1,000 Words

As part of my 1,365th attempt to become a real writer, I've joined a club in Wausau that has been formed under the leadership of University of Wisconsin Marathon County English assistant professor Jill Stukenberg.

It's called 1,000 Words Wausau, and each week Jill emails a bunch of people a set of words and phrases and they try to write 250 words using them. It can be anything, poetry, a letter, fiction, etc. I picked up the little booklet from December's work at Janke Book Store, and I really liked it.

So, I've completed my first week's assignment. It actually fun. And because I'm all about repurposing and using one thing to help bolster another, here it is (the words Jill assigned are in bold):

The Coop

Grandpa would bring the cards out later in the evening, well after supper. Out in the barn, the cows would have been fed and watered, stalls cleaned and the straw put down. In the house, in the kitchen, Grandma would have put supper leftovers in the fridge and the dishes would be done.

 We’d all sit at the table, and Grandpa would deal the cards, first to Grandma, then to me. The game was King’s Corners, and I would do everything I could to beat Grandpa but I never could.

 Grandma would tell stories, weaving out in words the tableau of her childhood. “There never was any money,” she said. “But we didn’t lack for nothing. We had music, and singing, and Saturday nights we would dance. Oh, we’d have some parties.”

There were some pretty sad versions of her childhood. Grandma’s younger sister died at childbirth and “Mama became a ghost,” she said. “Just sitting at the window in a greedy silence. It was almost as if she died herself, but kept on breathing.”

 I loved the way those stories would dig into the past. My favorite was how Dad was conceived. “We had been going together for about a year,” Grandma said. “And Emil would come over and help me with the chores. It was winter, and cold. The coop was warm, and his hands were so soft.”

 “In the coop?” I asked, imagining the smell of birds.

 Grandpa smiled. “Nobody had a car,” he said.

Note: I just had Kris read this, and I wish I had done that before I sent the version off to Jill. "There are a lot of woulds and coulds in here," she said. Also, she suggested that I set the story in the present.

"Grandpa brings the cards out later in the evening, well after supper."

"I think that would be a lot more powerful," she said.

My science-oriented wife is a hell of a good editor.