A big, bright blue expanse. Holder of the world’s development. I remember it most fondly when I would wake up for the school every morning during the end of spring. The air was cool on my skin and felt damp to walk through. The smell of dew hanging onto my front lawn. I’d sometimes keep my mouth open and inhale, trying to drink up the air. It was thick and heavy but you could just feel the endless opportunity there every morning. We used to get a lot of birds where I’m from, being in rural Tennessee. You’d look up and see them light bobbing on the powerlines, chattering amongst themselves. If you stared too long, you’d feel yourself moving with them, so I would close my eyes to try to decipher what they were saying. The sky was also too bright for me to look at, I could feel the backs of my eyeball seize up every time I tried to keep them from squinting. My favorite thing though was watching the sunrise in the horizon. The blending of refracting light as the delicate balance of life is set in motion once again. The heat slowly warming my skin up as it’s deep golden rays peaked up over the hill behind my house. I always loved the way it changed the whole view, no part of the sky was left untouched. My heart would swell just as the sun rose, realizing that I had stayed alive another day. I’d hear the reeving engine rumble in the distance and then a halting squeal as the bus pulled up in front of my driveway. I’d take one last deep breath and get on the bus.
A little late to the party but excited to try all of these exercises out!
This Is a great first write up. I think what you’ll find going through these exercises is that we all go through the journey from “Tell’y” to “Show”. For example, you can cut out a lot of the filler lines, like “We used to get a lot of birds where i’m from…” this line could be something like “A choir of birds singing me a morning hymn” or something like that. You do have a heap of sensory lines throughout which is great! but think more about that than telling the story. Great to read it though thanks!
Dimmed by clouds, grey, I feel it casting over me, layering my thoughts with mundane, bland, despairing thoughts. No sunlight to be seen or felt, the warmth of spring still gone. Grey like an accountants suit, dull, surrounding with haze and heaviness that pushes down from above. What to do with a grey sky but feel remorseful to reminisce about the past, ruminate in quiet. Not even the birds sing today. Some call it a. Gloom I say it’s doom. An feeling in the chest of doom at the edge of death. Grey skies. Dead skies.
Welcome to the community Christian! I really like how you have put this simile in our mind of the sky being “grey as an accountant’s suit”. This gives us a visceral sense of the dreariness you are describing and gives our mind so many associations to build up our picture from.
As with all the feedback, we are encouraging a strong philosophy of “show don’t tell” here. Talking about feeling remorseful to reminisce about the past for example isn’t flexing your sensory description muscles. It reads very nicely but bear in mind the explicit focus of these exercises is to describe describe describe using the senses.
Thank you! Yes I’m aware of the show don’t tell and thought these exercises would help me get better at that. As I usually have some combination in my lyric writing but would love to become more imagery focused
A clearing at the top, crosses all space because it is space. Roaming the sky freely would be the greatest adventure you could do, seeing the world from any point, feeling the humidity, the cold and the heat, all of them housed in its different layers. Give me your usual colors, maybe we all fail to take advantage of them, but it is the most beautiful natural art I have ever seen. Hidden behind a thick fog, your influence continues to prevail, it seems more infinite than it already is. Free from cover, it reveals a unique color, and spreads joy to whoever stops to think about the sunny day. Home of birds, dream of humans, the sky has always been our goal. Symbol of religions and peace, thinking about the sky evokes tranquility, and that is what we want
Hi, actually English is not my main language, I am a Spanish speaker and I originally wrote this in Spanish and then tried to translate it, I feel like I only managed to get a few loose sentences out.
patterns of blotchy white forms when i look up scattered across a blue canvas, an engine sounds like the zipper on my off white jacket riding up the metal teeth sewn into the vinyl. lawn mower fumes like a racecar find me and the revving engine is clearer, weight leaning on the handle i let the motor drag me across chopped lawn shavings loose like piles of autumn leaves leaving chlorophyl stains on my denim work pants. the fumes like a gas station dripping gun with iridescent gunmetal liquid not black, when puddles reflect a daylit sky the soles of my boots kiss the splashing craters that fill like lakes. gnawing on flower pedals laying on the bed of the lake, swampy marsh area with dragonflies and small ticks and clicking noises over a hissing
Looking over me always, missing me when im away, the Sky is blue and happy and as clear as a morning bell. Out on the water, Sky turns to the ocean and dives head first drowning me in heaven. I lose her in existential ecstasy, I’m finally alone. This lonely paradise pulls on my throat and parts my lips to drink up the soft air as blue as the tears streaming down Skies smiling cheeks. The rolling clouds washes out the stains and sand, and I can hear the thistles of dawn sing between the ocean and the sky, their fugue entrances.
the sun is stark in the east and the windlessness surrounds you. what would i want if the sky werent so aggressively blue? i would want you to be at home on that overstuffed chair in the living room. we’re listening to the wind blow, you’re smoking your pipe indoors, and the droplets on your raincoat get on my new shoes. you’re singing to me and all i can smell is the storm as it rolls through.
The only thing that touches us and outer space at once. The thing you can clearly see above you but not directly in front. Captor of iridescent creations, more goes on in that world than we could fathom given indefinite time. If the first sky you saw was grey, then blue would be unusual to you. Specialty is determined by inconsistency. Even when I move across the world, we can both look up and see the same thing. A vast, heated blanket that connects us and keeps us apart at the same time. If you climb up halfway to the stars you’ll become one and if you climb down from the stars you’ll become this again; this handful of compost wondering what it’s like to float.
he sits with his corduroy pants bunched up, his soles pressed against the damp grass on the hill. trees like umbrellas driven like stakes into the soil and sprout a canopy of dark shade. it echoes further from the source as the daylight wanes and the moons glow is lone in the black sky. i hear crickets chirp the same frequency as the glistening stars that twinkle like tiny shrill glockenspiel hits. soft felt mallet tips resonate brass keys and i feel it ringing in my ears like i feel the rumbling timpani drums rattle my core in my seat. leaning back the creaking mechanism reaches a stop and i feel the shock absrbed in my back like in a rolling car that comes to a stop at the blinking yellow light. the noises of traffic and children crossing in a stampede across the lined crosswalk. i wonder if my toe crept forward and pressed on the wrong pedal. in a flash of shrieks and a splattered windshield a life behind cold metal bars. the sun barely peeks in thru the small window and slop on a plastic tray slid on a metal cafeteria line. i hear a muffled voice over an intercom and turn the radio down. its chattering silenced like a conductor raising his arms, feeling them stretch to the sky
i feel like ive lost my writing spark so im doing these exercises again. any feedback is appreciated : )
i also just noticed its been almost exactly a year.
Sitting on a lone rock in the midst of an expanse of endless brittle savana patches , I mavel at the dogy hopers,bees and butterflies hovering on the scattered patches of soft scenty flowers that swings languidly to a gentle automn breeze- leaving a slightly sweet and chilly tinge floating in the dry air. But most of all I marvel at the floric of lacauscious birds, dancing and rioting in the isolated trees that grew all over the solitary expanse; to fly into the shimmering air of the blue clear sky; an enigma to the eye, causing a chord of awe to chime in my breast. A mystery that sends me into a solemn mood of contemplation at its vastness- wondering what’s beyond this all embracing blueness which is not a blue but a lack on the part of my eye to scale beyond the fathoms and leagues of supposed emptiness; then I realise that some where beyond that blueness there must be another just as I wondering at the mystery of his sky which is where I am; and I come to realise that the sky is my home.
My face relaxes as the warm summer breeze washes over me. I sit in awe at the bright aqua colored sky unfolding as the clouds wipe their tears away. The dewy wet grass caressing my soft fingertips. I laid back against the grass and in an almost meditative state, I slowly filled my lungs with the crisp summer air and exhaled. I watched as the stunning view of the birds and listened to their high pitched conversations.