WRITING EXERCISE - on addressing 5 senses

A writing exercise that became part of

This Darkness is Mine


As the morning sun peeked through gaps in Joe’s black window shades, she felt his arm draped across her and rolled over to face him.

She smiled with a hum and had to move in very close to detect his scent. Discreet, natural, earthy and masculine, his scent wafted through her mind, and connected tongue-in-groove with her memory of Atlanta peaches and magnolias. Sweet summer peaches with their promise of youth, pleasure and vitality, and the pristine white magnolias, like clusters of virgins whose time was not yet ripe for enjoyment. Joe’s aroma opened like magnolia petals, letting her remembrance nestle in its center, mesmerizing her in the same way as the lit torch in the courtyard fountain where they’d first met had. “Good morning, my love.”

“Buenos dias, mi amor,” Joe said.

“I have a question for you.”

“Ask away.”

“Tell me about these scars.” She caressed his bare chest, running her finger along the subtly discolored skin marking grooves deep like furrows in his bronze skin.

He stroked her exposed arm and stared intently at her hair before clearing his throat. “Those scars are from my ex-wife.”

Her chest clenched and she reached for humor. “I’d guess rough sex." But empathy took over. "Except you look so sad now. What happened?”

RANDOM THOUGHT - The Shamash Candle of Twitter

I'm pretty active on Twitter.  This is new.  When I first signed up, I hated it.  The character restrictions felt like a death sentence, but as I got acclimated, I found it forced me to be concise.  Twitter forces a discipline to self edit and write with clipped precision.

The more I acclimated and explored hashtags, I found the writing community. I wish I'd written down the moment it happened, because it was seminal.  I got "invited" (sort of) to a writing community follower train.  I jumped aboard, because it was something I'd tried myself and failed quickly.  No spark, not even a sputter.  My attempt was a nonstarter.

On social media, having followers is really important, and there are devices to gain followers quickly.  I had joined one only to discover I had nothing in common with any of the others.  Their tweets were nonsense and boring and violated English, a language for which I have a great deal of affection.

This particular train is led by a selfless man whose stated goal was to help writers gain 1000 followers.  The level of dedication is truly mind-blowing.  This started on December 9th, and with only a break for Christmas, it's resumed full steam ahead.  He's become a friend.  He humbly denies that he's doing any heavy lifting, but I remind him frequently that he started something special.  The writing community on Twitter has new life, deeper connected-ness, and new friendships forming. I've been enjoying engaging with dozens of people I might never have gotten a chance to find.  The range of talent is itself remarkable.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, this man (@StevenViner1) is like a Shamash candle. 

It's a total guy thing to start a fire, but the Shamash candle on a Jewish menorah lights all the others.  It's the helper that spreads the light from one candle to the next.  That's Steven.  Helping spread light, and that was how my 2018 ended, getting lit up.

Sorry for the mush, but days into the train of everyone following everyone else, I wanted to thank Steven somehow.  He'd managed over 10,000 notifications and made sure no one was left behind.

I joked that we could raise some money to have an angel tree topper in his image made, but that was corny.  It was a joke.  I stared at Steven's profile and read his bio over and over, wondering what I could do, and then it was as if the light came on.  He's a writer.  Two published books on amazon.  All royalties go to charity.

What if I just bought his books?

What if everyone else wanted to thank him too?

What if we all bought his books and he could give the royalties to his two favorite charities?

Ooooh, I lit up at the idea!

So here, check out Joe's Redemption and The Never Never Door on amazon.

Happy 2019!

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie