Fragments

Today I am inspired by an activity we completed at the Bruns Writers' Group. The idea came to me from a writers' retreat I participated in in Ubud, Bali with Sarah Armstrong and Alan Close. The idea for the activity came from Michael Ondaatje's 7 or 8 Things I Know About Her (A Stolen Biography). You might like to check out the original. It is so good it's sublime. The link is below:

http://exceptindreams.livejournal.com/289600.html

What you can do

You can complete this writing activity from many different perspectives. For example by thinking of a character, or a setting, or a scene. let yourself come up with random headings. Free write about these headings. These become your fragments. They are also great for getting to know your characters/settings/scenes. You never know when some of the ideas will find their way into your story.

An example 

For the activity below, I was thinking about Gracie from the novel I am co-authoring with Katherine Pratt. 

The butcher shop

She remembered the butcher shop at the end of the main street and the sawdust on the floor and the swinging door that knocked her out when she was not watching one time she entered. She was mucking around too much she was told later and deserved sense to be knocked back into her.

Sanity

It’s under the bed hiding from the masses who believe in certainty and logical order.

Dog chain

Clumsy refused to wear one. He’d squish and squirm whenever someone came near him with anything that vaguely resemble a leather strap, falling over his paws as he tried to get away. Not that it was needed much on the farm. He had to wear one when we went into town to collect personal supplies from the local store. We would tie him to the side of the ute and he would moan at passers by. He snapped at a girl’s fingers one time when she put her hand in to pat him while he was sleeping. He was so startled that he reacted as if he was biting a fly off his back. 

Cow in the barn

Early in the morning, in the darkness before the day broke, Maisy the cow, howled like the wind for Gracie to come milk her. Gracie had had the cow since she was a calf, born from Old Billie’s cow on the neighbouring farm some 10 years before. Maisy was given to Gracie as a birthday gift. Gracie embraced her like a mother would to her newborn baby. On this day, Maisy fell ill, heaving a violent bile out of her mouth onto the dirt floor she had laid on all her life. The vet was called and a decision made. It was as simple as that.  

A farewell

Gracie shivered. The night was as cold as she could ever remember, her feet stiffened and her finger cramped as if she were hyperventilating. Ollie’s hand touched the glass and spread out further as the bus drove off. She could see mist escape his mouth and cloud up the window. He disappeared into a white fog.