Write the start of a novel...

Jenna’s friends told her not to get involved with somebody she met on LuvAtFurstSyte, but the guy who called himself Beaverbuddy was so good-looking, so romantic, so clever, so manly--he was impossible to resist!

She chose her clothes carefully for their first meeting. She picked a peach-colored sheath with an origami neckline, thinking it would look chic and not suggestive of anything in particular. Entering the restaurant, she didn’t immediately spot the handsome face she had seen online, but then a large, hairy arm waved from a table in the rear, and she walked that way.

“Hey, Jenna!” said the man who was attached to the hairy arm. “Over here, baby!” But she couldn’t believe what she saw. He was grossly overweight and had a huge moustache—nothing like the pictures he had sent. Stunned and confused, she forced herself to sit across from him.

“I ordered you a Bloody Mary and told ‘em to pour in lots of Worcestershire sauce, Baby!” he said, looking her over. “Mm, Babe, I can’t wait to get you to the hootenanny!”

She managed two bites of a buttered roll before she claimed a headache and fled onto the street, where a passing crowd of anonymous strangers seemed somehow comforting.


Remnant
Probity
Kaleidoscope
Regress
Hula

Probity seemed to be a remnant of her parents' generation. Maybe even her grandparents'. Her short but frenetic kaleidescope of experiences in the adult world had revealed one common element--that society had regressed to a point where, if you wanted something, you simply took it--cheated, stole, dragged women off by the hair...

The hula hoop clattered to the floor. She had managed four hundred and two revolutions. A studious look in the mirror hinted that the seemingly silly exercise was producing results--her waist seemed slimmer, and she was sure she could see a hint of abs. She smiled. She might not want anyone to drag her off by the hair, but she sure as heck wanted someone to want to.


shoe
terpsichorean
incredulous
barbarism
jello

The barbarism of Hollywood was nauseating, but the money was good. As for Felix, he had seen enough wannabes for one day, so when Melissa McCrougherty, or whatever her name was, stepped into his office, he intended to give her no more than 30 seconds, but then something happened. The way she stood with her shoulders tilted, one high-heeled shoe placed provocatively ahead of the other, and the faint, feline movement of her hips all had a terpsichorean quality. This young woman had something. But what?

Felix’s heart was harder than a rock. Nothing in this town would ever turn him to Jello. Still, he was incredulous as he realized that this nobody might turn out to be the next Garbo, Stanwyck or Streep.


Banter
Nightingale
Disengage
Fickle
Jerk

When I heard the nightingale I disengaged from the friendly banter happening around the table. I didn't want to appear a jerk, but my interests were fickle, and the bird's song called to me.

chimney
snore
painting
ruthless
marshmallow

The painting was a snore, a snow-shrouded farmhouse, rustic chimney puffing marshmallow clouds of wood smoke into the winter sky. Beside it hung a small plaque with the artist's mini-bio and accompanying photograph. Recognition jolted me, and I realized my response to his work hadn't been nearly as ruthless as my reaction to seeing that despicable face again.


bodily
chartreuse
beligerent
catastrophic
zebra

Despite his enormous fee, she had decided to employ the famed interior decorator Maurice de Glotz. Following his directions, she had stayed away from her apartment during the renovation. Now, as she opened the door, she felt bodily assaulted by the catastrophic results of de Glotz’s work—the chartreuse carpet, the zebra-striped walls, the belligerent-looking masks hanging from the purple ceiling. She began to cry.


Recycle
Escalator
Droop
Gracious
Frog

The escalator deposited her on the third floor, where women's wear designers had once again managed to recycle fashions from other generations and cultures into something purporting to be new. Droop masquerading as gracious drape. Frog closures on shiny red polyester pretending to be Chinese Imperial.

She caught movement off to her left and turned toward it, expecting to see a sales clerk or another customer, but her only company appeared to be the small forest of mannequins.


bulldozer
telephone
rapids
cancer
delve

Horace woke to the bulldozer’s sound. What nincompoop had decided they should ruin his beloved canyon, with its pines and its emerald rapids? He reached for the telephone and dialed his Congressman—for the fiftieth time--but an assistant answered and said, “Mr. Dinklesbody is aware of your complaints, sir. He has promised to delve into the situation.”

Horace turned over in bed with a groan. The billionaires were bringing cancer to the planet.

Persimmon
Dislodge
Ochre
Instantaneous
Sting

Outside the shelter of the cave, the sun painted the sides of the canyon in shades of ocher. Soon the pecans would fall from the trees, but the fruit in the persimmon thickets would not be sweet enough to gather until the chilly nights brought the need for rabbit skin blankets.

Popah walked the rocky canyon floor toward the shallow stream at its center. The walk was becoming noticeably longer. The stream would shrink to a narrow line, perhaps even disappear, before the next rainy season filled its belly again. If that happened, his people would move downstream, next to the larger river that didn't dry up. But for now their cave was closer to food, the terrain above the canyon walls flat and easier to travel for the hunt.

As he knelt to lower the large leather drawstring pouch into the water he felt a sharp sting in his heel. He wanted to reach back to dislodge whatever had pierced him, but paralysis had been instantaneous. He pitched headlong into the water. As silt filled his mouth and nose, he hoped Kala would not be the one to find him like this. And he hoped whoever had done this to him would not find Kala and the others.


patronize
cleft
devolve
salmon
crochet

The Shady Pines Retirement Villa, nestled in the cleft of the mountain, was home to Rupert now, and surprising himself, he was learning to crochet. It seemed an unlikely pursuit, but he had had more than his share of adventures during his 78 years. He knotted the salmon-colored yarn around the crochet hook and smiled. Years ago, he had felt free to patronize people whom he saw as lower on the social scale. Perhaps he had hurt people now and then, but Fate was paying him back as old age devolved upon him. It was the arc of life.


surrender
lifeguard
merge
Popsicle
amber

No one seemed to have noticed little Johnny disappear below the pool's sparkling surface where the slope toward the deep end began. At first he was embarrassed and tried to grasp the pool's edge to pull himself up without help, but the plastic edge coping was wet, and the vinyl liner underfoot slippery. His fingertips lost their purchase as the funnel shaped floor carried him further down. Panicking now, he tried to shout for help, but his voice seemed to merge with the surrounding water. After a surprisingly few chlorinated gulps, he felt himself surrender. Above him, seeming to rise as he sank, he could still see the wavy white line of the chord strung with plastic floats under which he had slipped--the marker between the shallow end and this seemingly endless chasm into which he was falling.

Suddenly, on his side of the marker, what appeared to be an amber Popsicle leaned over the pool. The Popsicle grew arms that broke through the surface and reached toward Johnny's flailing hands. Johnny felt himself rising, breaking the surface, being laid on the park grass by the lifeguard who began squeezing Johnny's chest. It hurt. He wanted to yell, "Stop!" He lurched and threw up water and gasped welcome air. Then he started to cry.

palisade
lion
heaven
quatrain
besmirched

(I really MUST develop an exercise like this to get me to finish my damn synopsis.)

He simply could not write a decent quatrain. He got as far as:

"Behold the bold, resplendent lion
athwart yon palisade…"

But the only rhymes he could think of for “lion” were “cryin’,” “dyin’,” “fryin’,” “Brian,” “Mayan,” “Orion” and “Hawaiian,” and none of them worked. Thank heaven he hadn’t chosen writing as a profession! He would have besmirched the art of poetry!


bliss
reconstitute
dangling
garlic
pseudonym

Bliss would have been suckling at that soft, vulnerable juncture where delicate neck met tender shoulder. But the neck he was observing through m'lady's bedroom window displayed an equally delicate silver chain which, considering the cross dangling at its nadir, may as well have been an entire braid of garlic. He would, instead, reconstitute from airborne rodent into earthbound form at the party two floors below, where he would assume the pseudonym "Charles".

carrier
bootleg
fallow
purse
cabbage

The south forty was fallow, and the cabbage crop was looking so sparse it wouldn’t bring Daniel enough to keep the farm going for another six months. He poked through his wife’s purse, but all he found was a mirror, a compact, and 35 cents. Years ago, life on the carrier had been tops—all the food you could eat, and more. There were only a few women aboard in those days, and they weren’t available to him, but there’s always a bootleg way to get what you want, isn’t there?


squeegee
calcify
eschew
jiggle
sneaker

squeegee
calcify
eschew
jiggle
sneaker

(really?)

He leaned across the hood to squeegee the jeep's windshield before the mud from this morning's off-road foray decided to calcify. A sudden change in water pressure prompted the hose nozzle to jiggle free from its makeshift mooring behind the side view mirror. It jetted icy water at his crotch, then drooped to soak his left sneaker. He turned to see Gloria posing on the grass, hip cocked, the wide neck of her sweatshirt canted purposefully off one shoulder, alternately kinking and unkinking the green rubber hose. She was giggling like it was the funniest thing in the world.

He hated her, but he couldn't seem to get rid of her. Because she "loved" him. Sure. That was why you froze someone's balls off with the hose, right?

Well, he'd be damned if he'd be the one to leave. It was his damn house. She'd simply taken up squatter's rights. And on this morning's outing he'd finally found a perfect place to "evict" her to. He'd eschew giving formal notice. A simple tire iron to the head, out in the middle of nowhere, followed by a decent burial in a nice, natural, woodsy setting... He'd even say a quick prayer. Of thanks, ha, ha. Now that was funny.

Dick
Jane
Spot
Puff
antidisestablishmentarianism

The carefree life Dick and Jane had known as kids had changed forever. No more did Dick throw balls for Spot to retrieve (Spot went to pooch heaven some years ago). And Jane spent half her time with her phone and the rest of her time spending money.

“I wish to hell you’d take my work seriously,” Dick said as he put his feet on the floor.

“Your work!” Jane lay back against the pillow and reached for a cigarette. "How did I know you’d end up being a dull-as-dirt political scientist? I thought you were going to be a musician.”

“I can’t play guitar all the time! I’m working toward tenure, for crissake! Just wait till the world sees my sixteen-volume study of antidisestablishmentarianism! And when the f**k are you going to quit smoking!”

She let out a puff of smoke. "I want a divorce.”



rent
maudlin
forbid
cornflakes
asymptomatic

He stared at the weird peachy-orange colored wall. The hundred year old plaster was lumpily textured to disguise the lack of of care about perfection. The finish was glossy. He stared at it, but he wasn't really seeing it.

Through the wall--cardboard thin under the century's buildup of thick, gooey paint--came the sounds of a maudlin, drunken argument occurring in the next apartment. Some days he swore he could hear the participants crunching their morning cornflakes. But right now he wasn't really hearing anything.

He wasn't simply ignoring these things, going through his nightly ritual of convincing himself that the sensory assaults were worth the cheap rent. His mind couldn't focus in two directions at once, and right now it was focused inward. He was wondering how so much could have gone wrong inside him while he was completely asymptomatic.

Well, this wasn't going to happen. Not to him. He would forbid it.


turquoise
palpable
roach
fumy
creative

The silence in the fumy room was almost palpable. Something darted past his tied-up feet—a roach. Where was he? Whoever dreamed up this situation was more creative than he was, and he was a writer. He pulled at the rope around his wrists. He remembered being at the Silver Slipper. He had been drinking a Scotch-and-soda, and the next thing he knew he opened his eyes in this weird room with its mirrored ceiling. From a distance, he heard someone talking. The voice sounded familiar--the Silver Slipper, the Scotch-and-soda, the girl in the turquoise dress….

(Maybe I’ll use this as the opening of a suspense novel. )


Lodger
Incessant
Minimize
Statuesque
Barrel

Garth stood in the darkness of his bedroom closet, trying not to make the hangers rattle as he stared, smiling, through the back side of the two-way mirror into the bathroom of his newest lodger. This one--Angela--was a statuesque Amazon. But she was self-conscious about her stature and tended to slouch and cross her arms a lot in her incessant attempts to minimize her presence. She didn't understand how beautiful she was--but he did. She could look stunning wearing nothing but a barrel. Of course, wearing nothing at all--as she was now--she looked even better. He hoped she would take longer than those who had gone before her to discover his secret admiration. He wanted a nice, respectable length of time to enjoy her before she had to join her predecessors under the basement floor.

karioke
plummet
field
cross
tangible

Gazing at the huge golden cross, Griggsby knew he had to make a decision. Since that ridiculous business over the teenage girl had made headlines, attendance at his Temple of the Happy Saints had plummeted. The pews were empty, and disaster was almost tangible. He had to get out of town, change his name and find a new field as soon as possible, but what? There might not be much money in it at first, but he had always been good at karaoke.


corkscrew
coalesce
mantra
gorgeous
cricket

As Adam cracked the bottle open with his corkscrew, the gangsters coalesced around the house. He kept his calm, repeating his mantra all the while, "Live as long as you can, as well as you can." He sipped his champagne, his mark of triumph, and looked at the painting. "Gorgeous" he said, looking at the blonde that resided in the frame, his wife. He hoped he was going to meet her where he was going. His moment of peace was crowned by the sound of a cricket that filled the quiet of the vicinity. He knew it was the calm before the storm, and he knew that his part was over.

Gold
Savior
Soul
Bargain
Life

The wind ruffled the thick gold fur on the retriever's flanks as she loped ahead of him, tongue lolling from the side of a happy dog smile. She had entered his life when his closest friend, Earl, had gotten a transfer to an irresistible job in Norway and couldn't take his dog with him. Bella had been young--no longer a puppy, but not yet through the chewing stage--and she had chewed her way through the coffee table, around various door frames, out of the wood-fenced yard, and ultimately into his heart. She had been the savior of his soul during the dark period following his divorce. He wondered if Earl had secretly known that, in asking him for the favor of looking after Bella, Earl had done him an even bigger one.

He had received an email from Earl yesterday, saying Earl was coming home and that there was a big surprise in the bargain. He hoped the surprise wasn't that Earl wanted Bella back, because he'd give up his life before he gave up his dog.


(Obviously, I am resistant to going where I'm expected to go. My mother could have told you that.)

pouf
saccharine
jolly
marbled
tank

He managed to get a Santa Claus job this year, though it would only last two weeks. He got into his red suit, practiced a big smile, hoping it wasn't too saccharine, and popped some food into the fish tank before heading for the department store, with its bright lights and marbled façade. The ornate chair they gave him, so the kids could sit on his lap, wasn’t even comfortable. A pouf would have been kinder to his behind. But who was he to complain? He had to be jolly.


tinfoil
deserted
enflame
roam
catapult

(Oops--not on my game today. I used "soul" twice and left out "life" on my previous post. I've edited it to correct that.)

tinfoil
deserted
enflame
roam
catapult

Malechai continued to roam the streets, pushing a grocery cart filled with all his earthly belongings. His resistance to help--be it shelter accommodation or food bank assistance or outright monetary handouts--tended to enflame regular debates in city council meetings regarding how best to aid that segment of the homeless population that didn't seem to want to be aided. Some contended that people whose brains had obviously deserted them didn't have the right to choose for themselves what lifestyle was best for them. But Malechai, while aware of the whispers that he was a candidate for a tinfoil hat, didn't let those whispers bother him. There were other whispers he listened to, whispers that told him how impermanent material possessions really were. When events unfolded to catapult the world into chaos, he would already be skilled at the self-sufficiency required to survive. And he had it on good authority that the chaos was coming soon.


porridge
clematis
foray
jumped
lemon