Friday, January 2, 2009

The First Writing of 2009

Nice start, Jennifer, I like it. The prompts can only get better from there!

Last night I wrote at my desk instead of in bed. I'm trying to train myself to write at my desk. It'll be an uphill battle, I'm sure. Let's see what came of it.

January 1--Renoir's Young Girl in a Straw Hat. Claire liked the way the summer sun sneaked through the tiny spaces of her straw hat. She had grumbled when Mama stopped her on her way out the door and insisted she put on a hat. At first Claire had grabbed the pink baseball cap Aunt Lynnie had given her for her birthday but then she saw the pale yellow brim of the straw hat peeking over the edge of her cubby in the back hall, so she tossed the pink hat at a hook, stepped up on the cubby shelf/seat where she sat to pull on her boots and pulled down the straw hat. It fell upside down into her hands. She thought it looked like a flower pot like the ones Grammy had on her screened porch but Claire decided she wouldn't mind having a flower pot on her head. As she lifted it she caught a whiff of the clean grassy smell of it. It smelled fresh and cool, she thought as she jammed it down around her ears and slammed through the screen door out into the freedom of what all the kids called "the back forty." The sun hit her like a hammer as she jumped down the steps onto the parched lawn. She picked up her butterfly net on its long handle and her canvas backpack of collecting jars and made her way down the yard and through the gap in the hedge. She passed the dog pen where her dad's beagle, Peggy, lay in the shade with her latest litter. Dad said to give Peggy one more week of peace so Claire only tiptoed over to peek once a day so she could count the five little pups before she walked on into the golden grasses that reached her waist and held a treasure of specimens waiting for her to capture and classify them.

Not a bad start to the year, if I do say so myself.
--Barbara

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