#OctPoWriMo & #Writober Day 10: Walking on Air with a Wisdom of Owls

For Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge “owl,” I woke up with owls on the brain. Then I ate them, so I had to look for more owls. I found a parliament in the bedroom closet.

With all the birds and little bats in the area, I thought there would be owls about, but I haven’t seen any. Now that I made an owl filter, I can put owls in the trees and all over the lake. I’ll fill this place with owls when the rain stops. For now, I’ll play with my wisdom of indoor owls.

OctPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is “End-Stopping.” I find this constraint intriguing in combination with sonic surrender, since sonic surrender has been all about flow. How will it feel to put stops in that flow, like large stones in a river? It also asks about stops and endings. What do I want to stop, to end? And when it stops, what will begin?

The 2018 prompt was “Walking on Air.” I tried the Con-Verse form and wrote a poem called “She Knows They’re Watching.” I think end-stopping each line could work well with the Con-Verse form.

Stop: I Want to Get Off!

I dance on air without care.
My face aches joy, smiles to spare.

I spin, dizzy and sick with love.
Stop the ride! I want to get off.

Is an end but a bend in the road?
A pause in my perceptual code?

Suspense lies between feeling and action.
My gut lost to the free-fall of passion.

That’s not the same ecstasy I yearn for now.
The burn in my mind combines rich words I’ve found.

I climb to new heights as I fight gravity’s pull.
Where my rhyme-rhythms collide with clouds, I stay fueled.

So I turn and I twirl, as in flight, round every bend.
My perceptions connect spaces and make shapes again.

Writober

Since this weeks twitter chats were both chatting about NaNoWriMo, and I’m looking at plotting today, I thought I’d look back at my detailed NaNoWriMo posts from 2017 for inspiration. Those posts are filled with great prompts, exercises and links.

Logline: An arrogant gossip hears noises coming from his shower. Exploring the drain isn’t enough, after cutting a whole through the floor, he finds that his problems run much deeper.

Plot Points

1. Opening image/MC’s world: Is the entire story in the bathroom, or do I open with my professor gossiping in class? Maybe the opening scene is him entering the bathroom on his cellphone gossiping about his students or other teachers. Who is he speaking to? Is it the dean with a complaint?
2. Inciting incident: hears noises in the shower
3. Refusal: thinks something is stuck in the drain
4. Meeting the mentor: watches favorite DIY guru video on phone
5. Point of no return: there is no drain, no pipe, nothing
6. Tests, Allies & Enemies : I may have a little fun with my setting. Is the toilet a friend or foe? Is the bathtub complaining or offering Sage advice? 🤔
7. Approach to the inmost cave: false achievement – cuts hole in floor
8. The ordeal: Has to face childhood trauma of animal attack–an opossum or a skunk, those would both be scary. Then, while he’s freaking out, the animal gossips about him in familiar voices?
9. Reward: finally sees the harm of his fault, but that’s only the beginning.
10. The road back: I think the complaint from the dean at the beginning will become a physical threat.
11. The resurrection: He jumps through the hole he made into the terrifying space under the bathroom floor to hide from the victim of his loose lips and thoughtlessness.
12. Return with the elixir: he tells the student/other teacher something terrible about himself to save his own life, but then the gossip makes his life unlivable.

Outline

Making progress. I like the turn this took at the end, bringing one of his gossip victims in as his judgement. I have my theme: loose lips have consequences. And my turn: when he has to face his childhood trauma. I’ll work on a chiastic outline and share what I come up with tomorrow.

Happy Reading and Writing!