A Cop Out

Here I go again, super failing at posting regularly! But inspiration simply cannot be forced... unless of course I scour the internet and find random writing exercises and use them when I don't have any independently generated thoughts. I must begin doing this when I have writer's block or else I'll never touch this thing again! So here I go...

I found these. They are not entertaining to anyone but me, so if you're one of the two or three unfortunate souls reading this, I apologize in advance.

1.Describe a landscape as seen by an old woman whose horrible old husband has just died. Do not mention the husband or death.

The birds splashed about in a puddle to the right of the sidewalk. Their pleasing chirps were like background music to Myrtle's life as she hobbled along, taking in the surrounding sights of pleasant suburbs in the evening. She was heading to her daughter's for supper, since her own house seemed vacant nowadays. The sidewalk was the dark, familiar gray of slightly wet concrete and blades of grass drooped with the burden of raindrops weighing them down. Yet the sun shone brightly, unaware of the recent downpour, promising to evaporate the water.

Alright, so that's not a landscape and the imagery isn't horribly subtle, but at least I avoided including the rainbow, only suggested the environment in which one would appear. And it's not really a landscape, but I prefer smaller settings. It's supposed to represent a new hope, as opposed to the "dark, familiar gray" of life with her "horrible old husband." How very Kate Chopin.

2. Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just murdered someone. Do not mention the murder.

The moon was the only light now, and the house disappeared in the dark behind him as he approached the lake. There was not a single living creature to be seen, nobody witness his late night walk, but the quiet surface of the lake hid a teeming, hidden colony of probing eyes and ears. The sky was overcast with the grayish clouds of nighttime, making the lake look almost a sinister black. He tried to picture the freedom of happy vacationers skiing on top of the water, laughing and splashing in the gentle wake, but the images remained hazy and distant in his mind. Only a deep, cold abyss laid at his feet.

How dramatic! I tried to include some feelings of guilt and paranoia and hopelessness. Nothing says hopeless like a big ole black body of water. But it seems very much like a werewolf should come out of the woods at any moment and gobble him up. I sort of was picturing how I picture the lake at Hogwarts, also, which might have affected my vision. haaa

3. Describe a landscape as seen by a bird. Do not mention the bird.

The mountains peaked through the clouds, emphasizing the alluring mystery of exclusive mountaintops. The snow remained untouched and untainted, a pure white blanket concealing the years of geographical history underneath. Trees stood defiantly in the seemingly uninhabitable terrain. They appeared almost impertinent. How dare the trees reach even higher than the mountains? How far above sea level is far enough?

That's all I got for this one. Like I said, I don't like big areas. It overwhelms the reader and the writer both, trying to envision so much makes each description less powerful. Even trying to describe an entire mountain range (which I've never seen in person and there's none in Harry Potter except perhaps when Hagrid visits the giants) is quite an undertaking, and so I personified a small detail--the trees--and left the rest pretty vague and cliched.

Well, my writer's block remains a formidable foe, only granting me a few mere paragraphs. But it's better than nothing and allows me to feel less blogger's guilt.