Two Minutes

I wrote the following in two minutes at a writing seminar a couple of weeks ago. I made no edits or changes whatsoever. I had originally signed up for the seminar because I believed it to be about something else than it was about. Granted, it was titled �Writing the More-Than-Human: Fact, Perception, and the Natural World�, but the blurb also mentioned Nabokov. I love Nabokov and had no idea that the focus of the workshop was nature writing. I also had no idea that the leader of the workshop, Robert Michael Pyle, was what I now understand to be a renowned nature writer. Fortunately, the seminar wasn�t so bad. There was even a quirky old woman who wore a wide-brimmed hat that enveloped her entire upper body; she really like squirrels and wanted to write about them. I also learned from a perspective outside of what I normally wallow in, so I guess it was well spent money.

Thick clouds hung low in a cottony blanket the enveloped the earth. Pushing past mossy gnarled trees and over grass, nettles, and clover, the wind wrapped a chill grip around me. It wove through the fabric of my woolen sweater, teasing and taunting.

Comments

  1. Wow, that is an awesome three sentences. It makes me want to roll around on a grassy knoll and not go anywhere for a long time. You should change the first "the" in the first sentence to "that". And for some reason I want "chill" to be "chilling" instead. I want to hear more outta you.

  2. Ahh! You're my worst critic! Didn't you read what I wrote above it?!? I said that it was unedited! I know it sucks, but it's what I wrote in a couple of minutes on the spot in some strange dank naval hangar. I didn't want to edit it- er- well I did, I just forced myself not to for the post. I wanted to see something that I hadn't edited and by posting it, I am forced to forever look at it unless I take the trouble to wait edit through MT and wait forever to do so. But, the brilliant part is that I'm too lazy to do that, so I will always have this as a record of something I did not edit.

  3. Oh for fuck's sake, I know you posted it unedited. I read the goddamned post. Since when does declaring a passage unedited mean I can't try to give helpful criticism? Stop being such a whiny, over-sensitive, weakling and take your criticism like real writer — not like all these new crap writers who have to put fucking disclaimers on anything they can muster up their piddling confidence to show you. Honestly, it's not like you were even supposed to change anything! And the comment about change "the" to "that" was because I though you mis-transcribed it when posting it on the internet and hadn't noticed.
    And what's this "I know it sucks" crap? Are you suggesting that I implied that anywhere in my post? You're accusing me of criticising you without reading your post while you're criticising my comment without reading it! Here, let me repost the first sentence of my comment here again; maybe you'll fucking read it this time: "Wow, that is an awesome three sentences."

  4. Wow, when you read our converstation it sounds like we hate each other!