{"id":24,"date":"2011-08-01T16:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/01\/writer%e2%80%99s-sketch-james-new-mexico-watermelon\/"},"modified":"2011-08-01T16:45:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T16:45:00","slug":"writer%e2%80%99s-sketch-james-new-mexico-watermelon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/01\/writer%e2%80%99s-sketch-james-new-mexico-watermelon\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer\u2019s Sketch: James, New Mexico, Watermelon"},"content":{"rendered":"
To begin this exercise, you should seclude yourself from distractions. Secondly, you will need a person, a place and an object. Don\u2019t come up with them yourself– use a friend or family member to provide the subjects of your freewrite. You could also use the \u201crandom\u201d feature on Wikipedia, or \u201cI\u2019m feeling lucky\u201d on Google. Try your best to simply allow ideas to flow for fifteen minutes. Remember: No editing. Let\u2019s begin.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It was a sweltering afternoon in New Mexico, the looming sun coating the desert in a crimson afterglow. James grumpily sat on his grandparent\u2019s porch, observing the waning sunlight that passed over the scrub around the adobe dwelling. He was uncomfortable in his long-sleeves and could not locate a suitable position in the shade that adequately soothed him. It was just as well. He hated the oppressive heat, but it wasn\u2019t his fault he was allergic to the sun. And visiting his grandparents was always an unfortunate week of suffering. After all, New Mexico was vastly different from Minnesota. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
 <\/span>Venturing indoors, James was meagerly comforted by the home\u2019s natural ability to retain cold air. But he still believed his grandparents to be foolish for not purchasing an air conditioner. How could he sleep that night? It was the first of many and yet he could not recall how he managed to survive these visits so many years before. He passed through the hallway into the living room where he discovered his wrinkled relatives relaxing in front of an old analog television. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cLooks like you could use some watermelon,\u201d declared his grandfather in a raspy voice. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
James agreed, \u201cThat would be great.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cTake a seat, dear,\u201d said his grandmother. She was a kind and gentle woman, quilting an aboriginal style blanket. She pushed the plate of watermelon across the coffee table for James to adequately choose a slice. One of the larger pieces called out to him, its bright green rind and pink flesh a stark contrast to the monochromic tones of the desert home. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
James didn\u2019t hesitate to devour the fruit. Its sweetness dissolving a refreshing blast onto his taste buds after each bite. A trickle of water collected at the sides of James\u2019 mouth and dripped off at the tip of his chin onto the perfectly white carpet. The disapproving stare he received from his elders was firm and harsh, but the small mishap seemed a minor consolation to James who still had six days (with change) left on his arid visit. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\/ Sure, it\u2019s not the best story I could write with these subjects, but for a fifteen minute freewrite to get my creative juices flowing, it\u2019s not half bad. Although I\u2019ll be doing a collection of writer\u2019s sketches, I would encourage writers to complete this exercise at least once a day. Just like visual artists warm-up with these types of drawing activities, aspiring writers can use this technique to hone their skills as well. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To begin this exercise, you should seclude yourself from distractions. Secondly, you will need a person, a place and an object. Don\u2019t come up with them yourself– use a friend or family member to provide the subjects of your freewrite. You could also use the \u201crandom\u201d feature on Wikipedia, or \u201cI\u2019m feeling lucky\u201d on Google. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-sketch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YHlB-o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}