The Flophouse Babble

May I welcome you to a “Chloe Babble!”

“What the hell is a Chloe Babble?” Frank croaks around a mouthful of crumpet.

*brushes the crumbs off my keyboard*

My specter of imminent failure is particularly sour today. Please excuse Frank’s foul mouth. (I ran out of duct tape a couple of hours ago.)

Now to answer his less than polite question…

A Chloe Babble occurs when I’m being forced to sit through a particularly nerve-wracking time waiting on something to happen. For example, sitting in a waiting room at the auto shop. It’s a time when my OCD tendencies and my panic disorder are at war over which mental illness will take me down during this tiny window of seemingly endless time. (Yeah, definitely just a Chloe thing. Don’t feel bad if you aren’t feeling me here. This is, after all, all part of the babble.)

To bide my time (i.e. cling to my fraying sanity) I write. Of course, I can’t write on anything useful, on any actual project. No, I can only pepper out nonsense.

I try not to blog during these times. No one deserves to suffer through this foolishness with me. But, today, my father’s plane was delayed, his flight will be landing 2 ½ hours late in Dallas pushing the scheduled Chloe Babble back into blog time.

I pity you.

Truly.

But here we go…

After heading to this random word generator (http://www.textfixer.com/tools/random-words.php), I find myself with three unconnected words staring me in the face. This afternoon’s trio is…

Flophouse.

Admiral.

Adornment.

Now giving myself a strict time limit of ten minutes, I must come up with a sentence that ties all three words together reasonably, understandably and enjoyably. (And, no, I can’t just say “These are three enjoyable words: flophouse, admiral, and adornment.”)

Ok? Got the idea?

Good.

My time starts now…

“The admiral, having been plucked of all adornment by the high-class whore he’d just spent his last dollar on, sneaked into the flophouse with lipstick still on his dick and a twinge of regret in his aging eyes.”

-OR-

“The lost souls at the flophouse called him the Admiral although he’d never laid eyes on a sea and the only adornment of rank that he had was an old skipper’s hat he’d worn religiously since the summer of ’83.”

Time’s up!

Ooh! Two for the price of one! Don’t you feel lucky?

*utter silence from the suffering world*

Ok, I think that’s enough torture for you today.

Thanks for keeping me and my crumbling sanity company for a bit. *smiles*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Chicken Poop & Calisthenics: Why to Blog when you don't want to Blog

On a morning when writing a blog ranks right down there with the prospects of cleaning out a chicken coop, I think we should all take a few moments to consider why writers should blog. And, no, this isn’t about getting your name out there to the hungry reading masses.

This, my friends, is about calisthenics for your writing muscle.

Calisthenics is basically defined as: an exercise made up of a variety of exercises which are usually rhythmic in nature but requiring no equipment, such as weights.

This is blogging at its very core.

I confess, I don’t generally enjoy blogging. I used to hate it. I’d dread it like the cowardly ninny I often am. But after a month of forcing myself to blog (coherently) twice a day every day, I’m beginning to think its benefits outweigh the craziness it stirs up in my head.

Shall I explain?

I believe I shall.

The creativity required in maintaining a daily blog is phenomenal. Also exhausting, but we won’t go there this morning.

Writing can be a terribly dull career to chronicle. While word counts, character developments and the like can be very interesting and even fun things to share, I’ve found that you’ve got to add some unexpected spice to it to keep it interesting, to keep the readers coming back, to keep you writing it day in and day out.

In the case of my blog, the spices I have scrounged up have included, to various success rates: The Scrying Seed, Movie Reviews, Editorials on Current Events, and Picture Stories. But it doesn’t matter what kind of seasoning you choose to surprise your readers and yourself with, it matters that you, as a writer, make that stretch.

Calisthenics.

Stretch that writing muscle into positions categorized from “WTF?” to “Yes, yes, yes!”

A daily blog may sometimes hurt (mine often sting like hell), but after a few weeks of the pain you’ll start to feel the difference. You’ll wake up one day, stretch and think, “Hmm, that feels good.”

Or so I keep telling myself on days like this when writing a blog has sunk below the chicken shit.

Until tonight…

Chloe

The Game is on! Picture Story #1

Picture Story #1 (click photo to link to Pinterest)

As Monday peters out, I am relieved to report that as of 5:25pm I have not received a rejection from Dreamspinner Press for my much-ballyhooed short story “Ravenscar” yet. Hope remains alive for another day it seems! Champagne and bon-bons anyone?

Lots and lots of work done on my “Lion and Steed” novel this afternoon. Zero work done on the short story “Sicily,” but the night is still young.

I had a little more construction work done at my house this afternoon, so I’m emotionally wiped, which is pitiful, embarrassing and another reason to reach for the bubbly… Kidding.

Anyhow, I mention this tidbit of my psychological woes to explain, or maybe excuse would be a better word, my utter lack of spice and pizzazz in tonight’s blog. I’m drained. I feel like a flat bicycle tire flapping around noisily on its quickly wearing rim.

So to try to pump me up (see what I did there? The flat tire? The pumping it up?... Yeah, I told you I was freaking tired), I’ve picked out an old photograph I’ve found on Pinterest and decided to brainstorm a story off of it.

Call it a writing exercise, maybe a visual prompt. Whatever the heck it is, maybe one of us will learn something from it – or at least have a hardy chuckle over my nonsense.

So, here are the rules. Everyone, please, feel free to play along, publicly or privately…

           -The story must be based directly off of the picture above.

           -Every day, you must add one, and only one, sentence to the story.

           -Each new sentence must continue from the previous day’s sentence.

           -Strive for something. Either creativity, mystery, power, a certain atmosphere or humor. Your choice just make each sentence worthwhile to the story.

           -Even if you hate the picture or where your story is going, stick with it for a week. After seven sentences if you hate it, drop it. No big loss.

           -The most important rule is… enjoy!

Alright, I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for the evening. I’ll leave you all to it, with my own first sentence to the picture story below.

Until tomorrow when hopefully brain cells have grown back…

Chloe

My sentence to the picture story… “Do you remember this day?” the voice, weary and cracked, dissolved into the din of noise like sugar into his mama’s iced tea.