Our Long Lost Friend

I found this online:

Writing Exercise #1
by Ted M. Simpao
Chicago, USA

So I sit down and start writing a story again. I'm trying desperately not to bump into anything. I've read far too many insipid stories about boys and girls and dying uncles in wheelchairs, etc, etc.

I promise myself I'm going to write a story about something. I'm going to use clever words and phrases, find my voice and make a dent in the sizeable volume of the sheer cesspool that is my writing journal.

Take a moment and we'll tour it. OK, imagine me, a gruff 20 something with six days of beard (duh) and cheaply cool clothing, I'm probably wearing an ironic t-shirt and jeans. I open up the ol' file on my crap-stounding computer and double click.

Hey look, here's a treatment for a movie I never wrote. Here's a poem about Kurosawa. Oh, a one-act play regarding the adventures of Captain Fancy Pants and his Magical Trombone. (That one is a zinger, you'll have to check it out sometime.)

What else is in here? Shucks, a character sketch. A sad love story that mimics my real life. A story on multiple themes with classical elements. A post-modern piece on drug abusing teenagers.

I wrote all of 'em with the spirit of conflict, theme, rise and resolution and etc, etc, etc. Diction, language, character foils, allegories, etc, etc. This one references Kafka, this one references the Bible and The Tale of Genji simultaneuously. Here's one that steals an entire chapter from "As I Lay Dying." (Captain Fancy Pants and his Magical Trombone is actually a re-write of a Macedonian legend I heard about in a poetry lecture.)

Good lord, I've even tried meta-fiction. Clicking again on a folder labeled "Meta Dude!" I instantly see some of the meta-fiction I've tried. I wrote a tone poem that requires you to look up a website. Seriously. You can't imagine how I fit the word "http://" into a stressed and unstressed syllable scheme. It was tough, believe me.

Speaking of poetry, don't even ask me how to rhyme, I forgot long ago. It was sixth grade and I was in the cafeteria, singing aloud my favorite poem of the day. It went something like this:

"I'm Popeye the sailor man
I live in a garbage can
I'm strong to the finish
'Cause I eats my spinach
I'm Popeye the sailor man."

Pure unabashed genius! You can't imagine how clever I thought this was. Modern poetry could never replace the feelings of power over the English language I commanded at this age. Take this, Longfellow! Eat it, Amiri Baraka! I'm Popeye the sailor man!

Ok, I'm done ranting. It's time to get to the writing. Let's see.hero, heroine, and devilishly clever or powerful monster. Let's explore that.