Vignettes

Last night, or early morning more like, I came to the (most certainly correct) conclusion that I really need to write more. This is not a hugely unusual conclusion for me to come to. What made this small event stand out from the other, extremely similar moments, is that I actually wrote something. It didn't take me long to decide to turn it into a project.

I googled writing prompts. I figured my main problem at the moment was not knowing what to write, so I decided that I'd get a website to tell me. It worked. I came up with a fairly simple, but in my opinion, not too bad for something made in 10 minutes with minimal editing, vignette.

What If

He always hated speaking in public. The inquiring eyes gazing as if they could see into his very soul. As he approached the podium, his notes gripped with sweaty hands, all the possible problems that could arise ran themselves through his almost panicking mind. What if he stumbled over his words? What if there was a technical failure and no one could hear him? What if his voice abandoned him and he was left standing like a fool? Worst of all, what if he failed to truly represent the topic on which he was speaking? The topic so important to him he had spent half a life-time studying. What if he couldn't make them understand, to see why it was so necessary to pay attention? What if his words failed to make an impact on even one person, resulting in his life's work coming to naught? These anxious thoughts, flashing through his mind in the short ten seconds from the side of the stage to the podium very nearly paralysed him. His fears, very nearly self-perpetuating, continued to clamour ever louder in his brain as he finally set his notes upon the dark, wooden surface of the podium. He stood and looked into the audience, barely able to see them through the glaring lights pointing towards the stage.

“In 1948...” his words began to flow.

The writing prompt I used for that was from: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/writing-prompts-101/

Being fairly happy with the result of my short project, I decided I would make this a habit. For at least a week (could very well turn out to be longer) I will write a vignette based off a writing prompt. They'll be loosely connected, in that they're all the same character, but they won't be going into any great detail (being rather short), and due to the nature of what writing prompts, may vary greatly in subject matter. It's going to be interesting to see what I end up with by the end of Sunday. Here's the second one:

No!

He couldn't believe what had just happened. He knew all the rules and good practices regarding backing up your work, but the one time he slipped up was the most vital. Hell, he'd barely had any time to back up the damn file in the first place! Hours of work gone in an instant. He swore to himself from that moment on he would at the very least handwrite the rough draft of a project, if not the entire thing. He would have to spend time double handling everything, typing it up on his computer after spending what were sure to be agonizing hours writing his work by hand, but surely that was an improvement over the potential alternative.

Writing prompt from: http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/ #164



I'm also going to be posting them over at my literature/books/writing focused tumblr (sort of a blog but kinda different): grumpylit.tumblr.com

I'll be posting other stuff there too, hopefully it ends up interesting.

Vegas

It has been months since I've written here. There are two reasons for this:

1. I haven't had anything particularly interesting happen since I got back from the U.S.

2. I've felt that I should continue the U.S. series of posts rather than put something else in the middle of them, and for some reason I've felt reluctant to write the Vegas post. I have no idea why.

Vegas was amazing. Very, very tiring, but amazing. I think the main issue I have with writing about it is that it's so hard to effectively put into words. Because of this, I'm going to settle for doing a highlight reel type thing.

Now, the absolute number one best thing about Vegas had very little to do with Vegas itself. My best friend Ben managed to come down from New York, and it was absolutely amazing to see him again. It had been years, and hanging out with him was the best three days I've had in a very long time.

We spent a large majority of our time either wandering around the city, or eating. My gosh, the food was amazing.

Sadly this photo was taken before the fire starting to appear increased ten-fold and Ben and I freaked out, but hey look, giant metal praying mantis!

The other highlight of the Vegas trip did not actually occur in Vegas. Didn't even occur in Nevada for that matter.

Being so close, Laura and I felt we had to visit the Hoover Dam, and man it was amazing, as was the trip there. I feel like a lot of people fail to realise how absolutely beautiful desert can be, and then to see such a massive body of water in the middle of said desert. It's one of the few landscapes that I hadn't really seen in my life before, so it was a pretty epic part of the trip.

The final highlight was seeing the show Absinthe. It was basically a small show in circus format, mostly focusing on incredibly impressive acrobatic acts. It was in a very small venue, probably 150 people at most, and was absolutely mind blowing. I've never seen anything quite like it. I won't be posting any photos however, largely due to the fact I'm not sure it'd actually be legal to do so.

Anyway, this finally brings my series of posts regarding my U.S. trip to an end. I'll probably start posting literature and history related stuff. Regardless of what I do post, I really need to get back into the habit of it, it has been far too long.