I've joined a writing circle!

Writing exercise: Being gorgeous

I found out about this creative writing circle through a speculative fiction book club at my university. I signed up, unsure of what to expect. We had our first meeting a few days ago. We’re only five people, which feels just right. They’re all lovely, and I’m very nervous and exited to read their writing and share mine with them. We decided to meet every other week, and to slowly but surely get through Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, which I highly recommend.

The first exercise comes at the end of the first chapter, titled The sound of your writing. The exercise is called Being Gorgeous. Part one goes like this:

Write a paragraph to a page of narrative that’s meant to be read aloud. Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect—any kind of sound effect you like—but NOT rhyme or meter.

And well, here is my attempt at it, with a few tweaks following the group’s feedback:

‘Listen to your blood. Drip. Drip. Drip. Onto your lips without skipping a beat.’ Leah laughed life from her shy smile for the first time in a lifetime. ‘What a lovely laugh,’ Said said. ‘I wish you saw it yourself.’ She wished she didn’t, for last time she saw herself in the mirror, over five years ago, she cried of anger and joy and sadness and pleasure of knowing she wasn’t someone she knew and thus no one she’d miss. Her hope. Dripped. Dripped. Dripped. Out of her smile. She’d live a lovely life of disloyalty to the self she once knew. Without friends or family or a furry friend to caress. She’d live a life of men and madness tailored just for her. And, above all, she’d never know who she could’ve been or the lovely lives she could’ve lived. But, then, she hadn’t met Said yet.