Exercise Two: I Am Garcia Marquez (from Steering the Craft)
Assignment: write a paragraph to a page (150-350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices)
Exercise One, First Draft:
Exercise One, First Draft:
I remember how it used to be Heuwit thought to herself as
she slunk along the trash like a tired frog through the streets and the mud and
recalled with traces of her finger on the dirt or the wall or her gaze placid
and riveted to particular spots that now looked either nonexistent or on its
way and so her murky vision brought her to the fishmongers hoisting massive
ocean trout into the air with two roughened hands declaring a price slightly
lower than that last man proffered while to the corner opposite the spice
vendor danced tossing little smokes and powders into the air placing a better
bet on the visual as customers flocked for all sorts of ingredients for cooking
their seafood maintaining their glowing fragrant skin cleaning their garments
and men and women chattered and bought and haggled and dealt while beggars or
thieves or vendors or guards or assistants pushed through or scurried underfoot
and all of this in layers as right behind the fishmongers were more sprawling
out along the docks the wood planks stretching out in dozens of lines and
vendors taking station on their boats beside ships beside kayaks besides
cruisers and customers slid back and forth down these docks and if looked right
behind the spice vendor there were more shops and cafes set into stone or tree
or rug or roof some shouting some dancing some singing some strumming some
hoisting into the air and all of it lively and alive and there amongst it all
her father and mother tossing a little squirt up into the air and catching him
and Heuwit’s own voice to me to me and father’s stalwart grin heave ho catch
the trout before it slips back into the waters and a catch the kid brother
squirming and drooling like a fish caught and then opening his eyes and beaming
at her up into the chill air my squirt and up up up the seagulls caw like dark
birds and the walls are nothing but walls and the mud is mud and empty and the
kid brother is a darker shade of mist unfolding into the sky and the sounds of
ocean lapping at the broken and unpopulated marketplace.
