pollen prompt

today i participated in a workshop on creative editing, and ironically it was pretty tired, but one good thing that came from it was that we did a short creative writing exercise which produced a blog post. the exercise itself was tired... draw a piece of paper, paper has a prompt, write for 8 minutes on the prompt. other people got prompts like "dream come true" and "one fine day". i got...

pollen? well. good on me. with writing prompts, i prefer material to ethereal. here's what i wrote:

twice a year, pollen is the bane of my whimsy. pollen forces me to drive with windows up and sunroof firmly shut, because pollen completely fills the air and the air fills my lungs, so by the mathematical law of (association?) -- pollen fills my lungs. pollen is literally worse in middle tennessee because of geography -- middle tennessee is in a geographical bowl. the bowl limits air movement and so traps pollen. when i was a child, pollen didn't bother me -- but now my lungs are older... and pollen is worse! all these bradford pear trees -- that were all the rage in the 90s -- are simply little pollen factories. have you ever smelled a bradford pear in bloom? smells like fired catfish.

twice a year - in autumn and spring - pollen is more prevalent. in the spring, it's obvious that things are growing - case in point, the aforementioned bradford pears. in the autumn, new growth isn't as obvious... maybe it's plant dust in the fall, not pollen. unless plant dust can be pollen? what is pollen, anyway? i always assumed it was a byproduct of plant growth. maybe i'm wrong about that -- but i am certainly right about this -- pollen, my bane, is zyrtec d's boon.

those 8 minutes of writing just about made my hand fall off. i can't believe i used to write for literally hours. research papers, book reports, original themes, essay tests and exams. all those take longer than 8 minutes - by a long shot.

it's not an impressive piece of writing, but it's got it's tiny gems. trees that smell like catfish. the bane-boon dichotomy. those are keepers.

it's interesting how long it takes to write anything worth reading. not that THAT happens here, in this blog. nah. these posts are more along the lines of 8-minute output... although i generally spend much longer than that, it doesn't particularly show. how long would it take to write something worth reading? depends on the writer's talent, sure, but no matter your talent level, you've got to get the ideas out there, and then you've got to go back and shape them up, reorganize, draw the sense out or put the sense in. a good blog post could easily take several focused hours.

me? i don't have that kind of time to spare. plus, it's not exactly my goal here. i am primarily trying to spend a few minutes several times per week exercising my brain. i want to write something interesting, sure. i want people to read this and enjoy it, but i can't afford the time to invest in actually making that happen.