Free Write Friday on Sunday, AGAIN.

Springboard: My writing partner Faye and I picked these random words and phrases out of random books: dragging, forest, inheritance, fiddle neck, floor boards, balancing, emerge, branch, turtle. We wrote for 10 minutes.


Dragging my brother John, forest to forest, tree to tree, in search of the perfect Christmas tree, the perfect fall leaf, a crystal, a geode, some moss to sit on, to dream on, to take home in a bag, make a terrarium. The smell of spongy forest floor, that fragrance of humus our only inheritance. Fiddle neck ferns sprout through and around the bowing floorboards of the old Beck House porch. Out back, the fading remains of once glorious gardens, stone arches crumble into a luscious field of daffodils & paper-whites, narcissus & stray grape hyacinths. We gather them up, loading each other’s arms overfull, balance on sloped feet along the lip of the stone fountain, scoot through the leaning coach house, splat through the trickling branch, spill some flowers for the sake of catching a turtle, sprint home laughing, noses yellow with daffodil pollen.

Free Write Friday

Last week, my writing partner, Faye Quam Heimerl, cooked up a delicious free write based on her Steak Dianne recipe, which calls for steak, butter, mushrooms, lemon juice, parsley, and Worcestershire sauce. Faye posed this question: What would Steak Faye or Steak Debbie call for? Steak Gratitude? Steak Disappointment? Here are a couple of my word recipes from that writing date.

Steak Dubya
Dry cutlet of horse's ass, dredged in a pinchy rub
No Sauce
Mushy Peas
Chitlin cornbread, dry as a popcorn fart
Tootsie Roll on a stick
Mint Toothpick.

Steak Merengue
Side step of pork
with Cha Cha Chorizo
Thrum the edges with cumin
Sizzle the rack over high heat
Zip the sauce with a Thai chili swish
Bump and grind until hot and tender


Springboard du Jour: What's your word recipe for Steak You?