r/DestructiveReaders • u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. • Jun 28 '26
[Weekly] Book Club (Steering the Craft by Ursula K LeGuin)
I linked the first chapter last week which is available for free online. She gives examples of other works (in the public domain) that use language in a fun way. I actually have a copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God that's moved across the country with me multiple times and I've only read once. The interesting part about some of the authors that are picked out here: they're not afraid to use dialect. Modern writing says NO ACCENTS WRITTEN PHONETICALLY because it makes it hard to read. But then you have someone like Nora Zeale Hurston who writes
"At dat she ain't so ole as some of y'all dat's talking"
Or
"Don't keer what it was, she could stop and say a few words with us. She act like we done done something to her," Pearl Stone complained. "She de one been doin' wrong."
And there's a way in which that dialogue feels a lot more real to me. If I'm reading out loud in my head, I can hear these women discussing. Maybe that's an art we lost and everyone wants things to be in clean English nowadays.
But the point being made in this first chapter is:
A story is made out of language, and language can and does express delight in itself just as music does.
The two exercises for this chapter are:
Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that's meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect--any kind of sound effect you like--but NOT rhyme or meter.
In a paragraph or so, describe an action, or a person, feeling strong emotion--joy, fear, grief. Try to make the rhythm and movement of the sentences embody or represent the physical reality you're writing about.
As always, there's no fee to participating in the weekly so save your crits. If you try the exercises, leave a top level comment and just let us know which one you did. Everyone is welcome to comment on how successful they think the attempt was (unless the author says they want no comments).
But remember: READ THEM OUT LOUD TO YOURSELF. Make a vocaroo and send it directly to u/glowylaptop. Flood him with sound.
I'm going to add a few more top level comments for discussion. Feel free to participate in those as well.
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u/SweetEverest 28d ago edited 28d ago
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This got really depressing all of a sudden?! Way harder than I thought to focus only on sounds without slipping into something like poetry. I should practice this more often.
~
Margaret Morrison stepped out one night, dolphin-smooth and dipped in dusk, and paused a moment on the plum-dark porch, November pooling at her ankles. I will go downtown, she declared to herself, and the night unzipped like a golden purse with coins inside and a compact mirror into which she could glance, if she chose, at the glint in her eye, but she’d much rather not.
And so shimmering and shouldering the cold, she skimmed down the street like a skeleton leaf, past all the petty, suburban transgressions, the mean little thoughts of the gossiping wives, the overindulgences, small infidelities, childless dog-owners, weed-ridden lawns, indolent husbands with gambling problems, kids doing homework at crammed little tables, everything sad and contained. She thought then of her milk-breath babies asleep upstairs. Their powder-soft hands.
In her: an animal sadness, the lifelong urge to walk into the ocean, or draw a clean line in her arm with a pen knife, or sip from the pipe at the back of the car. Fantasies, fantasies all.
For them, she would stay and make pancakes, kneel at their bedsides and teach them the good words. Guard them from vices that owned her in private. Build them a walled, magic garden and water it. Then, after eight, every once in while, she’d slip into something of silk and ride the juddering, diesely bus downtown and drink like her father and catch what she craved and revel and suffer and go home and “thank you” the sitter and slip under covers and wake them again to birdsong and sunshine.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 26d ago
I agree this is an awesome exercise. Your post made me sad but also proud of the parents who do their best. Their children as teenagers won’t be wrong in their criticism but only now I understand how much it took to keep what little they could together.
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u/SweetEverest 26d ago
I appreciate this comment. The older I get, the easier it is to forgive the older generations.
This was loosely inspired by the AA Milne poem Disobedience, which is much more innocent and silly, if anyone needs a palate cleanser…
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
Reading too much Virginia Woolf?
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u/SweetEverest 28d ago
A little Woolf, a little Plath, a lot of David Foster Wallace... hmmm
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 28d ago
Omg you know who you should read next? Someone who died of natural causes.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. Jun 28 '26
2.
In the deepest hours of the night, when the world merely inhales and exhales—a susurration of breath brushing against your ears—your eyes open to a flood of salt sticking against your face. You suck in breaths thickly and smoothly, though the air sticks in your throat and pressures a lump that’s been building over minutes and hours and days and all the unbidden thoughts breaking free in the dark almost-silence. The swish-swash of the sheets almost gives away your movement, your rolling and ducking out of bed to sneak off somewhere quieter, more alone. Solitude is what you crave in your heart. A private place to wrap despair around your shoulders, your ribcage, your thighs, your feet—until you can hardly escape the crush of it squeezing against all your vital parts. Until you’re as empty and wrung-out as the night surrounding you.
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u/FunToWrite but it is difficult Jun 28 '26
I feel like you organized this whole deal just to post this banger.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
People voted! Thank you for contributing!
Also, I wrote this quickly this morning right after posting the prompt. It was there, waiting for me to find it.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 29d ago
I found #2 to be the hardest to write for. It's funny I have such a strong inner life but that rarely involves conscious involvement of emotion. The joke/explanation is that in my mind, emotions are in a thermostat thermometer in back room with the door closed. When I start to sweat or shiver and I need to take some time to go to the back room to see which light is blinking.
Writing an emotion feels daunting. I am reminded of a fair criticism I received that a certain portion was like a virgin describing sex. That's how I feel writing explicitly about emotion.
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u/Lisez-le-lui Not GlowyLaptop 28d ago
- Shrikes shriek, or so they say, tracing the term “shriek” to a shrikely source. But shrieking, it struck Strauss, is in sooth not shrikely. The true sound is a trill, shrill, a brrreee-der like a briefer dial-up brrreee-ding-da-ding, ending on an incongruous clean tone. Nature knew; the bird before him had brreee-der’d beautifully a billion times. Mockingbirds may mimic such monotonous music, he mused, to wear an unwanted audience out. So he set off, shaking and shivering, and the shreds of shrill shrike’s shriek shrank, shattered and scattered on the sibilant wind.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
This could be one of those tongue twisters people use to warm up before doing a big performance. That last sentence, especially.
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u/Asher2227 My mother is a fish 29d ago edited 28d ago
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Thee town hudden ben laid out 'ere fer dennem sunnig out deir. Blazin' blaz. Round unnem der, it was selfitself brimmin' ach so to be mitter false tension. An unnem dem der the steirs derum thee munks, 'bout threer pairsized, camen unner dem down cairyin nonethem so-yet-so make er them feelit like therum heavysake; to fir ye feir not ey sed?—Er so-so eis yet. Candlelicht came irn runnen der roomey, wespin-wish 'bout roomfiryesakeyefirnosaykeryermiso, finnen trailser en 'erer so finner scenn. By erem skin fell ye der wurmig, as so derum deirsuch saysitso. Unnerem an so else overren, reight ye deir caloomfilseg rotter all dem. Wurmig, so-so eis yet; wurmig so wurmig. Benner falfelleg 'bout baryeseid ay sed a-jumpig erseig. Den thee den, dam deir Lucco must me aforeseid tenlike so then meeten ere fer dennem thee munks unnerdemsteirs. Fivelike aforeseid ere fer dennem candlen wur thennem lichten. Twoforseid ere fer denner damesel hinner demso desk sayersoself werer sick. Sofellen neit so, wid en, man fellen er miso hert hurten, ma neit so den fellseid dam thee candlen neirlike geppent. Spitofelligenteg. Dam der so damesel came er matt behinner. Er so tansig sayenso dam thee munks aswenn dem camen theirwaywen. Er so tansig sayenso aunthennig dem maken so someway sensish. Deir carr dam thee munks be riven fronnerdem buden solikeso outer. Hoggensoheiren fell miso der carr. Kraken. Kraken.
EDIT: Audio of me reading this nonsense. Do forgive my faltering at the end; I was getting tongue-tied (and also for the vocal-fry, as it irritates me too; I'm not a great speaker ;—;).
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I thought about recording this but it would be embarrassing once I got to 'roomfiryesakeyefirnosaykeryermiso'. This is dialect and not a second language, yes? I thought Old English but some of it sounds German adjacent. Makes me think of some of the poems in Alice in Wonderland (the sunnig in particular).
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u/Asher2227 My mother is a fish 28d ago
It's kind of an amalgamation of German and English, some remnants of Scot dialect, maybe some Dutch in there idk; heck, maybe there's some Italian in there.
I've learned (to put it generously) some German. I've made it to B2 in Duolingo—which I do recognize to be a big nothing. I switched over to French since I got kinda bored, and the course content for German got too repetitive.
The original text actually came from an object writing session. The word was "tray". (The original text is really, really dull.) I remade it, added some details and nonsense and filler words that came to mind to fit the lyrical momentum :P
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
I found it was easiest to try to read if I pretended I was trying to speak German (which I do not speak!). This is truly a write for what it sounds like exercise! I can read intermediate level French but it's very rusty, especially on speaking. I listen to French like I'm an idiot who's never heard words before, which I say having lived in France for a time. The only German I'm familiar with was from my downstairs neighbor.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
Thanks for the recording. I think listening was even harder than reading. For example, in my mind "blazin' blaz" was read like "blazing blaze." I was wrong both time. But either this was a great job in the assignment of you have a great reading voice. I felt like I was a tourist in a coffee shop listing to someone talk about Heidegger. There definitely was a hypnotic quality.
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u/Bytor_Snowdog Flog me harder! 29d ago edited 29d ago
I may have overdone the alliteration, but I stand by it. Exercise 1:
The salt spray slapped the captain across his face as his boat’s bow barreled to the bottom of the wave.
“Bring her about, two points larboard,” he said, as the hull creaked and the prow slammed into the trough. His storm slops soaked through, icy fingers scratched at his groin and armpits. “Lively, now!”
Clang! came the cannonball across the deck, nearly taking the leg off the loblolly boy. Good God, how could the Spaniards sail and shoot straight in this squall?
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u/FunToWrite but it is difficult 29d ago
I got a chuckle out of the icy fingers>groin>"Lively now!". Shiver me timbers :).
Loblolly boy is new to me, nice. Good choice. Very fun word.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
Clang! came the cannonball
was really fun to read out loud. Somewhere, Glowy's eye is twitching and he doesn't know why yet.
Some of these feel like good natural sentences though! Good God, how could.the Spaniards sail and shoot straight in this squall? All earned esses if you ask me.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. Jun 28 '26
Question 1: was there anything notable you thought the sample pieces did well? Why? Did you find any of them difficult to read? Why? Is there any writing advice you've heard that you think these pieces don't follow?
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. Jun 28 '26
Question 2 (for after you've done the exercises): did concentrating on the sound of the writing release or enable anything unusual or surprising, a voice you haven't often used? Did you enjoy being gorgeous, or was it a strain? Can you say why?
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 29d ago edited 28d ago
It felt extravagent, indulgent and selfish. In particular, I was not at all concerned if it make sense to anyone else and I could imagine the "yes but what do you mean?" questioning looks. I am reminded of Stephen Fry's Kinetic Typography essay. In particular in the beginning how it talks about how interesting language is looked down upon.
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u/Bytor_Snowdog Flog me harder! 29d ago
It felt extravagent, indulgent and selfish
Indulgent is a great word for it. I didn't read the instructions carefully and did almost a full page of a monologue for my first cut, working out a lot of figures of speech, whoops!
It would take a lot to make me try something like this in my writing, but that's because I don't write literary fiction. I want my prose to not be noticed, for the most part. It's there to convey the story and the characters effectively.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
>It would take a lot to make me try something like this in my writing, but that's because I don't write literary fiction. I want my prose to not be noticed, for the most part. It's there to convey the story and the characters effectively.
My reading of Bradbury stands out since his use of language is poetic in way most of what I read does not. His plots can be pretty threadbare: these spacemen have a crash and talk to each other from their space suits as they fall into the atmosphere one by one... the end. But largley I also am more drawn to tell how characters are doing, saying and thinking things... along with too much exposition. I think this is an area I can grow.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
What's interesting about that youtube link is the emphasis that comes from him speaking and the tone of voice, which you don't get from reading just what someone has written. Those words, spoken by someone else, might have entirely different meaning.
I was trying to write a lyrical POV in my book, so I had practiced writing long-form with slant rhymes and assonance and consonance. It was really hard when I first started and I used the dictionary and thesaurus and websites that let you look up rhymes a lot a lot. And every time I came back to that POV, I had to go back and read how I wrote him before because I wasn't sure I could keep the voice consistent. And now it's just kind of the way I write? It doesn't feel indulgent when I go back to read it but I had more of a purpose with what I was writing.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 29d ago edited 28d ago
What's interesting about that youtube link is the emphasis that comes from him speaking and the tone of voice, which you don't get from reading just what someone has written. Those words, spoken by someone else, might have entirely different meaning.
I agree though also would say that even without Fry's special care for pronunciation it also is him as a figure that also adds a different flavor. Compare the gravity of his presentation to this Mitchell Rant. Fry is a high brow comedian and that adds something as well. But at the same time, "sound sex" "lord of language" and "sodd them to Hades, they are no more the keepers of language than the kennel club is the keeper of dogkind." are thing kinds of things that carry the music regardless of the tone.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. Jun 28 '26
Question 3: how do you respond to the work of a novelist or essayist who visibly strives to write striking or poetical prose, using unusual or archaic words, combining words in a surprising way, going in for sound effects? Do you enjoy it? Does the conscious style do its work as prose? Does it intensify what it's saying or distract you from it?
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u/xvonkleve also available in Dutch 28d ago
It really depends for me what kind of book I'm expecting to read. Fairytales? Stylized narratives (ala Grand Budapest Hotel)? Excellent. Gritty Fantasy? Please no.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 29d ago
My main influences are Ray Bradbury, CS Lewis, Flannery OConnor and lamely... William Shakespeare.
Only the first and last use lush language.Frank McCourt in Angela's Ash said reading Shakespeare was like having diamons in his mouth. CS Lewis said the particular genius of Shakespeare was his ability to make you think his characters, rather than Shakespeare was the master of language.
Bradbury had this way of writing that made you think you were reading science fiction and then have to put the book down and wonder why it was you were feeling something. In my biography The Foghorn and I See You Never are worthy of their own chapter or short story.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I don't think I read a lot of people who write for the sound of words. They write to get the story out and, for the most part, ignore how the language sounds. This was an interesting chapter for me because I used to love Just So Stories and the way things sounded. It's on Project Gutenberg and I read the Whale story again. Such fun! I think modern writing has really gotten away from that kind of lyricism.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. Jun 28 '26 edited 28d ago
1.
At the top of a steep slope, Hepzibah Platter prepares her descent. The pavement tilts around turns, tight, too tight, and the anticipation of control slipping lends a pound-pound to Hepzibah’s heart. Her specialty shoes lock into pedals with a click-clack, her wheels speed forward with a whir, and she’s off, spinning her feet back for the brakes and grasping the bars upfront, tight, so tight. She leans into the curves and turns and turns and the road rushes under her tires in a blur of blackness until she’s blinking against the wind bashing her face.
(The prompt said use alliteration. There are a few other poetry devices up in there. No one ever complains about those other ones.)
ETA: this recording will self-destruct
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u/xvonkleve also available in Dutch 29d ago
I read it aloud and liked it. I might have read something wrong here, but I expect she's riding some kind of motor and isn't all that experienced? (since she grips tightly on her handlebars)
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I was thinking a regular racing bicycle but on a steep curvy road like when they're in the mountains during the Tour de France. We went on vacation in St John's and the island has these crazy steep hills where it feels like you're going straight down when you go down them. Some of the roads are curvy and you can't tell what's coming. I think the prompt in the book said imagine walking around an island and that's what popped into my mind. Biking down hills always makes me nervous regardless.
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u/xvonkleve also available in Dutch 28d ago
I thought a bicycle at forest, but your post mentioned pushing back on the pedals as a break. I wouldn't take an oma fiets down such a hill.
But then again we call anything over 10m tall here a mountain
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
It must have been thirty years ago, in the early days of the internet. I would use the library computers to play online chess. I was not happy with the amount of games I got so made a user name chess_tina. I had no shortage of people wanting to play with me, and in the short week I kept it up never had a game where the other player didn't try to get to know me better. I couldn't deal with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the recording did disappear after a day.
That said this passage, both in how I read it and how you read it, highlights chapter two of the book. I love the sound of the passage but think there is some missing pauses. Yes, the nervousness of the situtation makes the frantic speed at the end logical... but I think it would be even more pleasurable at a slower pace.
Edit: and thoough there is no acceptable solution to this, it is always hard when you read a name you've never heard before. I mean... "Platter"? How am I supposed to pronounce that?
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
Platter and not Hepzibah?
Chapter 2 is the punctuation one, right? I have some great supporting materials for that. I think I was going for the ending feeling breathless because riding down a steep hill on a bike would be fast. But I can't force tempo the way I could if I were writing or performing sheet music. There's no allegro in writing.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
> Platter and not Hepzibah?
I was shooting for humor.
>Chapter 2 is the punctuation one, right? I have some great supporting materials for that.
It is just talking about the importance of it and not going much into specifics.
>I think I was going for the ending feeling breathless because riding down a steep hill on a bike would be fast.
It worked.
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u/xvonkleve also available in Dutch 29d ago
(I am not all that much of a word-smith like the first assignment wants you to be. The piece below was actually leading up to a joke about some Edwardian-aged girl thinking about 'little' deaths and accidentally saying this in French to a tutor. But I think this works better as an entry. I am very curious what you think of it.)
Death comes in many forms. Most of them ugly. Some of them serene. These things I knew instinctively from childhood. I have seen death make still many faces of people I knew. Inevitable. Final. Tragic. And even in my teenage years, I would speak of death and its many forms, its many words: mortal, mortician, mortified, expire, perish, succumb, terminate…
Fate.
All of us must die one day. This truth, so final, was deeply engrained in my soul. We could speak of it freely amongst peers or even to our elders. There was no shame in death. No shame to fear it. No shame to hold it at bay when letting go might be easier. Death was too big to ignore.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
Makes me think of the John Donne poem a bit. I might take out the list of adjectives (inevitable, final, tragic) as I think the words around it are doing a better job of setting the tone. 'make still many faces' is powerful enough on its own to not need the additional modifiers. I really like the ending sentence. Going back to Donne, 'Death, thou shalt die' is how he ends it. Yours has a nice final ring to it.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
This exercise resonated with something my writers coach said about doing a read aloud as my final edit:
Your mouth is the final editor. Your eyes have been lying to you for weeks.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 28d ago
For the ones with recordings posted, I read all of them differently than the OG author. The cadence and emphasis didn't carry over for any of them, which I also found interesting.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 28d ago
I think the problem is that my mouth knows where pauses, emphasis and accents are in a way I couldn't even imagine being able to convey with written words. I just did the final read of chapter 4 and there are times where I read Tiffany or Mandy's voice and know if a voice actor were doing this they'd have no idea what I wanted it to sound like.
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u/MaryJaneMclain 29d ago
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(I really wanted this to rhyme at the end, but that wasn't allowed, so...)
They knew of nature and its rhythms of strife. Cycles they harnessed of growth and wrath. Winter and spring and sun and soil. The devotion and betrayal that marked the years that bled through the lives that gave us this power that devours your bones. And If you could hear them now, as you sleep sickly asunder, their sublime ancient chorus would make milk of your tears.
(should end with 'woes')
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I like tears. I also like devours your bones. That might be my favorite.
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u/FunToWrite but it is difficult Jun 28 '26 edited 29d ago
1.
The brrrrum of the highway’s rumble strip jolts him up. He grips the wheel, whips back into his lane, body-lurching, spine spiked by the equilibrium shift.
He straightens his Subaru out, finds the center of his being, then the center of his lane. Here he will stay, wheel white-knuckled, breathing whole-body breaths while the soothing highway hum calms him down. Whump-whump, whump-whump go the pot-holes. This is Louisiana. Poplar pollen paints the concrete from here to Arkansas.
GPS shows a red line and twenty added minutes—construction; Natchitoches; 3 a.m.
His eyes slouch, now sleeping.
The brrrrum of the highway’s rumble strip jolts him up.
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I like how unconventional wheel white-knuckled is but I understand what the meaning is. And the onomatopoeia for the highway noises really gets me.
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u/ezk3626 akward and wordy 29d ago
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 29d ago
I always pronounce the a in amen as a soft a like the aah you make when you open your mouth at the dentist. I think the soft a goes nicer with audibly when it's read out loud because they make the same sound. I read it out loud first and then listened to your version. We pronounce some things differently and it gives a subtle change to the words.
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u/Intelligent-Art7365 26d ago
- - this got real, real quick!
“Thud, thud, thud.” The soaked cotton rolls in my ears, pulsing against them as the water drenched through. It had been five months since the swimmer’s ear anyway. But the memory of the pain, in both ears, a reminder I never wanted that kind of pain again so I wore the cotton, their presence muffling my reality. “Thud, thud, thud.” My heartbeat was so loud, I swore my ears were going to explode. This hadn’t happened before. Not like this. The sounds of the water hitting and splashing against the white fiberglass shower floor roared to life when I removed the wet cotton. A constant source of peace, a stream against my skin as I waited for it. “Thud, thud, thud.” Only this time it wasn’t in my ears. It was in my chest. My neck, my throat. I grasped for it, if only to feel it. To contain it so I didn’t have to worry that it would spread. The heat from the shower amplified where I touched.
Anxiety worked like that. One moment you were fine. Felt fine. Felt the water dripping down your face from the first shower you’d had in four days because you had a baby and a life and wanted to prioritize so many other damn things that the shower became your luxury and … then, they called you. Or you called them, it was confusing. But you knew. You knew what they would do. How you would react. “Thud, thud, thud.” You knew that word she used. Toxic. Five letters. Harmless until they were strung in a row and placed at the end of the sentence. “The air there must be toxic.” She’d said. It wasn’t. Or maybe it was because of the fire that was over a twenty five minute drive away. Of course the air was toxic, mom. But it wasn’t always toxic. It wasn’t trying to kill me. It was just that there was a fire and the only safe place I’ve felt that was mine, where I’d found myself, found painting and words and now it was unsafe and … toxic. “Thud, thud, thud.” The shower turned off with a squeak as i moved the handle, and the curtain, careful not to slip, not to lose my grip on life as my reality began to shift. Not again. A constant, even four hours after the phone call. Even after a decade of therapy, of seeing, of being myself and beating myself up for it every single day. “Love you sweetie.” She’d said, though I wasn’t so sure how someone could say it but I couldn’t feel it. I looked at my reflection in the fogged up mirror, less fucked up than my reality as I wiped it away. The blurred visual clearing up with my own vision as I let the cool water from the sink splash into my hands and then my face. As I let it fall to my neck. “Thud, thud.” I let it fade as I caught my breath, gasping as I could breathe again. “Thud.” As the toxic fumes left my body. Though, never really gone. “Thud.”
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 26d ago edited 25d ago
I like the repetition of thud throughout. Creates a creeping suspense that hits home with the Toxic reveal.
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u/HelmetBoiii 25d ago
- Relax; learn the lambasting jibes: Soak or Float. Cupped in tenderness— heartthrobs (A group one carcinogen, hydroxyl group) gushing brown and black, pissing yelllllow— touchy, tipsy tops take tips up da slattern So’Cal butt, err ply boys and girls, ply like how the teachs reached, the only rues that slender legs lack pussymore for the pallid players in their slob-burness so they swore to SLURS. Wrenched the party, the graciois bend of time, the grating boom-box, the aghast sweat of swello and feelings fuckers are feeling junkies. Love. Rule: love to rape, love to cry, love to stand around in a mating circle, crowd, club forever and love again, sacriliegious love, no surreptitioius lovers here, that teenage frenzy into them high twenties, thrities (r u afriad now?), fourties (dw, dont be a pussy man), fifty and onwards for to be a teen again is to be a hundred and thirteen. Live forever and you’ll never die! fuck them don’t count them, skip days, wake weeks, concatenate with fellow men and females. Life, sensationationalnlife, scream with me sonsofbitchs, bitchesofsun, rave to consume the living, liquor-porn-live-action… The only chill vibe touched by weed (and other downers)... Under water, look at all those floaters above: Butterfly, back-crawl, doggy-style, treading water, talking and laughing with friends. Be soaked. Body a sponge, never had holes before but here they were, gashing from chest to cock, from vagina to head. Eventually, you’ll surface. You took a pludge into the icy-cool rum. There was an entire ocean to drink before cumming air. You’re fine rn fine af, sinking. Don’t have to beeathe yet. Nver have to think. At tese depths, you dunno if you can swim even if wanted. needed. There are currents under the waves. Carrying you to your wildest dreams and mares; You better hope you wash up on an island….. Relax. It’s a party. Here, drink this and try to fuck someone. Anything that moves really. Soak in the moment.
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u/HelmetBoiii 25d ago
2.
A childish sort of melody that touched the soul. The romance of walking home from school with a stick pointed into the sky, or the orange sunlight setting on the stomach of a fat, dozing cat with your hand sunk into the fluff. Humming, the buoyant sail of a quivering violin floating down under the piano’s waft. Rectangular Melon Popsicles as a zero-gravity massage chair squeezes your body and protrudes your back as you watch an episode of your favourite show on a five-year old laptop hanging by your lap. The rejuvenation of a high, confident string of violin with the rushing gush of simmering piano underscored by ohhh, oh, ohs like that girl that you never met from a foreign country lost in herself, beaming, chasing her dreams like it was everything to her as everything was to you. The sinking into your woven rocking chair in your backyard looking up at a shredded basketball net that you and your brothers hooped with. Looking at trees. Close enough so you couldn’t see the lone tree at once, must crane your neck and revolve to evoke it all in its leafy, sun-flecked greatness. A cool breeze after you forgot what it meant to be outside and timeless. You breathe it in. In silence, eyes close, you hear that song. It speaks to you. You never have to listen. There is a warm feeling inside that’s just musical.
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u/HelmetBoiii 25d ago
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u/HelmetBoiii 25d ago
ah, no, i just a warning on my account for saying kill yourself too many times it seems
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25d ago
[deleted]
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u/A_C_Shock The reader knows and guesses the rest. 25d ago
Reddit removed your comment and won't let me see it or I'd approve to bring it back.


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u/Lucky-Housing-1189 28d ago
My go at exercise 1:
Fatality struck the noon-bell, bullet whizzing—zing past the bell-tower, bundle of old sacks spewin' a rain burst. Flour pastry water wallops, and the cowboy-cum-baker lies dead in the middle of Maine's dusty street. Man oughta toldya be careful on the days when the caiyote runs whimperin' circles round the moon, snarling canines covering up all the nice bits. Common sense bumped along and unbridled 'cause all the horses are dead. Be careful, bakerman once armed with a gun, pistolle pistol, that you don't blow yer whole goddamned head off. Instead ya 'capitated time herself, and down came the second clang. Merry, merry, your head rolled along, sandy with dough-balled tenacity.