WRITING FROM SCRATCH

Today I attended Eileen Albrizio's creative writing workshop in Middletown, not too far from the Wesleyan University Campus. We performed two exercises. The first was to review the Triolet form of poetry writing which originated in France. Containing eight lines of which five are repeated, it goes like this:

In the strangled synapses of my tangled mind,
dreams, illusions, past hopes buried beyond end.
Her love came to me and found a place to bind,
in the strangled synapses of my tangled mind.
She left without a word and tasked me to find,
the love I lost, and feelings to mend,
in the strangled synapses of my tangled mind,
dreams, illusions, past hopes buried beyond end.

The second exercise consisted of coming up with a one-sentence beginning of a short story. I came up with this:

Dr. Stuart Bridges held a file titled 'Alexander the Great - Property of the U.S. Strategic Initiative' while he peered through the window at the young boy directing the war games on the grounds of the National Cloning Institute.