#coffeebreak: solar eclipse in reims
For many desk jockeys come aspiring writers, a coffee break can be the only chance you get to disengage from the every day and be yourself for 10 glorious caffeine filled minutes.
If ‘yourself’ means ‘writer’, the break can also be a good time to break new ground with your writing.
The cafe is full of dead time; few distractions (if you go it alone) and no writing expectations. If you manage some words, super, if you don’t, no one’s likely to chastise you on arrival back at the office. The point is to provide your brain with new opportunities for creative thought.
So with that in mind, this is the first of a line of new writing challenges I’m calling #coffeebreak.
It’s not hard, you simply look at the photo and then write whatever comes to mind for 10 minutes.
Don’t be constrained by trying to figure out where this fits in your novel, the purpose is to limber up the imagination, not to add serious words to your quota.
Let me know how you go by posting an excerpt of what you write in the comments box below.
total solar eclipse in Reims, originally uploaded by Rene Collin.
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Sun poured out of her eyes, thick and gooey like marmalade. She smiled and drops of pure light dribbled into the upturned corners of her mouth. It tasted of grass, sugar, and oddly, horse hair. She wasn’t at all fazed by this though; frankly she’d been through enough eclipses to know that what was to come would be much worse.
Etienne had told her that in some places – far off scary places – there were people who actually preferred the taste of the darker, richer lunar silver. Marianne couldn’t think of anything worse, especially right at this minute, seconds before she would taste it. There was something so unnatural about the moon, the darkness.
It suffocated.
The sun was like a mouthful of fresh air, the moon was a wet tea towel pushed into your throat. It was torture, and unfortunately there was nothing the United Nations could do about it. Apparently God was outside their jurisdiction.
Her mouth was now full of sun, so that it poured out between the cracks in her teeth, and she remembered her father, her dear papa who would take her swimming and hiking and taught her hymns and how to love. He had been a short of stature, wide of shoulder and big on life.
Until he left her. She had expected him to be there for her always so when he left it had rocked her and rolled her up into a quivering ball so that when the mortician came to take his chilled body away she was unable to hug him just one more time, unable to wrap her arms around his dessicated shoulders, despite the urgings of her wailing aunts.
She could taste iron, as though she had sucked on a paper cut and too late Marianne realised that the lunar was here and like a old time ship captain, she strapped herself to the mast of any good memory she could find, and prepared to ride it out.
She looked over at Etienne. His knuckles were white in his clenched fists.
Jesus, you really are missing your coffee Dan. My favourite line is “the moon was a wet tea towel pushed into your throat”.
Temporarily mesmorised by the drones with filters glued to their writhing faces. Something breaks inside the porticoes of my mind, why it is that we search so hard for acceptance when really what we question is who we are and where we fit in. Comparison is the death knell of happiness for it is only when we appreciate our differences, can we become anything less than strangers to each other. Value our diversity. How often have we uttered this creed, yet how many of us fail to respond appropriately as we re-enter the womb of our insular madness. “Throw away your possessions, they will one day own you”. Give up your ambitions, to be free, to be truly that which you desire. Run toward your goal for at least half an hour per day and extend this until you are within reach. Then let it fall away so gently. You will know yourself better through your failures than you will by any form of success and this is a worthy goal, to find out who you are…
By the way, I don’t drink coffee…
Noted. I want you to imagine hence forth, that this could be any type of break. Maybe you are a green tea man?
Who are you calling a “green tea man”???
Hey Mark – just to let you know that the piece that I wrote here got shortlisted for the inaugural Peter Cowan Writers’ Centre ’600′ competition.
Pretty pleased with myself.
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