!
"Think about it," Alistair typed on TheTruthAboutTables.com, "What is the evolutionary explanation for humans being upright, and having to 'invent' tables, flat surfaces for us to work with? Don't we evolve based on our surroundings, don't we adapt?"
He exhaled visibly, not wanting to rush this work. He reached for his cup, nestled into the carpet he sat cross-legged upon. He postured again to continue typing, his arms stretched to their fullest below him and managing to reach the keys of his laptop, also on the carpet and rapidly overheating.
Around the room, there were some paintings hung on the walls, varying two or three feet from the floor, which for Alistair was his only table.
He finished working on the homepage of his new website, highly anticipated by the hundred thousand or so subscribers to the subreddit, r/TableTheory. A sloppy draft, but he got the main points down: functioning as upright, two-legged creatures without tables is a stretch; the concept of a table is totally unnatural; it is not helpful to assume tables are alien technology, for example, how do we know tables were not a relic of some prior era of humanity?
He walked into his kitchen, and wondered why he stood at all. He kneels down, semi-crawling around to grab the necessary ingredients for his sandwich. Whether or not he felt like cooking had a lot less to do with his decisions than how difficult it was to use the stove, elevated a few feet above all of the utensils and spices. The kitchen had old laminate flooring, not just ugly but much worse for sitting than old carpet. Still better than standing and eating, he sat on it with bruised ankle bones. Eating on the carpet was inescapably messy, and food spillage on a carpet is worse when it's also your table.
His phone lit up with a life-giving Reddit notification, a new post on r/TableTheory had reached a thousand upvotes. An image, someone who had square chasms installed in areas of their floor, which they would get into so that the rest of the floor would be at arm level. Alistair scoffed at the sandwich on his plate as he reached for it and slightly strained his lower back. "Brilliant," he thought, lamenting he lived on the second floor.
******
Well, this is certainly one of the weirder things I've written. :)
The one basic element I chose is tables and the like, as you might guess. It was the first thing I saw. I do love a good desk, and I feel like we generally take for granted how vital having flat surfaces at the right height is, unless you are remodeling a kitchen or furnishing a home. I wanted to explore this through a character, and came up with our friend Alistair, who avoids the use of tables out of fear for whatever conspiracy there is behind them.
Almost stopped typing this a few times as it felt so silly, but writer's write.
I've had the experience of laughing all the way through writing a story. I'm not sure others found it as funny as I did, but it was an amazing experience. I'm glad you just let it go, and tossed the urge to "stop." It's important to be able to push at that one.
This closing paragraph is good...right down to the closing phrase. I was wondering how you would wrap it up! Perfect.
Madeline's poem about something as simple as fabric has always caught me. So it's good to see "coffee" and "table" here.
And I love what you've done with it--yes, it has a surreal quality, and in the end, for a moment, I'm left thinking, "Why DON'T we have sunken floors...??" which just snags me in the best way. And yes, you now have me looking around the room, questioning. Writing should do that...
THIS IS REALLY GREAT! I laughed a lot when I read this (on my computer . . . which is on my desk right now). And now even after I read it I have been cackling about it in my brain all day.
I was already drawn in by the first bit of the first sentence, "Think about it," Alistair typed on TheTruthAboutTables.com."
To me, what makes this piece so funny is how I feel like I am watching Alistair from far away, as though I am a bug on the wall of his table-less room. Even though Alistair seems to feel quite wise and sophisticated while he is writing deep thoughts about tables, this is contrasted with how from far away, I am imagining Alistair to look most humorous as his hunches over his "rapidly overheating" laptop on the carpet.
What else makes it quite funny are the variety of all the different sentences. I very much enjoyed this one:
"His phone lit up with a life-giving Reddit notification, a new post on r/TableTheory had reached a thousand upvotes."
Here, I like the contrast between REDDIT and "life-giving" as when my brain thinks of what is life-giving, it doesn't think of Reddit, which makes it all the more humorous what with Reddit notifications being life-giving to Alistair, especially when it is contrasted with how his table-less life seems to be bad for his muscular system.
Wine. Red, dark. Cuddling in bottom curve of stemless glass. Sip: minerals of Niagara Escarpment limestone where I grew up. Memories savoured - anti-social neighbour leaving full bushel of red/cream sour cherries purchased by my mother to be pitted with copper pitter, most frozen but also cooked into so delicious cherry cobbler, as the anti-social neighbour drinks, banished by his wife who owns the cherry orchards, to a back bedroom with one unshaded lightbulb, on a solitary chair, cursing/clinging to the high school physics classess he will teach tomorrow. Heady. Now I can accomplish everything on my list tomorrow: swim, shop, cook, clear and organize entire closet with 10 shelves, drive to an adventure, write.
So good! Love how this starts so simply, one word, two words, and then circumnavigates to the portraits/stories, and returns, opening out as it does though... The repetition on "pitted with copper pitter" works. And the "back bedroom with the unshaded lightbulb." The glimpse (surprising yet not) at that point of his profession/work.
Posting the edited version after incorporating changes.
(The Art Of Drinking Coffee.)
He looked at the cup of coffee, the little bubbles forming around the sides, and the stained table cloth. He lifted the cup gently, watching the warm smoke slithering into the air, closed his eyes and savored the fragrance. It had the strong aroma of the southern hills. He slurped a little from the cup and closed his eyes as a thin line of foam formed around his mouth.
It was ten in the morning. A clear sunlight hit the rooftop, making small puddles of shadows near the wall, where the birds- mostly pigeons and sparrows and sometimes an odd crow rested. All in all it was a good summer morning.
(I have also published this in the latest issue of my literary newsletter 'Brief Notes on Life.'
Tarun, thank you for sharing this re-write with us--and the note about publishing it. (As I sit here, so early with new sunlight and coffee, this summer morning!) Well done.
Going to have to circle back and join in on this discussion after I get home tonight!
Thanks for the prompt.
(The Art Of Drinking Coffee.)
He looked at the cup of coffee, the little bubbles forming around the sides and the stained table cloth before him. He lifted the cup gently, the warm smoke slithering into the air in curls, closed his eyes and breathed in the whiff of the dark brown coffee. It had the strong aroma of the dried coffee seeds from the southern hills. He slurped a little from the cup and closed his eyes, as a thin line of foam formed around his mouth.
It was ten in the morning. A clear sunlight, almost rebellious in bearing, lit the rooftop, making small puddles of shadows near the wall, where the birds- mostly pigeons and sparrows and sometimes an odd crow rested. All in all it was a good summer morning.
*****
*Southern Hills: Most of the coffee production in India comes from Southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
*I will incorporate your feedback and include this piece in my next publication.
Thanks,
Tarun K.
Thank you for posting, Tarun! Ah, coffee, a most basic element indeed. I cannot move without it, let alone write.
The effect of SAVORING is what most comes to me here, yes!
A few things: we start with seeing a tablecloth, and we close with a rooftop. Is the table on the roof? Is he sitting or standing? I do love the thought of a morning coffee on a rooftop, and it makes me wonder about what he sees from there. But I do so like how you begin with the coffee in hands first, and then gradually reveal the expanding world and day... just as coffee is and does for my own mornings, and those of all coffee-drinkers, I suspect! Waking us up to see around us.
The phrase "southern hills" is good as it tells me that he really does appreciate his drink--he knows it, in detail, and he cares. There's something almost sacred/prayer-like to the opening lines here. (Maybe steam instead of 'smoke'? I wonder... And if you want to have a dash after birds, you need its counterpart after 'crow.' Dashes usually come in twos unless the close of the sentence replaces the second. Mechanical notes here!)
Your title is "The Art..." You might carry this idea throughout and deeper. Instead of "puddles" of shadow, you might refer to the scene as painted or drawn or...? some reference to visual art... though you could incorporate other art forms, too. Look for other opportunities to add notes of "art."
You have only one adverb here--"gently"--but you could take your time to describe how he handles the mug so that the reader absorbs the idea of "gently" but also sees the sacred and the art in this moment... Does that make sense?
I really like this little piece. Take your time, let it grow--it could be quite a bit longer. Coffee is a special substance indeed. Deserving of an ode, yes! Very good.
Thank you Alison for such a detailed analysis and review. This has given me lot to think about and work on. I am very grateful for your insights and would work on the piece.
Will share the edited draft with you.
😊
Tarun, post it back here--would be good to see whatever you might do with it. (As I sit here, sipping my coffee, in its enormous thermos that keeps it hot for as long as I work this a.m....) Here's to Coffee!
"Think about it," Alistair typed on TheTruthAboutTables.com, "What is the evolutionary explanation for humans being upright, and having to 'invent' tables, flat surfaces for us to work with? Don't we evolve based on our surroundings, don't we adapt?"
He exhaled visibly, not wanting to rush this work. He reached for his cup, nestled into the carpet he sat cross-legged upon. He postured again to continue typing, his arms stretched to their fullest below him and managing to reach the keys of his laptop, also on the carpet and rapidly overheating.
Around the room, there were some paintings hung on the walls, varying two or three feet from the floor, which for Alistair was his only table.
He finished working on the homepage of his new website, highly anticipated by the hundred thousand or so subscribers to the subreddit, r/TableTheory. A sloppy draft, but he got the main points down: functioning as upright, two-legged creatures without tables is a stretch; the concept of a table is totally unnatural; it is not helpful to assume tables are alien technology, for example, how do we know tables were not a relic of some prior era of humanity?
He walked into his kitchen, and wondered why he stood at all. He kneels down, semi-crawling around to grab the necessary ingredients for his sandwich. Whether or not he felt like cooking had a lot less to do with his decisions than how difficult it was to use the stove, elevated a few feet above all of the utensils and spices. The kitchen had old laminate flooring, not just ugly but much worse for sitting than old carpet. Still better than standing and eating, he sat on it with bruised ankle bones. Eating on the carpet was inescapably messy, and food spillage on a carpet is worse when it's also your table.
His phone lit up with a life-giving Reddit notification, a new post on r/TableTheory had reached a thousand upvotes. An image, someone who had square chasms installed in areas of their floor, which they would get into so that the rest of the floor would be at arm level. Alistair scoffed at the sandwich on his plate as he reached for it and slightly strained his lower back. "Brilliant," he thought, lamenting he lived on the second floor.
******
Well, this is certainly one of the weirder things I've written. :)
The one basic element I chose is tables and the like, as you might guess. It was the first thing I saw. I do love a good desk, and I feel like we generally take for granted how vital having flat surfaces at the right height is, unless you are remodeling a kitchen or furnishing a home. I wanted to explore this through a character, and came up with our friend Alistair, who avoids the use of tables out of fear for whatever conspiracy there is behind them.
Almost stopped typing this a few times as it felt so silly, but writer's write.
I've had the experience of laughing all the way through writing a story. I'm not sure others found it as funny as I did, but it was an amazing experience. I'm glad you just let it go, and tossed the urge to "stop." It's important to be able to push at that one.
This closing paragraph is good...right down to the closing phrase. I was wondering how you would wrap it up! Perfect.
Madeline's poem about something as simple as fabric has always caught me. So it's good to see "coffee" and "table" here.
And I love what you've done with it--yes, it has a surreal quality, and in the end, for a moment, I'm left thinking, "Why DON'T we have sunken floors...??" which just snags me in the best way. And yes, you now have me looking around the room, questioning. Writing should do that...
Thank you for writing and posting!
THIS IS REALLY GREAT! I laughed a lot when I read this (on my computer . . . which is on my desk right now). And now even after I read it I have been cackling about it in my brain all day.
I was already drawn in by the first bit of the first sentence, "Think about it," Alistair typed on TheTruthAboutTables.com."
To me, what makes this piece so funny is how I feel like I am watching Alistair from far away, as though I am a bug on the wall of his table-less room. Even though Alistair seems to feel quite wise and sophisticated while he is writing deep thoughts about tables, this is contrasted with how from far away, I am imagining Alistair to look most humorous as his hunches over his "rapidly overheating" laptop on the carpet.
What else makes it quite funny are the variety of all the different sentences. I very much enjoyed this one:
"His phone lit up with a life-giving Reddit notification, a new post on r/TableTheory had reached a thousand upvotes."
Here, I like the contrast between REDDIT and "life-giving" as when my brain thinks of what is life-giving, it doesn't think of Reddit, which makes it all the more humorous what with Reddit notifications being life-giving to Alistair, especially when it is contrasted with how his table-less life seems to be bad for his muscular system.
I suspected you'd appreciate :)
The funniest part of this is how uncomfortable he is not standing upright....
Wine. Red, dark. Cuddling in bottom curve of stemless glass. Sip: minerals of Niagara Escarpment limestone where I grew up. Memories savoured - anti-social neighbour leaving full bushel of red/cream sour cherries purchased by my mother to be pitted with copper pitter, most frozen but also cooked into so delicious cherry cobbler, as the anti-social neighbour drinks, banished by his wife who owns the cherry orchards, to a back bedroom with one unshaded lightbulb, on a solitary chair, cursing/clinging to the high school physics classess he will teach tomorrow. Heady. Now I can accomplish everything on my list tomorrow: swim, shop, cook, clear and organize entire closet with 10 shelves, drive to an adventure, write.
So good! Love how this starts so simply, one word, two words, and then circumnavigates to the portraits/stories, and returns, opening out as it does though... The repetition on "pitted with copper pitter" works. And the "back bedroom with the unshaded lightbulb." The glimpse (surprising yet not) at that point of his profession/work.
Thank you for posting, Amy!
Posting the edited version after incorporating changes.
(The Art Of Drinking Coffee.)
He looked at the cup of coffee, the little bubbles forming around the sides, and the stained table cloth. He lifted the cup gently, watching the warm smoke slithering into the air, closed his eyes and savored the fragrance. It had the strong aroma of the southern hills. He slurped a little from the cup and closed his eyes as a thin line of foam formed around his mouth.
It was ten in the morning. A clear sunlight hit the rooftop, making small puddles of shadows near the wall, where the birds- mostly pigeons and sparrows and sometimes an odd crow rested. All in all it was a good summer morning.
(I have also published this in the latest issue of my literary newsletter 'Brief Notes on Life.'
Tarun, thank you for sharing this re-write with us--and the note about publishing it. (As I sit here, so early with new sunlight and coffee, this summer morning!) Well done.