WriteFridays 12- Getting started

I skipped a few WriteFridays challenges from Rachel's blog so yes, 12 directly follows 8. If you are lucky, 12 might even be followed by 11- I just can't make up my mind about where to go with that story... 

Anyways, today I felt inspired and had some writing time available. This is not an excerpt but rather the beginning of maybe a new story. Let me know if my little effusion makes you want to read more- feedback is always appreciated! (If not, I need to do some serious editing.)

Here's the task:

Exercise 12: Description and setting are hard – how does a writer choose what is important to the reader? How does s/he deftly direct the audience’s attention around the frame of their narrative? There are a few ways to accomplish this; here is one helpful exercise. Draft a short excerpt for a new work, or from a work in progress. Include description of your character’s setting using all of his/her senses — except sight. What does the air smell like? What does the rug feel like under bare feet? Are their birds singing? Fire sirens? What is your character’s physiological response? Get under the first layer of what things look like, and invite us in to a deeper description.

Getting started

The beer tasted stale and bitter. It was cheap, but at least it would keep him occupied and numb his nerves.

He loved to travel, but not this time. This time, he wished he could have stayed home, not face the world, not face her.

But here he was, numbing his feelings. He did not want to hear the rattling of the wheels below him, did not want to feel the hard plastic counter he leaned against, holding on to whenever there was an especially bumpy rattle. He already knew that he would hate this faint smell of old frying grease and cigarette smoke for a long time.

He would hate it because it would always remind him of the dread he was feeling. He would have to hurt her, crush her spirit, make her miserable. There was no other way, he was out of options. He needed to protect her and in order to do that, the destination of this trip was her unhappiness.

With his eyes down he hardly noticed that someone sat down next to him.

“I fuckin’ need some’un on the fuckin’ job today! Some’un that performs!” he heard the newcomer bellow into a phone.

After a quick sideways glance, his intuition kicked in and he noticed that there was something about this newcomer that was not sitting right with him.

The guy had an aura of money and power- like someone who hardly hears the word 'no'.

‘You would expect this Richie on a private jet, flaunting his riches- but definitely not here, ordering cheap beer’ he thought.

Yet, here they were- and Richie needed someone for a job- and he could use a cash injection!

So he listened more carefully to Richie’s side of the conversation. His optimism returned. Maybe, he was not out of options after all!

WriteFridays 8: Human passion

This seems to become a trend- here is my contribution to last week’s WriteFridays challenge. I struggled to get inspiration, until, last night at midnight, I saw this tweet. I therefore need to post this disclaimer: this story is entirely fictional!

Exercise the Eighth: Everyone has a passion – something that they enjoy, whether it’s yoga, obscure vinyl, or search engine optimization. (Or even coaching & mentoring new writers!) In other words, there is something out there that causes your character to wax passionate in the face of glazed eyeballs, awkward coughing, or even straight out door dashing. Let us know what that is.

Human passion

Two photos. He had taken only two photos. Both of them were bad, virtually useless.

He loved photography but at this pace, he would never be able to make a living out of it.

Sighing, he put down the lens he was cleaning and leaned back. Something needed to change. He used to love the careful composition of a picture, the search for the right angle, the considerations regarding lighting, the effects he could achieve. He used to spend hours out in nature, taking pictures. Whenever a picture came out especially nice, he printed it and put it on display in his tiny apartment.

The owner of the photo studio let him print them for only the cost of material. He even let him use some of the cameras they had on display. With what the man paid him for the work as his assistant, he wouldn’t be able to afford his hobby otherwise. But one day, he would be able to take over, become a real photographer with his own shop. He had dreamed of being a photographer ever since he had held his first camera and taken his first photograph.

For the umpteenth time he looked at the picture he had taken on his phone last week. The memories of that afternoon came flooding back.

He had taken a trip into New York to meet an old friend who was visiting. Then he got a text that the friend would be late. He sat on a park bench and waited, despite the cool fall weather.

The old lady walked up to the same bench. She could hardly walk even with her cane. Her coat was spotless but worn thin in places. Yet, she wore a string of pearls around her neck and held her head high, with some carefully coiffed ringlets of silver-gray hair peeking out from under an old-fashioned hat.

„Sir, may I trouble you with my company and take the spot next to you?“ she asked when she stood in front of him.

„No trouble, please sit“ he replied.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then she spoke again.

„I love New York at any time of year, but on days like these it is especially precious to me. It always reminds me of my Richard. We got married almost 63 years ago on a day just like this. But he has been dead for nearly 20 years now.“

„I am sorry to hear that. Do you still miss him?“

„Every day! On our wedding day, he promised he would take care of me, and he did. He was a good husband. You see, his family was from old money, they did not agree with his choice in a wife. But he insisted on marrying me. They disowned him. He still kept his promise to me and he made it on his own. He worked so hard. It was my duty to provide him with a good home and to help him, represent, you know. At first, we did not have many social obligations, of course, with him disregarding the wishes of his family. They made sure that nobody in society was even conversing with us.

Well, we slowly made our way into the circle again, mainly because he was such a charismatic man, my Richard. Everybody loved him. When he died, so many people came to the funeral. They all promised to help me, and at the beginning they did. But it became clear quickly that our social standing was all thanks to him- and he was gone.“

She took a heavy breath and looked down.

„He took care of me, even after his death. If I had not been so stupid, he would still take care of me now, but I ruined everything.“

„What happened?“ he asked.

„Well, I was lonely. Most of our friends had turned their backs. It happened slowly, of course. They stopped inviting me and when I invited them, they made excuses. I slowly realized that our position in society entirely depended on Richard.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Bernie and his wife invited me. Bernie had just started his own investment firm. When they asked if I wanted to invest with them, I did. Only a little at first, you never know, right? But I was literally eating up all my savings, so I thought it would be a good idea to make the money work for a bit before I used it. The returns looked very promising and I invested more, until all our savings were in his firm. Then, Bernie got arrested. I had given all the money my Richard had earned for me to Bernie Madoff!“

„Oh no! That’s terrible. I am so sorry to hear that.“

„Don’t be. It was my own fault. I should have been smarter. I should have asked around, spread the money more."

"Yes, but you could not have known what he was doing!"

"Still, I made a lot of mistakes there and I learned from this. You can never have only one plan, especially when you take a risk. You need a Plan B for when things go wrong. Don’t rely on one person or one plan alone.“

For a moment, they sat in silence, then he asked:

„This might sound very unusual, but may I take a picture of you? I am a photographer and remember things by looking at pictures. I want to remember your story.“

„Of course! But you don’t have a camera!“ she replied.

„I will take the picture on my phone. It won’t be the greatest picture ever taken, but it will do.“

As soon as he had taken the picture, his friend showed up. He said goodbye to the woman and spent the day with his friend.

But he could not stop thinking about her story. Also, he loved the picture on his phone- poor quality and all. He had managed to capture her. It was one of the best pictures he had ever taken.

What was his plan B? What if he could not take over the store one day? Was that really what he wanted to do? He wanted to feel the rush again that he had felt when the old lady trusted him with the story of her life.  He was bored of nature photography and of stilted studio pictures. He wanted to take photos that captured the essence of a person.

Suddenly, he knew what he wanted his plan B to look like. After a few minutes, he had created a new blog. When he was prompted to type in the name, he wrote: „Humans of New York.“

On Writing- journalism or voyeurism?

Although I am a novice fiction writer, I have been writing all my life. Well, definitely once I was in school and learned how to do it. Professionally, I have years of experience in PR and journalistic writing. I recently moved into academic writing and am gaining experience there as well. 

This background has provided me with some opinions on writing. Here you therefore get the first post of what will become a loosely connected mini-series of opinion pieces- or quite possibly rants!

I read a post by a German Anonymous blogger on Facebook yesterday. It addresses the reporting about the Germanwings plane crash in the French alps. It is in German, so I will summarize it briefly:

The blogger’s main message is that Mrs Merkel and the “lying press” in Germany are hiding facts from the German public. The main arguments are the “quick guilty verdict” of the co-pilot, who can’t defend himself any more, the evaluation of the crash by several Secret Service organizations from different nations as not being a terrorist attack, the “complete pulverization” of the plane (as it was described by a French fire fighter who worked at the scene), which the author claims could not be explained by the physical powers of a “simple” crash, and the lack of reporting on problems with poisonous fumes in cockpits.

In addition, the author questions the motives of German media and their reporting style. The main argument here is that the NY Times was the first to report about the content of the voice recording and that German media cited the Times until the details of these voice recordings were confirmed by officials the next day.

Let me assure you that I am not promoting blind followership of governments or the media. I did grow up in Germany after all, where ignorance and a lack of scrutiny had catastrophic consequences not even 100 years ago! Keeping your brain switched on when reading/watching the news is important!

But in this case, I would like to defend the reputable media outlets in Germany. I currently live in Canada and thus followed the reporting on the plane crash over here and on German news websites.

The German media have held back and shown respect for the victims and those who lost someone. They have not speculated too much and kept their distance to those who died as well as those who lost family members or friends.

The international reputable media were less respectful! The NY Times published pictures, full names of the victims and quotes of relatives soon after the crash. Similar crashes and expert speculation filled pages, CNN held a Q&A sessions on Twitter where people could ask “things they did not understand about the crash”, hashtag #GermanwingsQs and all. These outlets were the first to use the co-pilot's full name and post some grainy pictures.

Just to make this clear: I am talking about reputable media that want to be taken seriously and pride themselves on their journalistic ethics- this does not include the paper with the 4 big letters or the like. I am also not talking about bloggers or disgusting tweets, even though their baiting brought on this post. And I understand that the public has an interest in knowing what happened- I frequently fly, I want to know if it is still safe!

Still, I find this journalistic sensationalism abominable. There is a word for this voyeuristic behavior in German, it translates to “shaking widows”. I commend the (majority of the) German media for holding back and not engaging in it- so far.

But unwarranted criticism and stupid accusations like the one by Anonymous, I fear, are slowly forcing the reputable outlets to change their behavior. If their act of humanity and tact causes wild and very vocal accusations, the easiest reply would be to engage in a reporting style that satisfies this underlying lust and voraciousness for ever more intimate details. There already are tweets by German media, explaining why some outlets decide to report in a respectful manner!

And yet, the German media is relenting slowly. A first step of this move towards sensationalism can be seen in the reporting about the co-pilot right now. Yes, he did a shocking, horrible thing. But we know not much about his motives or reasons. It looks like he was sick. What’s more: he was a human and he had a family and friends that lost him and are in mourning now, just like the families and friends of the other victims. What did the co-pilot's relatives do to deserve that we don’t pay them the same respect as the other mourners by digging through his personal life, especially if we should indeed not know all the facts- as Anonymous claims?

A cynical side note: of course, this greed for personal information by the public, the tweets and the bloggers only extends to others. After all, Anonymous fiercely fights for the protection of personal data!

I sincerely I hope the German media are bold enough to stay strong, especially after I read this other post by a German journalist about her experience with sensationalized reporting. She is not hiding behind anonymity while she talks about an experience she and her family had to endure 30 years ago. When her best friend and his family drowned, two “journalists” tricked her and her family into providing pictures of the victims. She vividly describes the hurt caused by this highly unethical behavior.

I wholeheartedly second her plea to journalists and editors: consider how you would want to be treated if the victims were in your family or were your friends. The name or picture of a victim is not newsworthy. Do your research, question the validity of the information provided, but keep your reporting and your research methods respectful and humane!

Communication problems- WriteFridays Challenge 5

This has been an interesting week for me. Since English is my second language, I am not as playful with the words and the language as I might be in German. My initial thought upon reading the challenge was to write something comedic- but I am not even sure I could pull that off in German! With the past challenges, I always started with working on my first idea, which then morphed itself into the end result. This week, that did not work and I had a bad case of writers' block!

In the end, this challenge is a week late (but as a bonus, I edited more heavily before I posted- tried to eliminate filter words!). I heavily used my German- and might have missed the mark of what was asked in the challenge. The text might be unintelligible to those who don’t speak German- but thanks to modern communication tools, you can figure it out! You can find help here: 

Exercise 5: Two of your characters are having a conversation through some form of modern technology. (This could be modern as in the fast food window, modern as in “new for the 19th century” modern, or future-world modern.) How does the technology impede their communication? How does it assist? Do hijinks ensue? Or does the miscommunication have fatal results?

Communication problems

 “Nethourh gbber aorudw”

She did not understand a word of what the train driver had just said. She had to get off in five stops. Thankfully, the stops were announced by a machine voice and she could figure out where she was.

Between the crackling of the speakers, the accent of the driver and her limited language skills, she did not understand the announcements. The train driver had made three by now, but as long as nobody panicked, it was probably not too important. Five more stops and she would be at her hotel, meet her best friend and could finally sleep! The long flight, jetlag and that text message that was waiting when she switched the phone back on had gotten to her!

“Neturogugh aberre gewarde. Kommeri catu aber, oce, depat.”

Once again, she understood nothing. She sighed tiredly in response to the gibberish.

When the train came to a stop, the few others on the train hurriedly got up and left. It took her tired brain a moment to register this. Also, the doors did not close again. Then, the train engine switched off with a low rumble. On the platform, the last passengers hurried down into the tunnel system. Slowly, she stood and gathered her luggage.

As she was ready to leave the train, a man in a dirty uniform came through a door at the front of the compartment.

“This fart ends here?” she asked?

“Pardon?” he replied. 

She nodded. “Thank you for saying sorry. Who is the next train?”

“No nex’ train. Fire. Out!”

“Oh, you are fired? Or a brand?”

“You! Out! Naw!” He pointed to the door and grabbed her suitcase.

“Hey! Thank you, but I have craft to schlep this. This is a brand then? Now, who do we go? I am fast in the hotel. I not can the way, you have a card?”

Frowning, he just said: “Girl, we need’a leave. Come an, let’s go.” He hurried down the tunnel with her suitcase and she had no choice but to follow him. She registered the faint smell of smoke in the air while she followed.

Half running after the man, she asked: “Sir, I am really irritated now. What is past? Go we to the taxi?”

He just kept walking, all the way out of the building. At the curb, he stopped, put the suitcase down and turned around. “Here ya go, ma’m. The infamation desk is o’er thea. Looks like ya have ta wait fo' a cab.” He pointed towards a group of people huddled together, tipped his hand to his head, turned around and disappeared.

WriteFridays Challenge- My short autobiography

This week, my friend Rachel had some problems with her blog and posted the #WriteFridays challenge on Twitter:

#WriteFridays #writingprompt: A short story has a beginning, middle & end ... And this one has only 140 characters or less. :D

My contribution is hitting very close to home this week- yes, I clicked!!!- and comes in quite a bit below the 140 characters!

A faint dream...Writing and worrying. Talking and hoping. A cheer! A cheer! Considerations and... a click! My future decided.

WriteFridays Challenge 4- The painful beauty

I apologize for not posting last week’s challenge. I actually wrote large chunks of it, but then went out of town and forgot my notes at home. I plan to post challenge 3 next week when I am back home and on a more regular schedule again. In the meantime, here’s challenge 4, inspired by my current surroundings. Everything else is fiction, similarities to real people are purely coincidental!

Exercise 4: Your character holds a photograph that he or she just can’t let go. What is it about the scene depicted that holds their attention? Why has he or she been saving it all this time? Or, conversely, why has he or she made the decision to get rid of it? Where did it come from? Write a scene that tells your reader a little about the world in which your character lives through this photograph.

The Painful Beauty

The mountains. He hated the mountains. He hated them because of her. He used to love them, they were home to him. They looked beautiful in the photograph. For a moment, he stared at the snow-covered peaks, the rugged rocks and the dark trees clinging to the steep flanks. He felt a longing, mixed with that dull aching he always felt when he looked at the picture. Slowly, his eyes drifted from the beautiful nature in the background to the couple in the foreground of the picture. He had expected the familiar pain that came when his eyes met hers in the photograph. He almost welcomed it by now. She was stunning. She had always managed to take his breath away. The mountains were his first love, but she had stolen his heart. She had turned his world upside down. Taken his heart and smashed it. Not just dropped it, but smashed it.

He thought back to their time together, the lighthearted, carefree man he had been back then. They had met during a ski trip, had felt an instant connection and soon were inseparable. They had made plans for a future together. They had dreamed of a small, wooden house in the mountains with a front porch facing the sun, overlooking the valley, in the exact spot where the picture was taken. They were so happy to finally have found their future. Or so he had thought.

He saw his arm protectively wrapped around her shoulders, his forehead lightly touching her temple while she beamed to the camera. He saw a couple that was deeply in love, two people that were blissfully happy. To him, that’s what they had been back then, before she left and took his soul with him. 

She not only smashed his heart, when she left, she destroyed him. Only days after they had found this spot, had imagined their home there, kids, a normal life without the crazy schedules they both had kept, she betrayed him.

Betrayed. He has always felt that the word could not express what she had done to him. She had hurt him, stomped on his heart, stopped his world not only from turning but erased its existence.  When she went back on set just days after they had taken this picture together, she slept with her co-star and got caught by the press. She immediately spun a story about their secret love, bought the piece of land in the mountains and the last he heard, they wanted to build the future together that he had dreamed of with her. She cast him aside like an old shirt she did not want any more. There was not even a message, no call, no explanation. Just humiliation and pain.

He took a deep breath and lowered the picture, staring over the water beyond the flames of the campfire in front of him. He missed the mountains, but they reminded him of her. He now lived near the sea. He had avoided the mountains for the last 2 years, ever since the morning when he saw those pictures of her with him. Almost at the same time, he  got that call from a friend who had seen them.

He had kept nothing from their time together, just this picture, but that did not help much. First, there had been pictures of them everywhere he went and pitiful glances his way. When those stopped, there was just the pain inside him. The pain slowly mixed with anger and disappointment. It hurt but also made him numb. He stopped caring, about himself and about others. He stopped talking to his friends and family, until they slowly gave up. Now, he just got a quick call from his mother every few weeks. His old self was gone, as if it was locked into the picture he was holding.

He knew he needed to let go of the picture. He knew he had to let go of the anger and hate as well. He wanted the pain to stop and his life to start again. It would be a different life than the one he had had with her. But he knew that he would come out stronger.

His eyes focused on the flames in front of him and then glanced at the photograph in his hand. This was the first step into a new life.