Posts tagged ‘weekly contest’

10/15 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

An interesting collection came in for this week’s contest prompt: “tears.” The winner is Cathy Coley, who noted: “Boy did i not want to write for this one. But close to tears from sleep deprivation…. ” Maybe that’s partly why her poem has such merit?

Tears
If I allow it, the full banks of my eyelids
would overflow, flood a room, then the house,
burst out the front door into the neighborhood,
and solve these past drought seasons.
Cars would float away to the sea
and the world would fill with my tears.
No more land in sight, we’d adapt,
grow gills and become one with the fishes,
swim free and never have to worry about the tears.
Who would see them in the watery world?

If I allow it, all the heartbreaking things would kill me.
But what use is feeling sorry for myself,
I have a job to do.
I have to raise good men in a childhood under war.
My second son raises the bar because every moment
amidst the peopled world is a struggle to cope
in a thousand streams of stimuli his mind can’t sort.
Everyday, I ask
how can I make the world bend to him?
How can I make him fit in this world
when he is clearly a puzzle piece from a different box.

The other day he told me,
I act mean so people won’t know I’m really nice.
What is more heartbreaking than that?
He’s already so separate from the world,
and forming a harder shell around his big loving heart.
My first son, a sensitive heart from early on is doing the same.

I have to raise a daughter protected against the odds.
I have to give her a sense of strength of self,
not just against the tide of what the world will thrust at her,
but truly her own vision:
Joan of Arc,
without the crazy and the pyre.

So what use are my tears, except to flood?
Maybe wash away the hard lines accruing on my face,
heave sobs to break apart the muscle tension from my temples
through my neck and shoulders?
Sounds like a needed welcome relief
and a completely selfish act,
if I allow it.

From Karen Winters: “I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to paint anything new for the prompt, so I’m using an older one from my archives. This painting was in the 2007 National Watercolor Society all member show and it is titled ‘As the Parade Passed By.’ I saw this older gentleman watching a parade, and his eyes were shiny, as though we was on the the verge of tears. I can only imagine what was going through his thoughts. The National Watercolor society member show is a national juried show and I was very happy that my painting was one of about 80 chosen out of the hundreds and hundreds of entries they receive. Although this painting is precious to me and not for sale I take a print of it to some of my shows as an example of the kind of watercolor portraiture I can do on commission. There is no white paint in this picture — the white in his hair is the white of the paper and you just paint around it (very carefully).”

From Betsy G., a prose piece. Betsy worked in a lightning round — she gave herself just one hour for the exercise:

She recognized the handwriting right off, could almost see the Bic pen in his hand scratching at the front of the envelope, forming the letters—all capitals, all the time, not with bold aggressive strokes but a light and graceful slant. It was a plain, white number 10 business envelope; he’d never written her using anything but that.

Finding his letter amid the bills and catalogs had of course surprised her and at first sent a thrill though her. A letter! Each day when she went collected her mail, she hoped to see her name hand scrawled on an envelope as she used to sometimes daily, now essentially never. But she could never fight her childish optimism that a letter would be waiting for her, a shiny red wagon on Christmas morning. But after she finished processing the idea that she’d received a letter at all and understood that the letter was from him, the thrill turned to chill.

And now it sat in front of her on the kitchen table, unopened, a padded package stuffed with white-lined notebook pages. It was surely multi-paged; she could tell by its bulk. She tried to ordain from its weight what it might say, if it was simply a history of all that had transpired since they’d last seen each other eight years ago, or if he might have retraced the circuitous map of his feelings and followed it to the reason why they had not arrived at the anticipated proposal but to his sudden withdrawal from her life at the realization that those feelings did not amount to love. She could still hear his voice that day, the gall that he would he utter the words: “I love you, I’m just not…” She’d had to stop him there to prevent him from completing the clichéd lover’s ending, to stop him from emblazing the full phrase, in his voice, in her head and forever be disgraced for embracing the trite kiss-off.

Or perhaps it was the letter she’d written for him over and over: what was I thinking, of course, what a fool, how could I have, and to you, my pearl. Perhaps he’d realized… That word—“realized”—the delusional verb that she’d finally let go of, and not as long ago as she would have wished; she never again wanted to think this word and of him.

The envelope and its mysteries on the kitchen table, next to the plate of corner bread crusts from her lunch and the glass with its wading pool of Diet Coke, beg her to take action. She is at odds with herself and sits a long time at her place at the table. There will be long-term ramifications, she knows, and probably regret that she will revisit obsessively, but a vision comes to her and starts to solidify. She begins to know—to realize—that she will bring that vision to life despite its obvious flaws.
She takes the letter from the table and presses it to her cheek, the moist blue of the ink on her warm skin. And then she watches her hands, as if they are someone else’s. They are hands on TV or in a movie and she watches with rapt interest as they tear the envelope in half, and half again, and again and again.

From Juliet Bell: “I don’t remember why my daughter was so upset in this picture. We were in the English Garden in Munich, Germany. I do recall that she was truly upset. This isn’t one of my favorite pictures.”

From me (Miranda): As an adult, I don’t always know how to process extreme conflict. On one occasion several years ago, I was overwhelmed by anxiety and emotional upset; totally adrift. To anchor myself, I drew the doodle below, making lines through vision blurred by tears. The notebook paper is 5″ x 8″ — and the lines are tiny. (For a better view, click on the image.) The exercise worked in that I got to a place of being able to function again, after the hour or two that I spent working at the page.

This week’s prompt: “Apples”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a hint for colors, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, October 21. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

10/8 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Ah, the colors of autumn. The winner of this week’s contest is Karen Winters. Karen writes: “Coincidentally, this was the painting I was going to post today, so it’s good timing. It represents a small bridge over a stream not far from where I live. The California sycamores put on quite a show when the time is right.” A beautiful and dreamy painting, Karen! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on the way.

From Cathy Jennings: “Here is something for autumn. I made these with my son for his kindergarten class this week. They are gluten-free sugar cookie mix, with currants for eyes and fruit leather for the mouth….All the little monsters like them.” LOL — nice work, Cathy!

From Elizabeth Beck: “i just finished this painting this week….leaves are gone…birds have flown away…it is autumn…almost winter…almost spring again….”

From Cathy Coley, two poems selected from her archives:

No matter the sorrows, still
the yellow tree trembles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September

Time does not slip from my fingers.
It runs roaring from the grip
Humanity places on everything.
We’ve wrestled the lion into the measured cage
Of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes,
Seconds on down to nanoseconds.

But time is no circus lion under the whip
To whom an open door is a forlorn vision of freedom;
Who lays swatting flies with his magnificent tail,
As his trainer waltzes through the creaking iron door,
Steak in hand.

Time is not contained by our definitions.
The Time/Space Continuum does not hold
Its butterflies in the net.

My small attempts to keep Time at bay:
My lists and schedules; I would rather be
forming yoga postures, swimming,
Sitting in the grass smelling starlight,
Running down the beach, sand curling
Between my toes in the shallows of the waves,
Making love, playing cards, talking of dreams,
Listening to friends’ woes, loving my children,
Laughing, laughing, and watching them grow
While wishing they’d hold this moment a little longer
Before losing another tooth or stretching the soft curve
Of their cheeks across a jawbone.

I feel like an ass
Baying against Time.
The moon looks down and shines a gaze
For me to consider her cycles around earth;
Her endless shift of seasons,
Her veils of tides.
The sun doesn’t care but to dry us up.
And the two pass this blue ball between them
In a game we can only imagine because its time is
Too big to consider from our few measured days.

And Time, stalwart, waits and watches
Us grow from buds to fall like leaves,
As we watch now the red and gold
Flip, float and curl in the wind
Toward a pile, wrap in and around:
The tail of a lion
With no flies to swat.

From me (Miranda): A photograph. No poem this week! Just the photo. I drive by this spot every Monday and had been wanting to shoot it for weeks. I was disappointed that this Monday was overcast, because I’d been looking forward to bright sun on red leaves, but I was thrilled with what I got instead.

This week’s prompt: “Tears”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a hint for colors, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, October 14. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

10/1 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Lots of great stuff for the weekly creativity contest prompt “the notebook.” Our winner is Brittany Vandeputte, who pulled a selection of snippets from her notebook and created a poem. Below, she shows us the snippets in the first list; after, the finished poem. It’s so satisfying to see snippets woven into a new life. (I know you have a collection of snippets too!) Brittany, your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been sent.

12:01 airlines
Tuesday groceries
summer electronics
fall appliances
winter exercise equipment

no stalking no amorous advances
revise well
write fast
read constantly
be open to suggestions
submit to the right people
be gentle with publishers

Rome really looked like it was being sacked.
Who was the woman supposed to be?
I don’t remember her character.

Eyes like Ireland after storm. Blue-green dotted with rocks.

Fix carseat
organize
install toilet lock
swif bathroom
work on porch
install baby gates

peaches
grapefruit

provolone or muenster

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Husband, Read Her Mind

12:01
Eyes like Ireland after storm. Blue-green dotted with rocks.
Who was the woman supposed to be?
Her character really looked like it was being sacked.

No amorous advances summer fall winter.

Remember groceries.

Peaches
Grapefruit
Provolone or muenster

Fix carseat
Organize
Install toilet lock
Swif bathroom
Work on porch
Install baby gates.

Be open to suggestions.
Be gentle.

From Aimee Dolich, a series of beautiful notebook pages. Aimee writes: “i loved your notebook prompt for this week, so i thought i’d join the fun. these pages are my contribution to a traveling journal project. we were permitted to write on any theme we chose, so i decided to write/draw a few bits about the history and the quirks of the crazy little college town that i live in. i’ve so enjoyed reading the creative construction blog. it’s wonderful to hear from other mothers that balance the delights and demands of creativity and parenting.” Thanks, Aimee! It’s wonderful to have you here. (Don’t miss Aimee’s full entry at the link above.)

From Lisa Worthington-Brown, a prose poem. (I love the immediacy, Lisa!)

The Notebook
A tattered red cover with a heavy crease along the spine. A coffee ring on the right hand corner from last Wednesday’s use as a coaster. Stray ink marks along the pages from the pen-twirling that signifies thinking. The outside is worn and faded. The casual observer might think that it is unimportant or uncared for. Flipping through the unlined pages one might assume that the writer was bored — with all of those doodles — and messy — with uneven lines of prose, incomplete (and sometimes incomprehensible) sentences, poor grammar and spelling, and even made up words. But to the writer the book is a treasure. A place where dreams exist and ideas are born. A place where anything is possible — or even likely. A place where the world makes sense — or the chaotic nature of it is celebrated. A place to live. A place to be. A home. A haven. Me.

From Cathy Jennings, a digital image created in Twisted Brush:

From Cathy Coley, a haiku and image pairing:

The notebook
We may disagree
what constitutes art at least
my son makes his own

From me (Miranda), an image and free-form poem:

An Unexpected Parallel

Notebooks are full of possibility
smelling faintly of hope and dreams.
A notebook in my hands reminds me of who I am.

Babies are full of possibility
smelling faintly of hope and dreams.
A baby in my hands reminds me of who I am.

No wonder I seem to collect them both.

This week’s prompt: “Autumn”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a hint for colors, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, October 7. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

9/24 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Smell something tasty? Have a peek at what came in for this week’s creativity contest prompt, “dinnertime.” Clearly, not necessarily everyone’s favorite time of day! Our winner is Cathy Jennings. Cathy writes: “Something different from me this time. I don’t consider myself a writer by any means but ‘dinner time’ was something I needed to write about.” Cathy wins for her highly readable personal essay — and for pushing into less comfortable territory (writing). Congratulations Cathy! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way.

Ian around a year old at the table expressing some frustration.

Dinner Time

Like most people I never really thought about dinner time until I was hungry. As long as I liked it, it didn’t really matter what dinner was — pancakes, burgers, soup, whatever. It was all good. When I was pregnant the only problem was that I wanted more dinner. But that wasn’t so unusual. Enter Ian, my first and only child.

Dinner time was and is completely different for him. And now mine is, too. Ian spent most of his infancy screaming and projectile vomiting. Ian has acid reflux, food allergies, anemia and asthma (because the rest of the list is not enough). When Ian’s diet needed my attention, I naturally starting thinking more deeply about food. Dinner time became a lot more complicated.

Ian takes medication for the reflux, supplements for the anemia, and has a special diet for the allergies. On top of these challenges that would make anyone iffy about eating, he is 5. An age that is still very close to the picky preschool preferences about food. Can it get any more challenging?

I see my job as getting him to eat and to stay healthy. How do you feed a restricted fuss pot? What foods aggravate reflux? Are they the same foods for everyone? How do you make bread without wheat? What can he drink if he can’t have cow’s milk? Why is corn in everything? What foods are high in iron? What foods combined with iron make it more absorbable? Will certain foods and supplements interfere with the medications? What do we do about constipation? Are there animal crackers for my kid? What about candy? How do we handle social situations with food? Do we need to see a feeding therapist or is what he is doing normal?

My head swims with questions like these all the time. I am pretty sure there is a part of my brain that processes this stuff without my being aware of it. I have been educating myself in nutrition; become a pest at the pediatrician’s and pediatric gastroenterologist’s offices, and thankfully they don’t seem to mind. I joined an awesome message board for parents of kids with food allergies. I read books about food and the food industry. I have a knowledge of food that unnerves my family…..they don’t want to know what “modified food starch” or “natural flavors” can be. As a Christian, I get oddly excited about the Jewish holiday Passover because many of the Kosher for Passover foods are safe for my son. I go down the Kosher for Passover aisle at the store and fill my cart with candies, marshmallows, juice boxes, applesauce and fruit cups, and junky looking cereals. Our Jewish pediatrician thinks I am funny and laughs about this. She won’t think it’s so funny when I scoop up stuff she was looking for at the grocery store. Passover foods are only available once a year. Those are my marshmallows!

What to serve for dinner is always on my mind. I make a weekly menu with notes about snacks, things to make from scratch or buy at the health food store, Trader Joe’s, the regular grocery store or the farmer’s market.

I have a really big cook book collection. It was bad before I needed to buy books about gluten free baking and allergy cooking. Now it’s really out of hand. The Amazon bucks I have won here have funded my cookbook habit. I have cookbooks on general cooking, Italian, Mexican, Julia, Jacques,  Marcella Hazan, Rachel Ray. Then we move into vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, cupcakes and the list goes on. There is also a loose stack of recipes from wonderful moms on the allergy board in similar situations. Those are pretty much no-fail recipes.

Dinner time has a lot of thought behind it.

Most of the time I try to make a meal that we all can eat. Wheat/gluten, soy, corn and dairy free. Did I mention that my husband has problems with tree nuts? We avoid those, too. And it has to be reflux friendly (I’m a refluxer, too)….so no obvious tomatoes or firey foods. There is still a lot you can eat avoiding those things but throw in the 5-year-old fusspot factor and the choices drop. Ian’s favorites are burgers, roasted chicken, baked potatoes, homemade fries, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, homemade chicken nuggets, gluten-free pizza with rice cheese and the reliable hot dog. He also likes pasta with olive oil and nutritional yeast. When  Ian is on a vegetable strike, I try to sneak pureed veggies into his burgers. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t. There are nights when we all eat different things because I am pmsing and I HAVE to have mac&cheese, or General Tso’s chicken with pork fried rice and an egg roll. And my husband has to have his pizza while Ian is happy to go on with a burger and fries. I really hope he wants to try some other things soon so we can broaden the family menu.

And I’m sure this is not the end of the journey with and about food. But to end this on a happy note, Ian was just weighed and measured at the pediatrician’s and he has grown an inch and gained 3 pounds in the last three months. All this research is helping.

From Charlotte, a poem. Charlotte writes: “Well, yesterday I was feeling proud of myself, remembering that my appointment would take me near the British Library, and taking my laptop with me in search of a nice concentrated atmosphere in which to work on the radio play. After 2 hours I was getting absolutely nowhere, not least because everyone around me was chatting, talking on the phone, discussing forthcoming exams… apparently those ‘Silence please’ notices in libraries are a thing of my long-lost childhood. To cap it all, at 6pm a string quartet started up in the atrium, which was charming if somewhat inappropriate. I find it very difficult to work with noise at the best of times, and I really do need silence to ‘hear’ the play in my head, especially as it’s radio. So instead I decided to write whatever came out in response to your competition prompt while my brain was not really able to focus — and also not able to edit/gatekeep! I don’t usually allow less-than-perfect, which of course explains why I have hardly written anything in years. Anyway, this (with a little tinkering) was what emerged and I’m going to send it now before I spend days picking at individual words…”

dinnertime

trays on our knees around the goggle-box
(dining room’s Sundays only, “it’s too dark in there”)
Grampa likes the Two Ronnies
Granny’s not so keen
but i don’t get the half of it
pushing peas around the plate, i’ll eat fish fingers, salmon too
any other fish a no-no
(“what is this, Granny?” “salmon. eat it.”)
Grampa’s delighted roar – slaps his knee
(“hear that one, Babs?”), repeats the joke
Granny, one raised eyebrow, feebly smiles
double entendre is really not her thing.
she has a sense of humour, though.
“you liked the fish?”
“yes, salmon.” never saw her smile so wide.
“silly girl. that’s not salmon. salmon’s pink.”
she’d always told me every fish was salmon
and i would eat it.
programme over, time for bed
tray to the kitchen and then straight upstairs
to other stories, other gentle lies
never the blatant gunfire of the news.

From Elizabeth Beck, a cinquain and a photo. Elizabeth writes: “I should write this out and frame it in my kitchen ….. it is frequently my truth ….. if you go to this photo on flickr you can scroll your mouse over it and read about what’s what on that mess of a table…..”

dinner
is not ready
nor is it even close
spent the day in the studio
painting

From Cathy Coley, a poem. Cathy writes: “i hate to even enter this.  i was not inspired.  we tend to suffer through dinner on a nightly basis.  who wants to revisit that?  but i tried to have fun with it anyway.”

Dinnertime

This one is yelling or humming or mom,mom, moming.
That one in arms fussying, how can cook?
Oldest one groaning about helping or about what’s served,
I am NOT eating that again.

This one has diabetic, calorie-counting diet,
lactose intolerant, and food allergies,
That one has lactose intolerance, and only likes what he likes.
I am vegetarian with other food allergies.
Soy is not an option for the lactose people, either.
They are the meat eaters.
This is just the adults.
Oldest is just plain picky,
Middle screams about it, but will grudgingly eat.
Baby is attached to my breast,
Pulling the plate or placemat off the table,
And kicking me.

I am breaking up a fight between the older two.
I am pleading for insults to stop, the screaming, too.
Now I’m yelling, too,
But just to be heard in the din I’m trying to stop.
Mother-in-law is generally suffering through the noise in silence,
But today’s anxiety meds are wearing off and we can see it on her face.
Honey is groaning about the noise. I’m telling middle child to be quiet,
have another bite, not the bread,
the chicken, tofu dog, or pasta fagioli,
Put down that bread.
eat a carrot, a bite of kale, have another green pepper slice.

Take your dishes to the sink,
Take your dishes to the sink.
I said, take your dishes to the sink.
Can I please have a tropical vacation?

From Bec Thomas, a photograph. (Ed. note: maybe this is the solution to difficult family dinners?)

From Erin Coppin, a poem (welcome to Creative Construction, Erin!). Erin writes: “Here is my very quick response to the prompt this week. I kept the bar low, like you asked!”

Dinnertime

I can sense your mood turning as I frantically prepare.
The whining starts to etch itself on my eardrums.
Malingerers refuse to wash their hands.
After seven mintutes you want to get down –
Half a plate mashed, half a plate waiting.
So, it begins. ‘Three more mouthfuls of this and two of that.
That wasn’t a mouthful. No, come on…’

When I am done I just want to hide.
Is this how I want our mealtimes to be?
Is this ‘manners’ I’m teaching you?
Or the beginnings of an eating disorder?
‘The child seeks attention through refusal of food.’
Why do I put us through it?
Because although it doesn’t feel like it works this way
It doesn’t work any other way either, as far as I can see.

How can I lift the mood at the table?
I just sit there exhausted from getting you into your chair
Without actual soil on your hands.
I’m already dreading the long job of tidying up.
I don’t want to lift the mood. This is familiar, this is what mealtimes always felt like.
My dad made us all sit in silence some nights, not speaking.
Hey, at least I let you eat with your hands.
At least I don’t make you clear your plate.
At least you can speak and play and sometimes we enjoy it.
Let’s see how we get on tomorrow.
Maybe we will have a picnic after all.

From me (Miranda), a haiku and image pairing. While I was trying to get a few good photographs, my family grew impatient to eat. My husband decided that my still life needed a little help from him (see  below). I realized that he’d totally encapsulated what dinnertime is like at our house — and that creating a “still life” at my house during dinnertime was a pretty silly idea. Our dinners are punctuated by colorful conversation (politics, personal issues, bodily functions — you name it) and an array of sometimes-clashing personalities.

Dinner Chez Nous
Irreverent and
loud, nothing is off limits
and laughter is balm

This week’s prompt: “The notebook”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, September 30. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

9/17 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Ah, the sweet sound of creative women at work! Terrific entries for this week’s creativity contest prompt: “the guitar.” We’ve branched into new media here — audio and video! Wow. Hard to select a winner, but we had to go with Carrie Lowery, because her video is extremely creative — and made me laugh my head off. (Oh yeah, and I have a Napoleon Dynamite fetish — what can I say.) Carrie writes: “It is a strange coincidence that I ran across your contest post today, having just finished this short and silly movie after a request from my son, niece and nephews to make a movie starring ‘Guitar Hero’ (as well as a princess, a jester and Napoleon Dynamite). If you’d asked me a few weeks ago whether I’d be a movie director, making G rated movies that only star people under 14, I would have laughed. Now I’m having a great time. Creativity rules!” Carrie, your $10 amazon.com gift certificate has been sent! Welcome to Creative Construction.

From Cathy Jennings: “After a long hiatus getting my son ready for Kindergarten, I finally found the time to be organized enough to do something creative. I enjoyed this prompt a lot.” Cathy’s medium is Dr. Martins watercolors on real paper.

From Cathy Coley, a haiku and photo pairing. Cathy writes: “Honey rarely picks his guitar up these days. I think he appreciated my sticking it in his hands for his creative outlet and mine!”

Lifetime working with
rock stars, my husband, forty,
late to his guitar.

From Kelly Warren:

Lessons from a 50-Year-Old Hippie
I had an interesting conversation with my guitar teacher recently. I take guitar once a week, and because I typically can’t find any other time during the week, Gary and I call my weekly lesson my “once a week supervised practice.” What the hey, at least I’m picking up my guitar once a week. I really enjoy my lessons, as much for hanging out with Gary as for the musical development. He swears we were separated a birth, we think so much alike. I always joke with him that I’m his favorite student, and he’s admitted I am, though I realize he may say that to all the girls, um, I mean students. 🙂 We were working on a new song, Sugarland’s “Stay,” and I was picking it up pretty easily. He felt this was a great song for me; it’s in my vocal range and it has minimal accompaniment. Most of the song just has a simple guitar strum background, so it would be truly easy for me to perform in a solo acoustic setting. So here’s the thing. I have no trouble sharing my jewelry, my art or my writing with people, all creative pursuits. I think I’ve developed a good eye for jewelry design and color blending, I’ve been having fun playing around with mixed media, and I know I’ve always been a very strong writer. Yet, I have terrible stage fright when it comes to sharing my music, another creative pursuit.

Before taking up guitar, I had years and years of piano training, classical mainly, but I loved to branch off into blues and Broadway. When I can warm up my dusty fingers and play at the top of my game, I know that I’m still pretty good. Yet I really don’t like to play for people, not even my family, but my cats and dogs have enjoyed numerous concerts! I think I actually have a much easier time playing for strangers than I do for my friends and family. I’m the same way singing and with the guitar. I’ve sang in public a few times for very special occasions, three or four times on campus for special events and several times for my statewide student government buddies, accompanied on guitar by my good friend Jim Phillips. I’ve also sat in on a couple gigs with friends who are professional singer/songwriters. And every time, I’ve had numerous people come up to me afterward surprised that I can sing. Yet, other than my DH and the girls, who I truly haven’t played much for, the only person who has really heard me play guitar and sing is Gary, yet even he hasn’t heard me truly belt it out vocally. And I’ve been taking lessons from him for at least six or seven years now.

So back to that conversation we had. I was talking to Gary about my stage fright, and he told me a story about when he was asked to play drums to accompany a woman who was recording some new songs. The person making the connection asked him what he charged, and he gave her a ridiculously low fee for both rehearsal and studio time. She told him, “Oh no, I can’t tell her that. We’ll tell her $50/hour for rehearsal time and $100/hour for studio time.” She told him that he was very talented with years of training and experience and should not be afraid to charge a much higher rate for his talent. He used this as an example to get me to see that I have a gift, a talent that I should not be afraid of sharing, just like I have no fear of sharing my jewelry, my art, and my writing. In his opinion, I am musically gifted both vocally and instrumentally, gifts many people don’t have.

So that said, to try to break out of that stage fright a little bit, I have decided to start small by sharing some of my music with you here. If you’ve read some of my previous creativity prompt entries, you know I lost my mother to suicide in December of 1999. It’s hard to explain what that does to you, other than the huge sense of abandonment and loss of self-worth you feel when someone that close to you chooses to end her own life. It’s very different from losing a parent by natural causes like cancer or a heart attack. At only 54 and going through a nasty divorce from my step-father, my mom thought she had nothing to live for, yet she had me and my sister, and in my case, grandchildren on the way. So, of course, DH decided I really needed to go to therapy. I really didn’t want to go to therapy, just didn’t think that was for me, but I went just once to appease him. I was right; it wasn’t for me. I deal with things better working them out creatively, whether it be by writing, creating something physical like art, or as in this case, creating music. So as my therapy, I recorded a CD and dedicated it to my mom. I gave a copy of it to my closest friends when I finished it, but other than that, not very many people have heard it. So, you want to hear some of it? I’ve uploaded a few of the songs off the CD. Be gentle; I can carry a tune but I’m no Faith Hill. 🙂 They’re a mix of country and blues. I’ll hold my breath now…

Kelly’s recordings

From Brittany Vandeputte, a prose poem:

GUITAR

When I was eleven, I discovered the tennis racket in our storage shed. I don’t know why it was there, no one I know plays tennis. To my eleven-year-old eyes, it was not a mere tennis racket, but the most glorious faux Fender I had ever seen.

At about this time, I discovered Madonna and spent many an afternoon rocking out in front of my mirror, tennis racket in hand. There would be no air guitar for this wanna-be rocker chick. Only the finest one string would do.

And then my next door neighbor and I decided to create a garage band. His drum set? A metal trash can.

And to think we didn’t make it big…

From me (Miranda), a haiku and photo pairing. You’ll notice some echoes with Cathy Coley’s entry above! I took this photo of my son last year. The poem is new:

My Son
Strange realization:
He knows a world apart from
the one I gave him

This week’s prompt: “Dinnertime”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, September 23. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

Strumming something up? Contest deadline tonight!

Can you find a few moments to create something for this week’s creativity contest? The prompt is “the guitar.” You know you can find 10 minutes between now and 8:00 p.m. eastern time! Don’t think about it too much. Just do it.

Please note that we seem to be having some issues with the live.com e-mail address. Thus far entries have been received from Cathy C., Kelly, and Cathy J. If you sent in a submission and you aren’t one of those three people, please post a comment here to let me know. Thanks!

Contest update!

I just learned that our own dear Brittany Vandeputte sent in an entry for this week’s prompt that never arrived! She also sent one in for “chocolate” (check it out at the end of the chocolate post) and I didn’t get that one either! I’m so sorry, Brittany. Your entries aren’t in my spam folder, so I don’t know what happened. You have my personal e-mail address now, so please use that from now on. If anyone else has ever submitted something that didn’t show up in the weekly collection, please post a comment here to let me know!

Brittany writes: “This is a poem I wrote in college — a time in my life when practicality did not dictate that I put away my 3-inch heels and platform shoes. I had assembled quite a collection of shoes from my forays in Europe and optimistically wrote this in the hopes that in those shoes, this was how other people saw me. (Funny how I thought they were *practical* at the time. 🙂 ) ” Her entry:

Shoes
She’s a pretty girl, looks like she’s been places
Her shoes have a personality all their own.
They look worn, but determined, in a dignified, mysterious way.
They look foreign, and knowledgeable, like they’ve got something to say in a foreign tongue.
But the girl isn’t talking, she’s just staring into space.
What goes on behind such a passive face?
She could be conjugating French verbs or thinking about an Italian lover.
It doesn’t seem to matter really, one way or the other.
She’s a pretty girl in sensible shoes.
One does not mince words in shoes like these.
She’s a goddess or a demon.
Her shoes love ’em and leave ’em.
But her shoes, they hint at that smile.
She’s a pretty girl, looks like she’s been places.
Her shoes have a personality all their own.
They look worn, but determined, in a dignified, mysterious way.
They look foreign and knowledgeable, like they’ve got something to say in a foreign tongue.
But the girl isn’t talking.
She lets her shoes do the walking when she walks away.

9/10 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Last week’s creativity contest prompt, “my favorite shoes,” was not a favorite with blog readers! Cathy Coley wins as the sole entrant. I do want to personally give Cathy a round of applause for entering the contest every week, without fail, even when the prompt necessarily doesn’t grab her. Go, Cathy! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is en route. Cathy’s entry:

My Favorite Shoes
I had to think long and hard about shoes for this prompt. It’s not something I’m accustomed to doing of late. You see, my feet and back and hips and ankles ache, no matter what I wear, so shoes for me have become the last ditch thing. If I leave the house, I wear pretty much one pair that I pick up cheaply. Their life is a solitary one until I’ve worn them out or the dog eats them beyond recognition.

Lately, I’ve branched out and made a shoe social club of three pairs under my desk. The sandals, summer’s coming to an end, the black square toed slip-ons and the brown pointed penny moccasins. That’s right, I have a black pair and a brown pair these days. The black only have a slight chew mark at the heel, and a nibble out of the insole which looks like the chew mark kids draw on apple drawings with the worm wiggling out. The gardening clogs remain steadfastly by the slider to the backyard. They are an exclusive sort.

In the house, and even to the mailbox, I am a barefoot gal. I am allergic to sneakers, literally. My feet are freedom seekers. Until the cold sets in, then I am a sock gal. My feet are always horrifyingly cold, even if the weather isn’t too chilly. I thought that would change after my move southward, but I did not anticipate the no basement housing plan that prevails below the Mason-Dixon Line. So my first floor is cement slab, under the wood one we installed in the kitchen and den, and the ugly industrial carpeting in the living room and dining room we want to replace. Try walking across a steady 40 degree floor with icicle feet, especially those front hall tiles. It hurts—a lot, all the time. So come wintertime, I wear socks and shoes in the house now. I miss my old Boston apartments where whoever lived below me always kept their heat too high, so I could go barefoot in December. They didn’t know that’s why they were doing so, but I sure appreciated the psychic connection.

I was a barefooter, even as a kid. Until I was seven, I lived in a neighborhood with sidewalks, one block from the beach. I dared the other kids to dare me to walk on the broken glass which often littered our sidewalks from the high schoolers’ beach going festivities of the previous night. My feet were tougher than a horse’s hooves from walking or running down the hot black tar street to the beach, on the sand, and clambering all over the barnacled, seaweed and mussel covered rocky jetty. I walked that glass, as if I were a fire walker walking the coals. It was almost spiritual, about as spiritual as a five-year-old out-toughing her friends can get.

The spring I was seven, we moved to a dead-end street whose dead-end abutted another. It was a private road with slices of woods through the backyards of the whole neighborhood. My backyard was a big hill down from the house to the woods, with great climbing trees scattered throughout. I was always monkeying around barefoot, of course. For my fourteenth birthday I received the ten-speed with spiky pedals which I rode barefoot, to the astonishment of many neighborhood moms. I rode it to the beach of course, walked across that old hot tar parking lot to the hot sand then the cool reef at low tide.

I took great pride in my bare feet’s toughness. I was very protestant about it, to suffer was to be close to God. But I did not really suffer, I had the protestant work ethic about my bare feet. I had suffered to get them tough, and that made me tough. And I was in toe shoes as a child dancer by age nine, which is probably a large part of the reason I’m such an achy mess now.

Now, by my old standards, I am a weak old tenderfoot. But my feet are still more calloused than most, and I like them this way. There were teenaged years, college years and my young adulthood when I had favorite comfy shoes, favorite pretty shoes, cool suede boots and three inch heels in which I tromped all over Boston twice as fast as anyone else on the sidewalk. But now, I throw on what I can find, what’ll do, what’ll be presentable enough to go out in public, but not have to bother too much about. And that’s just fine by me. As long as I can feel grass and sand between my toes, I’ll have the happiest feet around.

From me (Miranda): There are a few “girly” things I didn’t learn as a child. It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I learned how the right undergarments are vital to the fashion package. It also took me a long time to learn that the right pair of shoes can save almost any outfit. These days, I am always on the lookout for good shoes that are comfortable but stylin’ (at least to me). I don’t do the traditional pump — those just hurt too much, and it’s not my style. But there’s still a lot to pick from, and I rarely leave DSW empty-handed. These days, when I need all the help I can get to look put together, my favorite shoes are friendly and forgiving. They fall into the category of things I love, regardless of whatever anyone else thinks about them. We all need a few things like that, don’t we?

The Importance of Feet
To understanding
shoes, I arrive late in life—
but now wear them well

This week’s prompt: “The guitar”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 16. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

9/3 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Sunflowers are blooming everywhere — and there’s quite a harvest right here at Creative Construction. Our winner for this week’s creativity contest is Kelly Warren, who had a sunflower art session with her daughters. Love the initiative, Kelly! She writes: “My girls and I had an art afternoon yesterday around the sunflowers prompt, and we had so much fun! We found the little wooden sunflowers on the clearance aisle at Michael’s, and then just pulled everything together with supplies I had at home. I created mine and taught the girls each step, step by step, as I was creating. We started with some old discarded wood and covered our wood with maps (as inspired by Elizabeth Beck!). Then we painted water colors over our maps: I chose blue, Sarah chose pink, and Livvie chose purple. Then we selected the papers we wanted to use for the grass, stems, and leaves and started cutting and gluing layer upon layer. The toughest part for them was giving the piece time to dry between layers. I’m not sure who’s prouder of their finished products, me or them!”

From last week’s Breakfast interviewee, Amy Grennell, a striking digital image:

From Jen Johnson, a lovely pair of photos. Jen writes: “I’m actually able to submit something this time around — how exciting! We grew sunflowers in our garden this year, and it’s getting to be harvest time, so I have two photographs for you: ‘Sunflower/Son Flower I’ and ‘Sunflower/Son Flower II’.”

From Juliet Bell, an original piece of wood art: “I happened to be in the midst of making this sunflower puzzle to auction on eBay, so I was delighted to see sunflowers as the new prompt! This is a double-sided, stained, wooden, hanging, jigsaw puzzle with 131 pieces, measuring 10″ by 6’5″.”

Cathy Coley sent her photo/double haiku entry in right away, shortly after it was posted last Wednesday, noting: “Inspired now, before my real ones fade completely in this rainless haze.”

Sunflowers
bright hope in the clouds
of August – harvest’s fine
tribute of glory

Sunflowers
Ra brought to earth in
fold of Isis arms – radiant
simple, many central seeds

From me (Miranda), a photograph and haiku pairing. I shot the sunflower bouquet that my husband gave me for our anniversary last week. It’s hard to tell, but the lighting is simply an overhead incandescent can light. No playing in Photoshop — I’m pleased with how it came out.

Ink Icon
The sunflower on
my shoulder never wilts or
sheds its soft petals

This week’s prompt: “My favorite shoes”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a cue for color, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 9. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

8/27 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Such interesting submissions this week for the prompt “wedding”! [To see any image in better detail, simply click on it.] Our winner is Elizabeth Beck, who happened to be last week’s Breakfast interviewee. Elizabeth writes: “What is a wedding but a meeting of two hearts?” You can read more about this image at Elizabeth’s flickr site. Congratulations, Elizabeth — your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way.

From Charuavi, two fascinating entries describing the weddings of her two daughters. Charuavi writes: “People have a lot of misconceptions about ‘arranged’ marriages. I hope my post will be helpful in clearing up at least a few of them.” Simply due to the considerable length of these two submissions, they are available here as a single PDF. It’s wonderful to have such an intimate slice of life from India! I do hope we’ll see more from Charuavi in future.

From Cathy Coley, a photograph. Last Thursday, Cathy sent in her submission with this note: “This morning, I took camera with me for our daily walk, and tried very hard to get a shot of the many pairs of dragonflies I saw, to no avail, the little flitters. So this afternoon, I took the kids to the Virginia Living Museum, and wouldn’t you know, I didn’t have the good camera, but I couldn’t pass up this humorous take on the wedding. So cellphone shot it is. Not great art, but fun.” [If you’re feeling voyeuristic, click on the image for a better view!]

From Juliet Bell, a photograph. Juliet writes: “I suppose this is a bit of a cheat, but I took this photo last summer at about this time, and just love it. I’ve been wanting to paint it, or do something with it, but haven’t had any idea better than the photo itself. When I saw the prompt for this week, I immediately thought of this photo. Doesn’t ‘The Wedding’ seem the perfect title? (If it is not apparent, it’s the inside of an Hydrangea blossom.)”

From Kelly Warren, photographs and personal narrative:

My wedding had several memorable events. the first actually happened about a week before the wedding. you see, my grandmother made my dress, yet three weeks before the wedding, my dress was still just a pile of material and lace in her sewing room. i knew she’d get it done, but it would be a last minute scramble. a week before the wedding, she finished it and asked me to come over and model it for a few of her friends. everyone oohed and aahhed, and then i went back to her room to take the dress off. it was at this moment that nana’s dog penny felt nana had spent entirely too much time with that dress and not enough time with her, so she promptly took the opportunity to relieve herself on it. nana hit the roof; i was amazingly calm and told her, “it’s okay, nana! we’ll take it to the cleaners and they will get it out!” as she chased the dog under the bed. and they did get it out…most of it anyway…there’s still a nice reminder of a stain on the unlining of the train.

and then there was the actual wedding itself. my dh called “time out!”, football style, smack dab in the middle of the ceremony. during the rehearsal the night before, the pastor really minimized the amount of verbage she gave him at once, so he told her she could give him a little more. apparently, day of, she gave him a bit more than he could handle. the whole church burst out laughing. all we needed was a whistle and a couple black and white striped shirts.

post wedding, my best friend becky actually spent our honeymoon with us! (too long of story to describe the reasoning behind that! it was a destination wedding!) we were scuba-diving one day, and while dh was taking a break on the boat, bec and i came up on a small nurse shark. small to me anyway, being a veteran diver. becky, on the other hand, freaked. she kept motioning to me and pointing at the shark while flailing around madly. i could literally hear her through her mouthpiece……(abbrevieated to keep it clean, and she rarely cusses)…” g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark! g-d-m-f shark!” dh said he could even hear her words popping out of the bubbles as they broke the surface. truly, it was a harmless little four-foot nurse shark. really can’t even take nibble out of you! it was a memorable week….

pictures are three of my favorites: me dancing with my dad; my nana and my great aunt livy (who my olivia is named after); and becky telling dh about the g-d-m-f shark:

From me (Miranda), a haiku and digital image pairing. My anniversary is this week, so I had some extra inspiration to work with. I played with one of our wedding portraits in Photoshop to create the image.

Wedding
The field was our own
universe, full of hope and
life among the grass

This week’s prompt: “Sunflowers”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a cue for color, or a tengential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 2. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

8/20 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

Two entries this week for the prompt “chocolate.” Since there were only two, I thought the fairest judge would be a coin toss: and our winner is Kelly Warren. Congratulations, Kelly! (Good things come to those of you who are prolific! Your $10 amazon.com gift certificate is on its way.)

Kelly writes: “I’ve been playing around with digitally framed TTV photography and created this shot of our chocolate lab Isabelle. I can’t believe she actually sat still long enough for me to catch this portrait. She’s just over a year old, but still a puppy…..a very large puppy.”

From Cathy Coley, an ode:

Dear Chocolate

It’s all about the cocoa content:
The higher the better.
I can forgo the sugar.
Forget the milk.
I’d rather eat the beans,
Inhale the Dutch powder
Meant for comfort after skating.
Let it drip bittersweet on
The back of my tongue.

Take me to Brazil.
Let me lick the bark.
Salza, Rumba in your branches.
Warm my soul with your night heat,
Chocolate. Chocolate, chocolate!

From me, Miranda. Since we have a little extra space this week, I’m hogging up all the room for myself. That’s kind of what chocolate does to me. It turns me into a ravenous, truffle-sniffing pig.

The haiku version:

In Paris
Velvet chocolate
wrapped in lavender papers
brought me to my knees

And here’s the full story, in case you’re wondering what that haiku was about. The following piece was published last year by Sun Magazine for the prompt “fame and fortune.” Really, it all comes down to chocolate. (Apparently, if you eat enough of it, you wake up with a rather unpleasant reality check.)

I moved to Paris when I was nineteen with the goal of becoming an actress or a model. I’d already been rejected by several New York City modeling agencies, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I’d studied acting, dance, and voice. I was reasonably pretty and on the tall side at five feet nine — though not tall enough by New York standards. At 132 pounds, I wasn’t as thin as I needed to be either, but I was working on that.

I had an agent waiting for me in Paris. Well, maybe not waiting, exactly. While having dinner at a close friend’s house, I’d hit it off with her father’s visiting colleague, whose brother François was a casting agent in Paris. I got his number, packed my suitcases, and headed for France.

It all went well at first. I slept on the floor at a good friend’s apartment, in a tiny room that smelled strongly of tea and soap. Every day I walked for hours through the cold gray city, practicing my high-school French. I sat in real French cafés, drinking grand crème and smoking cigarettes, and I went to parties where I was surrounded by glamorous, creative people.

François was working on a television project that he said would be the first French miniseries. The star was the aging singer Johnny Hallyday. I was to be an extra in a bar scene. I arrived at the studio early and, after hair and makeup, moved to the soundstage, where the other extras and I were placed around a bar facade. Johnny Hallyday’s arrival on set was greeted by an awe-filled hush. The filming was just as I’d imagined, with the director yelling, “Cut!” — only in French. He yelled it quite a lot, as Hallyday had difficulty remembering his lines.

After my successful turn as an extra, François gave me the name of a talent agent, whom I met with in a blindingly sunny office on the Rue Marbeuf. He nodded approvingly at me and got me a job performing at a shopping mall in the northern suburb of Sarcelles: six girls parading through the mall to promote a live race-car demonstration on the promenade. The event ended in disaster when the race car lost control and swerved into the crowd, injuring several onlookers.

Next I auditioned for a TV show. When I discovered that the script called for me to flash my breasts, I only mimed exposing myself for the production staff. I didn’t get called back. Then my agent sent me to try out for a necklace advertisement, but the woman across the desk coldly observed that I seemed to have gained some weight since my pictures had been taken. You see, I’d discovered that the corner market near my new apartment sold Milka, my favorite chocolate bars, by the three-pack. They’d become a staple in my diet.

As my social life slowed to a crawl, I stopped marketing myself and instead read Nabokov novels and ate Milka, reveling in its heady, velvet sweetness. I slept on a thin foam mattress and woke in the morning to stare at cracks in the ceiling and the mess of lilac-colored candy wrappers on the floor. I sometimes rallied and took a walk in the Paris air, but the glimpses of other people’s glamorous lives only left me feeling more adrift.

I began dating Adrien, a photographer I’d met on the race-car job. He was wonderful company but smoked too much pot and always looked emaciated. We had little money, and I had to scrape together my centimes to buy a baguette and a small jar of Nutella. Otherwise I would go to Adrien’s apartment and eat his roommate’s food.

Deciding I needed a change, I cut my hair myself. It came out short — very short — and patchy in the back. It did not look good.

Adrien and I parted ways. My agent stopped calling. My father’s most recent wire transfer — which I’d assured him would be the last — had run out. I was overdrawn at the Crédit Lyonnais. I found a job waitressing at a macrobiotic restaurant, but I couldn’t understand the Japanese cooks, and they couldn’t read my handwriting on the orders. After two shifts, I admitted defeat. Some Italian girls let me sleep on their sofa, and I spent my days cutting pictures from old fashion magazines. Twenty-five pounds heavier, my shorn hair growing back unevenly, I flipped through the glossy pages and ached with desire for what I somehow still believed could be mine.

This week’s prompt: “The wedding”

Use the prompt however you like — literally, a cue for color, or a tengential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 26. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

9/10/08 UPDATE: Brittany Vandeputte sent in an entry that never arrived. Deepest apologies, Brittany! Her acrostic:

C an it get any better than this?
H olding a fork-speared marshmallow
O ver the lit flame from the grill lighter.
C hocolate bar at the ready
O n the kitchen counter.
L ift the sticky singed goodness
A dd four squares of Hersheyʼs finest
T hen surround in walls of graham.
E at when no oneʼs watching.

8/13 Weekly creativity contest winner & new prompt

You guys always come through! A bunch of goodies arrived for the creativity contest prompt “circles.” Our winner is newcomer Carmen Torbus, who sent in two gorgeous paintings, both acrylic and mixed media. (The first is entitled “Thy Will Be Done” and the second is “August.” Visit Carmen’s blog here.) I just love the icon-like design quality, don’t you? Congratulations, Carmen — your $10 amazon.com gift certificate will arrive momentarily. Welcome to Creative Construction!

From Juliet Bell: “I had several ideas for the ‘Circles’ competition but none came to the fore until I fell asleep and dreamed I was having tea with a friend in her shop. On the wall behind my friend was a beautiful china platter, round, with a soft pattern of mixed blue circles and leaves suggesting grapes. The platter hung on a wall papered with a complimentary blue grape design. My dog barked, awaking me with this image sharp in my mind’s eye. This watercolor design (4” x 4”) is based on my dream. I love it when my dreams send me ideas.” (Juliet’s Etsy shop here.)

From Sam Hirst: “Here is a card I made using branches from a birch tree that had to be taken out of my yard. I cut the branches and block printed the card using them.” (I love the use of found materials! Sam’s blog and Etsy shop.)

From Cathy Coley, a poem. Cathy writes: “The idea is better than the poem, but it’s a start.” (I think it’s all good, Cathy!)

Circles
Going in circles
I re-read old books,
some six, seven times.
I walk with the ghosts
of what I know they’ll do
before they do. Walker’s
Zede relives her past not just once.
Lissie relives every past
over and over since the dawn of time.
We go back again together
to live in the trees.

My dreams breeze fill
with blue green peacock
and red parrot feathers,
three stones in dirt.
Just last week,
gods of every continent.
I don’t usually need help.
I walk hand in hand with goddesses,
elements, even by day.
Gaiman just choreographs them
better than I would dare.
I follow them while he directs.

I read my dreams and thank
all gods Elegba, Odin, Bast, and Balthazar
for the circles of life, the spirals of centuries,
and these authors for
reading my dreams
and writing them down.

From Lisa Worthington-Brown, last week’s winner, a bounty of circle paintings! Lisa writes: “Painting circles is relaxing for me, so I find that I have a lot of recent work with circles. Here are a few.” (The first image is a detail from a larger-than-life self-portrait.)

From me (Miranda), the usual pair! I took this photo on Sunday at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Mass. I have to admit I didn’t realize I had snagged a shot for the “circles” prompt until later that evening when I was reviewing my photos. I smacked my head, V-8 style, and said, “Circles!”

Garden in the Woods
The pond is brimming
with turtles and dragonflies,
life in gloss and green

This week’s prompt: “Chocolate”

Use the prompt however you like — literally; just a suggestion of color; or a tengential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 19. The winning entry receives a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly contest, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) Remember, the point here is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.