Well, I did it! I have completed my FIFTH month of the Daily Shorty Challenge! I am shocked and really I shouldn’t think too much about it. Instead I will dream about these celebration profiteroles. Dream with me?
Photo of Profiteroles from Annie Smithers Bistrot by Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, 10/2008.
I won’t top this. I could not BE more satisfied with this project right now. Let the record show that at just before 1:00 AM, I completed the day’s shorty, which I worked on all day, off and on, and which just so happens to be the resurrection of a story I tried to write in the first half of 2009, and then returned to a number of times the last couple of years, failing each time to complete a draft. I didn’t even open those earlier Word files. I just re-imagined the basic idea of the story, which happened to come to mind because it fit so well with my trip to Haystack, and this time, after starting from scratch with a new opening image, I just insisted on finishing it. I really like it, too, but that could be all about the victory of the finished draft, and so what if it is. Ahh, happy days. And many thanks to Cheryl Wilder, who said, you want a little Emily Dickinson? I’ll give you a little Emily Dickinson. And I’ll do it in 5 minutes flat. Damn, Girl!
Working Title: Writer in Residence
1st Sentence: Emily Dickinson would have had eyes like a cat.
Favorite Sentence: Who was she to feel that tremble in her fingers as she held the pen, who was she to look at those insensible liquid curves she was putting on that paper and imagine them twisting, elongating, connecting into letters and words and sentences….
Word Length: 1,007
Photo: View from the dining room of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts 9/2012
A bell tolls at Haystack at meal times and when it’s time to meet for a talk or someone has to make an announcement. That felt old fashioned and very… communal.
Working Title: That Bell
1st Sentence: She was beginning to think her boss had sent her to this retreat for obedience training.
Favorite Sentence: “So… imprinted, if you know what I mean, like you captured the insignia, if you will, of that flower, at least cumulatively, because I could see that you were depicting the substance of that flower’s interaction, really, with its time and space, you were aiming overall for that flower’s, well, I call it a spirit-meme, so to speak, am I right?”
Word Length: 1,685
Photo taken at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts 9/2012.
I was at Haystack for a cultural summit that took place over about a 24-hour period. When we summiters woke up the second day and headed to the dining hall, we discovered a treat: Some of our brethren (I think they were all men) stayed up late the night before and with the help of some high-octane inspiration they set to work on… chair sculptures! This is one of the four they made. The protagonist of the day’s shorty handcrafts chairs from reclaimed materials.
Working Title: Reclaimed
1st Sentence: To use it right he would have to find it beautiful.
Favorite Sentence: On his hands and knees he hammered the thing into chunks and flying splinters, he crushed every bright red piece of it into the wet grass and then deeper into the dirt until he couldn’t see any of it.
Word Length: 819
Photo taken at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts 9/2012.
I was fascinated at Haystack by the rows and rows of wooden steps leading from the main campus area and down past the dorms and to the water’s edge. This is one of my many photos of them at various angles.
Working Title: 365-Ten
1st Sentence: Beatrice called the project 365-Ten: Living the Stereotype.
Favorite Sentence: It had been a thoroughly exhausting year, mostly due to all the partying, and she had been relieved to transform herself into Mimi that next January 1st, a thirty-something granola gal who sold hand-crafted candles and all-natural dog treats from a cart in the city plaza, and lived in an old VW bus in the Walmart parking lot.
Word Length: 1,431
Photo of steps on the campus of Haystack 9/2012.
In the dining room the lovely folks at Haystack kept a huge cookie jar and a bowl of cider, as well as carafes of coffee and hot water for tea. When I discovered this a man was reaching into the cookie jar and looked at me, shouting, “World’s biggest cookie jar!”—I was annoyed that I didn’t have my camera handy. The next day the cookie jar was in the kitchen, so I snapped this photo through the pass-through. You can see the cookie jar on the counter next to the base of a food processor (as well as the reflection of it in the window). But you can’t tell how big it is. Just trust me that it’s enormous. And it was full of yummy chocolate cookies.
Working Title: Cookie Love
1st Sentence: They kept meeting at the cookie jar, one waiting while the other reached deep into the jar to fish out the chunky chocolate cookies.
Favorite Sentence: What did it mean that he was staring at her fingers like that, and as he did so, she found herself lingering over the chocolate bits on her hands, licking lightly and repeatedly, flicking her tongue like a wild thing?
Word Length: 699
Photo of Haystack kitchen through pass-through from dining hall.
I just attended a cultural summit at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. Inspiring, delightful, thought-provoking, exhausting. I couldn’t be more grateful to have been included, particularly because I have never felt so validated as a writer as I felt while rubbing elbows with all those creative Mainers. A number of the attendees asked me if I ever link the stories I’m writing for Daily Shorty and I had to say no, although I have often considered doing that. Well, there’s no time like the present, they say, and They are mighty wise people or we wouldn’t keep quoting They. Thank you, They, for your insight. Today I begin a week of stories inspired by Haystack. I got the idea for today’s shorty while in the room pictured here, listening to presentations. The idea is better than the execution, but that’s what revision is for. Okay, Haystack—what’s next?
Working Title: Playing Life
1st Sentence: Missy slapped her fork to the table and snapped, “Login”—their shorthand for “We need to continue this conversation as an argument in Second Life.”
Favorite Sentence: Ellen, his alter-ego, could absorb accusations and insults and then deal with them with a cool head, whereas if he had to think about such things, hear such words, all that language would collide and his unchecked fury would melt the bits and pieces together, leaving him confused, steaming, mute.
Word Length: 768
Photo of the main lecture room at Haystack, 9/2012.
Sure, you hear about Maine’s lobster and chowder, all those sweet blueberries, the gorgeous coastline, the rich history of great writing and art. But did you know that Maine boasts chocolate shops that will make you weep with gratitude? Well, I weep. Maybe you can indulge without tears. To celebrate my completion of another week in my Daily Shorty Challenge, enjoy with me this plate of chocolates I bought at Perkins Cove Candies in Ogunquit, Maine, which now holds the revered title of Claire’s Favorite Chocolate Shop, a coveted honor indeed. Pictured here are 3 orange creams, a peanut butter cup, a caramel, and their chocolate-to-slay-all-others, a cashew turtle. All in dark chocolate, of course. Oh, dear. I’m weeping.
I wrote part of this story during the 3-hour drive to Haystack. More on this beloved Maine institution very soon but for now I’ll just announce to the world that every delightful thing you’ve heard about it is TRUE. What an extraordinary treat. And amidst all the great pleasures of the day, I was able to find enough time to finish the story. My prompt was the photo of shells here, which I gazed at for a few minutes before packing the car. Then I meditated on my memory of the shells for a while and… wrote a story about Komodo dragons, of course!
Working Title: Komodo Killah
1st Sentence: By the time they began confessing their greatest fears, they had stopped slicing neat, narrow wedges and transferring the cheesecake to their plates, in favor of forming a tight circle around the platter and hacking off hunks that went straight to their mouths.
Favorite Sentence: If you’re walking along the street in a small town in Maine and the sound of a cat’s hiss makes you drop your latté and run shrieking to your car, and then your keys slip from your tangled fingers, twice, because you are so terrified that you’re being pursued by a Komodo dragon… yes, that irrational response rises to the level of phobia.
Word Length: 547
Photo of fig cone shell from Indo-West-Pacific by H. Zell, 3/2011, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 9/4/2011.
This has been a very tough few days. Yet again I struggled to produce a complete story. Yet again I wrote a lot of words I had to toss. An easy one very soon, please?
Working Title: SAT Question
1st Sentence: Four friends and co-workers, Jenny, Elissa, Michael, and Fran, are due to attend an important conference, which takes place in a town that is roughly a three-hour distance from where they all live.
Favorite Sentence: She says absolutely not but this solution suits Fran and Jenny very well, so they agree with Michael and all three badger and badger Elissa, they just keep on badgering her, and maybe because she was the youngest of five children, she is used to capitulating to a slew of yammering voices, she is used to condescension, she is used to being told.
Word Length: 1,345
Photo: Portion of I-35W Mississippi River bridge after 8/1/2007 collapse, by Kevin Rofidal, U.S. Coast Guard, 8/2007, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 9/2/2011.
This one took 5 starts. That seems to be my limit—once I hit 5 my goal is to amuse myself. And I did. Long live Martha B. Kitchen.
Working Title: Martha’s Destiny
1st Sentence: For almost a year, now, Martha had held the world record for holding the most world records.
Favorite Sentence: She would put her sneakers on, pin her hair back, select shorts that wouldn’t chafe, and march right into her destiny.
Word Length: 500
Photo of Laugavegur hiking trail, Iceland, by Chmee2/Valtameri, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 9/1/2011.
Oh, the humble fish stick. When I was a kid fish sticks seemed special because they were so different from the standard dinners we ate all the time—hot dogs, fried chicken, tiny hockey-puck hamburgers, pork chops when we were lucky. My childhood love of crispy, fishy rectangles might have something to do with my adult passion for the grown-up version and a Maine specialty: fish and chips. Mmm, the fried haddock here in Maine. I do love a good lobster roll but I never, ever turn down fish and chips.
Working Title: Fish Stick Family
1st Sentence: In conversation with friends, when he made references to her background, he liked to say that she came from a “fish stick family.”
Favorite Sentence: “You want your GODDAMN fiiiish tacos but you know what, you know what, you can shove that lobster therrrrmidoreshit right up the better part of your ASSHOLE,” she spat, and flopped over on her other side.
Word Length: 311
Photo of Red Rockfish by U.S. Fish Commission, 1906, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 8/31/2011.
I remember when I began to bust out shorties that I had strong affection for but that arrived in unfamiliar shapes and with endings that maybe weren’t endings. That started in July and all those unfamiliar shapes, as much as my busy days, have delayed my Story Facts and favorites pages for July and August. I just don’t know how to judge some of these stories. For now I think that must be a good thing—I have faith that I’m teaching myself something new. Or at least teaching myself how to wander into the tall weeds with less fear. Anyway, today’s shorty is one of these inscrutables, inspired by the photo above. I really like it, partly because two silly rhyming songs from my girlhood made an appearance. But is it good? I have no idea.
Working Title: Practicing Silence
1st Sentence: The retreat was supposed to teach me the benefits of solitude and silence.
Favorite Sentence: Spending all your time making cheese and pressing grapes, all to the good and no harm to Mother Earth, but she still beats you with her sun rays, Brother Hubert.
Word Length: 851
Photo of Sella Mountains by Dmitry A. Mottl, 2/2011, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 8/30/2011.
So frustrating! Yesterday I got the story like a whole gift dropped in my lap. Today I tried in the morning, then late morning, then early afternoon, then late afternoon, then early evening. I was so desperate from all the trying that when I got to early evening I wrote a half-page of material that I’d decided before wasn’t going to go anywhere but then I did something I occasionally do to kick-start myself: I hit return and wrote an absurd sentence. Then the husband took me to dinner. When we got back I went back to my absurd sentence and wrote the rest of the story in “make myself laugh” mode. The result is a very odd, very silly story that, yes, makes me laugh. Next!
Working Title: A Mother’s Work
1st Sentence: When Jess told me she’d named her fish Boxy, I said “Well that’s lovely, how did you pick that?”
Favorite Sentence: This was reminding me of the good old days, when we might sit in the living room and pluck a chicken together or set fire to cereal.
Word Length: 1,079
Photo: Clown anemonefish in sea anemone by Nick Hobgood, 5/2004 picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 8/29/2011.
UPDATE. The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts published this shorty as “But Yearning Still,” here. Many thanks to Managing Editor Randall Brown!
For five weeks now I’ve been using prompts for my daily writing sessions. Having something to focus on right away—as opposed to flitting around, looking for inspiration in my head—seems (most days) to take off the worst edge of the angst that surrounds my need to create a brand new story each day. On August 28, I went to the Wikimedia Commons archive of 2011 “pictures of the day” and selected the image highlighted on each 2011 day that corresponded to 2012’s week of August 28. If I was unsure whether I could use the image, I skipped to the following day’s selection. I dumped the photos into a folder in wait for “Picture of the Day” week. I’m starting this week with the photo here.
Working Title: Her Postcards
1st Sentence: Her postcards never said “Wish you were here.”
Favorite Sentence: I have no memory of what was just like a burnt raisin because what stunned me that day, and others, was not what my artsy, flitty, addled, moth-pinging-on-a-light bulb mother said, but what these big-eyed, fascinated, bated-breath hangers-on tried to make of it.
Word Length: 515
Photo of Jaral de Berrios in Guanajuato, Mexico, by Tomas Castelazo, 2/2011, picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons 8/28/2011.
Enjoy with me this cinnamon-hazelnut stick as I say goodbye to Week 20! Yeehaw! My favorite prompt week so far has been the one using poetry. As I did before, today I got my prompt from the site Poetry Daily. Their poem for today, “What Next,” by Frederick Seidel (Nice Weather, Farrar, Straus and Giroux), inspired today’s shorty, along with a remark my friend Becky made Saturday afternoon. Thanks Becky! First two lines of the poem as a teaser: “So the sun is shining blindingly but I can sort of see. / It’s like looking at Mandela’s moral beauty.”
Working Title: September Sky
1st Sentence: It’s so pretty in September, she said, when the sky gets darker.
Favorite Sentence: And she said, no, I got lost in a shopping mall as an adult.
Word Length: 428
Treat from Forage Market in Lewiston, Maine, 8/2012.
When I bought seven songs for my song-prompt week, I actually added an eighth “bonus track.” “Landslide,” by Fleetwood Mac, inspired the day’s shorty.
Working Title: Relationship 1 to 7
1st Sentence: Phase 1. Even your hair.
Favorite Sentence: But here’s what you don’t get: I’m not your mother.
Word Length: 272
Photo of Stevie Nicks at Fantasy Springs Casino, Indio, CA, 2/1/2008 by Chris1345.
Remember in grade school, when you had to write your name down the left side of the page, and then make a poem by producing a word or line that starts with each letter? Or you started with “W-I-N-T-E-R” because you had to choose a season, or “P-U-R-P-L-E” because you had to choose a color. When I wrote my shorty yesterday, my prompt was a photo of a hurricane (see the post just below). I was stumped. I came up with multiple first sentences that went nowhere. After 40 minutes of NOTHING, in desperation I wrote “H-U-R-R-I-C-A-N-E” down the left side of my notebook page. Then I wrote a sentence that started with each letter. I edited them to be more interesting, then went back to the top and extended each sentence into a paragraph that made sense as a lead-in to the next starting sentence. After that, I discovered that I really liked my “E” sentence and the couple of sentences I’d written after it. So I crossed out all the preceding work and started over with those last sentences, which quickly led to a complete story that I actually liked. So, thank you Mrs. Moral, my first-grade teacher, for making me write a poem out of “C-L-A-I-R-E,” one that I have blissfully forgotten.
This photo was the “picture of the day” at Wikimedia Commons. I have been particularly low-energy since Wednesday, so I took the whole day off and waited until midnight to even start this shorty. That puts a lot of pressure on the need to write a complete story just before turning out the light, of course, but the freedom to radically change my routine is the only thing that’s kept me going on this project. Sometimes I just can’t work on the story… until I absolutely have to work on the story. Anyway, I was totally stumped on this one. Then an old silly exercise came to me (see my “Try This” post above) and that saved my Daily Shorty butt.
Working Title: What Happened
1st Sentence: All the people you know and half-know and just barely recognize, the people milling in and out of your universe, those people, accept it now, will make up their own story about what happened.
Favorite Sentence: And when he gets to the more, the really funny stuff, the unbelievable ape-shit-crazy stuff, it will be hard to hear, knowing that you are the woman this story is about, you are the Lucille Ball of this hilarious anecdote, you are the punch line.
Word Length: 507
Photo of Hurricane Isabel taken by Astronaut Ed Lu from the International Space Station 9/2003.
The Bates College outdoor track inspired the day’s shorty. My friend Alicia and I walked for 45 minutes (which was not nearly enough time for a proper girl confab) while I reserved one small part of my brain for taking mental notes. I guess my notes weren’t so great because the resulting story is destined to live its life undisturbed on my hard drive.
Working Title: The Gwen Scale
1st Sentence: The woman in the pink shorts gave her hope.
Favorite Sentence: The woman in the tight black leggings—no, that was not an inspiration, that was an anatomical display.
Word Length: 754
Photo from the Bates College website.
Another personal photo as shorty prompt, this one of the outrageous bed in our room in an Ogunquit B&B. I laughed in glee when I saw that thing and snapped my first picture of the trip before de-pillowing. It took a good 20 minutes to find out-of-the-way places to store all the pillows on that bed. As for the shorty, good idea but poor execution, despite much, much time invested. Next.
Working Title: Meatloaf Night
1st Sentence: Saturday Glen was schmoozing clients all day—at least that’s what he’d said.
Favorite Sentence: He would feel the earring with his tongue, pull it from his mouth, and hold it out to her in shock, and she would say, “Oh, that’s Jessica’s,” like, whatever, of course her earring is in your dinner.
Word Length: 1,665
Photo Hartwell House, Ogunquit, Maine, Polly Reed room, 9/2012.
Well, I’m very sad as I write this. I’m participating in this round of my friend Amy Souza’s project SPARK, in which writers and artists inspire (spark) each other to create something new within a span of 10 days. I knew I’d be using my SPARK partner Rachel Morton’s art as my writing prompt for the day’s shorty, which is why I’m doing a grab bag of prompts this week. All good. But Rachel’s piece (pictured here) inspired by far the saddest story I have ever written—and I go dark easy, believe me. I think it’s a very good thing that I will be forced to create something new tomorrow and the next day and the next. It will prevent me from living too much with this character I (and Rachel) have created. He makes me weep.
Working Title: Welcome Home
1st Sentence: That expression he used to get on his face—when he was thinking back, we just knew he was, to those lost years.
Favorite Sentence: The boy held his breath and studied those boots, framed in the oval of rough fabric, so close he could see the exact shape of each ragged drop of red.
Word Length: 952
Photo by Rachel Morton of her work.
I just completed four weeks of using various kinds of prompts to inspire stories, including personal photos, place, poems, songs. This week I’ll do a grab bag of prompts, using a different kind each day. Today I decided to use a headline, something I’ll try for a week soon. I went to my go-to news site, Salon.com, and read the article with the first headline I saw, “Ryan: The lyin’ king” by Jillian Rayfield and Salon Staff. Then I wrote the shorty immediately afterwards. My story, as it happens, has nothing to do with politics nor Paul Ryan.
Working Title: One Man’s Guide
1st Sentence: This is how you end up spending your fifteen minutes of fame as a national joke.
Favorite Sentence: Deb is a limited person who found a niche in accounting and thank goodness because she might otherwise be in a halfway house somewhere, playing Hearts in baggy pink sweatpants.
Word Length: 1,065
Photo credit.
Another week of shorties under my belt! New York style cheesecake is one of my all-time favorite treats and this piece is a BEAUTY, yes? Mmm, congrats to me. Today’s story prompt was the song “Anyway You Want It,” by Journey. Now THAT was a blast from the past. I love the idea for the shorty the song inspired but the promising start wound down to a disappointing finish. Maybe a strong revision will save it.
Working Title: Stick a Fork in It
1st Sentence: She used to have the same trouble in tennis.
Favorite Sentence: She pulled the fork out of her leather bustier and he shivered in anticipation.
Word Length: 1,077
I made FIVE false starts trying to write a shorty in response to the song “Walk of Life” by Dire Straits, one I very much enjoyed way way back in the 1980’s when I was so young and the world was before me… heavy sigh. Sometimes I have to just throw my hands up and write myself a joke story to meet my daily shorty commitment. Next!
Working Title: Sheer Rear
1st Sentence: She called herself “Her Hiney-Heiness” and she loved to say that she’d built her empire on her “royal rump.”
Favorite Sentence: Greta spread her arms wide and stood to deliver her signature goodbye line, “A woman who loves her cheeks lives in peace,” then blew a kiss and slapped her own rear.
Word Length: 722
The day’s shorty was inspired by “Stuck with You” by Huey Lewis & The News. Not one of my favorites from this band (there was a time in my youth when I had a very strong affection for Huey’s chin dimple) but I have a nostalgic appreciation for the melody and easy lyrics. But I had to push hard to come up with a story for this one. Still, with a strong revision, what I finally got might be a keeper.
Working Title: Rubber Band Test
1st Sentence: One last trust-building exercise and we could all go home.
Favorite Sentence: Brenda, on the other hand, had encased her ample, hour-glass figure in a shiny skirt suit, but one that was more Mother of the Bride than Lipsticked Mover and Shaker: puffy shoulders, a frilled peplum around her hips, and that godawful candy pink—she looked like a wedding gift on stilettos.
Word Length: 1,182
Photo by Bill Ebbesen, July 2010.
I knew well the music and some of the lyrics of “She’s a Beauty” by The Tubes just by virtue of being a kid in the 1980’s. I had never actually listened to the song with any attention, so I was surprised to discover that this is not a love song. Ha! Far from it. The shorty it inspired has the same attitude as the song, I think, making this story the first in my week of prompt songs that feels connected in any way to its inspiration.
Working Title: Every Minute
1st Sentence: I said I’d never live in this goddamn town and I meant it.
Favorite Sentence: Not six years later he slid off a bridge in an ice storm and just like that I’m Mrs. Ford Dealership.
Word Length: 334
Photo by Pnicholaspate, August 2011.
Today’s song happens to be one I don’t care for, “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I find it ironic that the singer belts out these lyrics about how important it is to be a simple man to soaring, anthem-like music, and that over-serious, too sincere framing drives me a little nuts. I was hoping that sense of irony might make it to my story, but no. A sad mother-daughter tale with a not-so-simple man at the heart of it. Meh. Next.
Working Title: Fooling Around
1st Sentence: I never knew my father.
Favorite Sentence: The sun was down completely now but there was a high, bright moon that shone on the water burbling like it came up from a split in the earth.
Word Length: 595
Photo by Andrew King, March 2010.
At Ogunquit again, this time with the husband and a Jacuzzi, for a long weekend in the last blush of summer. As I write, I’m sipping a “mocha choca,” an espresso-blasted hot cocoa prepared lovingly for me by a very nice young woman with an accent I can’t place at the Cafe Amore, one of my favorite places in the village. I’ll remember this when I’m trudging to the gym in thigh-high snow this winter. For now, I drink my buzzy cocoa and post Day 2 of my song stories: Today’s shorty was inspired by one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, Tracy Chapman, singing the sad, sweet “Give Me One Reason.” This shorty could not be more different from that song in tone, yet I wrote it while grooving to Tracy on a loop, so go figure.
Working Title: Growing Old Together
1st Sentence: There was a time when their enthusiasm for the same fringe metal bands, when simultaneous swooning at the sight of a banana split, when their mutual hatred for sitcoms crammed with beautiful, over-tanned people living in gigantic New York City apartments… well, when all of that, put together, all of that said LOVE.
Favorite Sentence: So much so that when they discuss the minutia of whatever the fuck they think they believe—you know, when they start talking shit about life cycles and other dimensions and mystical-wistful, wordful casserole—first they start pointing, and then they start getting red in the face.
Word Length: 505
Photo by 2candle at en.wikipedia. CC-BY-SA-2.5,2.0,1.0; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Today I start a week of shorties inspired by songs. To select my songs I created a Pandora radio station and spent about 20 minutes entering singers and bands I like and giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to songs the site selected for me. Then I saved the station and went on with other things. Last night I went back to the station and wrote down the titles and artists of the first 7 songs Pandora gave me, whether I liked them or not. I bought the songs from iTunes and loaded them onto my iPod. Today I began my series by listening to “Little Bitty Pretty One” by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers. Because this song is impossible to hear without dancing, I got up and danced like a fool for a good 20 minutes while replaying the song. Then I sat down at my computer, turned the volume down, and continued to replay the song while I wrote.
Working Title: He Swayed
1st Sentence: They met at a sock hop.
Favorite Sentence: She carried two children and worked for Legal Aid while he dipped and swayed through a few classes in archaeology, then did a light be-bop through some good WWII history—Hitler and Stalin, that’s the real shit.
Word Length: 593
Photo by Flickr user “shortiestar3000” June 2006.
A friend recently expressed confusion (and a little contempt?!) that I reward Daily Shorty milestones with virtual treats. Occasionally the treat is something I acquired and photographed before inhaling it but typically, no, these treats come from Wikimedia Commons or friends kind enough to remember me and snap a photo before inhaling their own delights. In my defense I can only say that I love looking at these pictures. And that if I I ate all of the treats decorating this site I’d have to exercise twice as much as I do already, and these old knees can’t take it. So enjoy with me this gorgeous fruit tart, which caps a week of shorties inspired by poems posted at Poetry Daily. Today’s shorty was birthed by the haunting “Horse People” by David Mason (Southwest Review, Volume 97, Number 3), which literally gave me chills. It also gave me my favorite shorty of the week, which I wrote in a daze immediately after reading the poem for the first time. First four lines of the poem as teaser: “Quanah Parker’s mother as a young girl / saw her family lanced and hacked to pieces, / and was herself thrown on the hurtling rump / of a warrior’s pony whipped to the far off”
Working Title: Hair Color of Moon
1st Sentence: Too many John Wayne movies on Sunday afternoons.
Favorite Sentence: He is the noble savage but also the thief of little blondes, also cannon fodder for the likes of Mr. Wayne.
Word Length: 383
Photo by Kimberly Vardeman, May 2008.
can't thank the Maine Arts Commission enough for granting her their 2012 literary fellowship, which she used to launch Daily Shorty. Claire writes, edits, coaches other writers, and blogs in Lewiston, where she stays sane by working on her scraggly yard, running 5Ks as slowly as possible, perfecting cracker recipes, and playing badminton. She spends the remainder of her free time with her sweet husband and perfect cats. You can contact Claire at dailyshorty@gmail.com.
Daily Shorty 
