This assignment had three parts to it. One and two--pieces of cake. Number three? Virtually impossible. How many of you have tried to put your own "character" on paper, in less than 500 words? Try it. Good and bad qualities alike. If you're anything like me, you'll give up and be eating cake sitting on your kitchen floor by the end of the night.
I have stayed with the same theme--characters and scenes from Below Sea Level. There is a method to my madness, and it is finishing this book, finding an agent, and finding a publisher. Piece of cake.
1. Write a description of someone you know, exploring the person’s positive and negative personality traits.
Eric slammed his right fist into the roof of the truck cab three times, hard and fast. The truck veered sharply over the center lane, and I grabbed for the wheel. My hand met his arm, solid as the steel he welded every day. Every vein stood out against his sunburnt muscles. The fuel gauge read empty, and we were barreling down Interstate 15 at close to 80 mph.
“That was the last Flying J,” he screamed at the windshield. “And now there’s not a goddamn thing for another 46 miles.” More fists into the roof. “We are fucked.”
We were driving to Utah to visit a fellow Texan, and only halfway there. His boss paid for gas at Flying J’s, but nowhere else. Eric had refused to stop elsewhere, and now we had nothing. He was in such a rage I was convinced he’d run us off the road, kill us both.
“Pull over at that stop,” I said, with as much force as I could.
“It’s not a fucking station; I can’t waste what I’ve got.”
“Pull over or I jump out of this fucking truck.” I was terrified, and had only anger to hide it.
He pulled over. I jumped out. We were officially nowhere, not another soul in sight. Every muscle screamed against my getting back into that vehicle with him. Let him leave me here, I told myself. Someone would come eventually. Maybe someone even crazier. Jesus Christ, I was in it deep. I’d known this was possible and still I’d come, to be “shown off” to his friends who’d never met me. After ten minutes of pacing, I returned. Eric was studying the map between the bathrooms. When he wheeled around, he was smiling. He walked back to the truck like he hadn’t a care in the world. For a moment he looked confused at my anger.
“There’s actually another stop in ten miles. It ain’t no Flying J, but it’ll hold us ‘til we find one. Don’t worry; I’ll still make those fuckers pay for it.”
Well thank goodness for that, I thought.
Later that night, as I waited for him to join me in the guest room, I seethed—at him for endangering us, and at myself for allowing it. I still heard loud voices, so I slipped down the hallway. Eric and Dan were comparing stories; the boasts, laughter and profanities flowing as heavily as the beer. Eric in his element. Then, I heard them pause, and a gentle clinking. Bested by curiosity, I crept in and saw them, three of them, arranged around Dan’s coffee table. Dan’s four year-old daughter had just poured the men another round of “tea.” I watched Eric lean over and thank her—so gentle, so genuine, his smile as wide as the rack of a Texas Longhorn. Then both men, still holding their tiny cups as delicately as any débutantes, resumed their rough-and-tumble conversation. I fell asleep smiling.
2. Write an additional 250 words giving a physical description of the person you wrote about.
Eric was leaning against my car when I got home. I could tell it was him because I felt my knees buckle slightly before I even got close. He had one leg crossed over the other as he juggled a Big Mac, and didn’t notice me sizing him up.
Man, he was something else. His t-shirt and jeans were covered in oil and dirt, but you could easily make out the man underneath. His black hair was tousled and he was fighting to keep his Texas handlebar out of his burger. I never knew wiping your mustache on your sleeve could be so sexy. I felt like I was walking into a tawdry romance novel. I was walking into a tawdry romance novel.
He gave a quick nod as he saw me, and straightened to his full 6’2”.
“Need a hand here, Ma’am?” he joked. His eyes stood out in the boldest blue, backlit by the clean patches on his face.
“It died again.”
There we were, the cheesy stereotype: helpless little lady with her piece-of-shit car, and strong, competent, mechanic ready to save the day. I felt so vulnerable, though we’d already met, dated, and decided we weren’t compatible. What the hell was I thinking? Whatever it was, I forgot it by the time he got the car running. I was weak, but not stupid. Men like this didn’t just drop out of the sky for women like me.
This was one novel I could not put down.
3. Write a description of yourself, exploring your positive and negative personality traits.
Read on, if you dare.
I am a woman determined to survive.
As a child of twelve, I faced a broken family; a timid father coming out after a lifetime of denial, and a devastated mother hiding her grief by fleeing to nursing school. In their time of pain and turmoil, they needed a good kid, a quiet kid. I couldn’t do much, but I could do that. As a child of fifteen, I faced a school for rich kids in my worn-out clothes, cartoonish buck teeth, and back brace, all with a pathological shyness. The teasing was indescribable. But I was a good kid, never bothering Dad as he built a new life, never pulling aside teachers who were so kind and so busy, and never, ever lashing back. That much I knew: Hurting others is wrong, even if they hurt you first.
At eighteen, recovered from my physical deformities but still lacking any social skills, I became a professional college student. It was structured, it was sheltered, and by God, I was good at it. I lived on the praise of my teachers, and bothered no one. At twenty-four, the first love of my life found me—and I lay crushed like a penny on a railroad track when it ended two years later. Back to school I went, this time taking a fellowship in Cairo, Egypt, to prove just how courageous I was. I lived there a year, proved my point, and came back for more.
Nearing thirty, I lost my bearings when my social stigmatism short-circuited my Ph.D. Floundering financially and socially, Eric found me. Overnight, I became a star. To a tough young Texan who’d built a life on nothing but sweat, blood, and endless charm since early childhood, I was his renaissance woman. (His words, not mine.) In me he found a woman who never uttered a word to offend, never judged when witnessing his first bouts of alcoholism and, most importantly, wore her education quietly, not pompously. And he excelled where I did not—financially—thus we discovered a partnership made in heaven. Balancing our strengths and weaknesses, we would survive together.
But our union was nothing more than an act of desperation. In our fragile states, we simply pulled each other deeper under water. The harder I swam, the heavier the weight I bore. I shouted out directions so he could swim beside me, but I was not heard. So, I learned to let go. Going forward alone felt utterly purposeless, but I slowly began to understand the importance of one’s own life. As I swam, and breathed, I survived witnessing the slow death of a man I still loved deeply, who had unquestionably made tremendous sacrifices for my happiness. I watched in surprise as we each made our way to opposite banks of the lake we’d navigated together for years, gave him one last look, and turned to find my own path.
I am a woman determined to survive.
I have stayed with the same theme--characters and scenes from Below Sea Level. There is a method to my madness, and it is finishing this book, finding an agent, and finding a publisher. Piece of cake.
1. Write a description of someone you know, exploring the person’s positive and negative personality traits.
Eric slammed his right fist into the roof of the truck cab three times, hard and fast. The truck veered sharply over the center lane, and I grabbed for the wheel. My hand met his arm, solid as the steel he welded every day. Every vein stood out against his sunburnt muscles. The fuel gauge read empty, and we were barreling down Interstate 15 at close to 80 mph.
“That was the last Flying J,” he screamed at the windshield. “And now there’s not a goddamn thing for another 46 miles.” More fists into the roof. “We are fucked.”
We were driving to Utah to visit a fellow Texan, and only halfway there. His boss paid for gas at Flying J’s, but nowhere else. Eric had refused to stop elsewhere, and now we had nothing. He was in such a rage I was convinced he’d run us off the road, kill us both.
“Pull over at that stop,” I said, with as much force as I could.
“It’s not a fucking station; I can’t waste what I’ve got.”
“Pull over or I jump out of this fucking truck.” I was terrified, and had only anger to hide it.
He pulled over. I jumped out. We were officially nowhere, not another soul in sight. Every muscle screamed against my getting back into that vehicle with him. Let him leave me here, I told myself. Someone would come eventually. Maybe someone even crazier. Jesus Christ, I was in it deep. I’d known this was possible and still I’d come, to be “shown off” to his friends who’d never met me. After ten minutes of pacing, I returned. Eric was studying the map between the bathrooms. When he wheeled around, he was smiling. He walked back to the truck like he hadn’t a care in the world. For a moment he looked confused at my anger.
“There’s actually another stop in ten miles. It ain’t no Flying J, but it’ll hold us ‘til we find one. Don’t worry; I’ll still make those fuckers pay for it.”
Well thank goodness for that, I thought.
Later that night, as I waited for him to join me in the guest room, I seethed—at him for endangering us, and at myself for allowing it. I still heard loud voices, so I slipped down the hallway. Eric and Dan were comparing stories; the boasts, laughter and profanities flowing as heavily as the beer. Eric in his element. Then, I heard them pause, and a gentle clinking. Bested by curiosity, I crept in and saw them, three of them, arranged around Dan’s coffee table. Dan’s four year-old daughter had just poured the men another round of “tea.” I watched Eric lean over and thank her—so gentle, so genuine, his smile as wide as the rack of a Texas Longhorn. Then both men, still holding their tiny cups as delicately as any débutantes, resumed their rough-and-tumble conversation. I fell asleep smiling.
2. Write an additional 250 words giving a physical description of the person you wrote about.
Eric was leaning against my car when I got home. I could tell it was him because I felt my knees buckle slightly before I even got close. He had one leg crossed over the other as he juggled a Big Mac, and didn’t notice me sizing him up.
Man, he was something else. His t-shirt and jeans were covered in oil and dirt, but you could easily make out the man underneath. His black hair was tousled and he was fighting to keep his Texas handlebar out of his burger. I never knew wiping your mustache on your sleeve could be so sexy. I felt like I was walking into a tawdry romance novel. I was walking into a tawdry romance novel.
He gave a quick nod as he saw me, and straightened to his full 6’2”.
“Need a hand here, Ma’am?” he joked. His eyes stood out in the boldest blue, backlit by the clean patches on his face.
“It died again.”
There we were, the cheesy stereotype: helpless little lady with her piece-of-shit car, and strong, competent, mechanic ready to save the day. I felt so vulnerable, though we’d already met, dated, and decided we weren’t compatible. What the hell was I thinking? Whatever it was, I forgot it by the time he got the car running. I was weak, but not stupid. Men like this didn’t just drop out of the sky for women like me.
This was one novel I could not put down.
3. Write a description of yourself, exploring your positive and negative personality traits.
Read on, if you dare.
I am a woman determined to survive.
As a child of twelve, I faced a broken family; a timid father coming out after a lifetime of denial, and a devastated mother hiding her grief by fleeing to nursing school. In their time of pain and turmoil, they needed a good kid, a quiet kid. I couldn’t do much, but I could do that. As a child of fifteen, I faced a school for rich kids in my worn-out clothes, cartoonish buck teeth, and back brace, all with a pathological shyness. The teasing was indescribable. But I was a good kid, never bothering Dad as he built a new life, never pulling aside teachers who were so kind and so busy, and never, ever lashing back. That much I knew: Hurting others is wrong, even if they hurt you first.
At eighteen, recovered from my physical deformities but still lacking any social skills, I became a professional college student. It was structured, it was sheltered, and by God, I was good at it. I lived on the praise of my teachers, and bothered no one. At twenty-four, the first love of my life found me—and I lay crushed like a penny on a railroad track when it ended two years later. Back to school I went, this time taking a fellowship in Cairo, Egypt, to prove just how courageous I was. I lived there a year, proved my point, and came back for more.
Nearing thirty, I lost my bearings when my social stigmatism short-circuited my Ph.D. Floundering financially and socially, Eric found me. Overnight, I became a star. To a tough young Texan who’d built a life on nothing but sweat, blood, and endless charm since early childhood, I was his renaissance woman. (His words, not mine.) In me he found a woman who never uttered a word to offend, never judged when witnessing his first bouts of alcoholism and, most importantly, wore her education quietly, not pompously. And he excelled where I did not—financially—thus we discovered a partnership made in heaven. Balancing our strengths and weaknesses, we would survive together.
But our union was nothing more than an act of desperation. In our fragile states, we simply pulled each other deeper under water. The harder I swam, the heavier the weight I bore. I shouted out directions so he could swim beside me, but I was not heard. So, I learned to let go. Going forward alone felt utterly purposeless, but I slowly began to understand the importance of one’s own life. As I swam, and breathed, I survived witnessing the slow death of a man I still loved deeply, who had unquestionably made tremendous sacrifices for my happiness. I watched in surprise as we each made our way to opposite banks of the lake we’d navigated together for years, gave him one last look, and turned to find my own path.
I am a woman determined to survive.
Gotta love 1974!
Left to Right: Sarah, age 4, Nancy, age 8, Jim and Mary, ages 29
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