3.12.2012

Feeling Fruity - writercize #164

This weekend I attended another fabulous workshop hosted by Nutschell Windsor, known in the blogging world as The Writing Nut, and in real life as the founder of the Children's Book Writers of LA, among her many hats. As usual, I walked away inspired, with a writercize or two that formed in my head while there.

Last year at the March meeting, Nutschell encouraged writers to start a blog as a way to get writing and build a platform. Since she is brilliant, I heeded her advice and writercize was born. It is unbelievable to me that an entire year has passed, and even more unbelievable to think that I would not have met several of you bloggers from all around the world whom I now consider friends.

This weekend's meeting was all about voice, style, tone, and ... description, which is where I am taking you on today's writercize. 

Nutschell challenged everyone to expand their linguistic capabilities with description. Not the type of long, drawn out description that brings boredom and tears to the readers' eyes, but the type of description in which the writer carefully selects his/her words to most accurately portray whatever s/he is talking about and incorporates it directly into the action of the story. She had us play around with taking nouns and verbs to the next level to spark interest, and reflect on the five senses in general. 

I want to apply the concept of description to a particular item that is guaranteed to stimulate each and every one of the five senses.

writercize: Using all five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch) describe a piece of fruit. 

If you are low on time, make a list. If you have a little time to spare, write it out in paragraph form.

Please share your writercize experience as a comment!  I always love to see what readers come up with!

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response about a lemon.
writercizer sample response:

Even with my blindfold, I can picture the sunburst yellow of the fruit I have picked from the bowl. The faint scent of tart citrus floats to my nose. The bumpy exterior, shaped like an unfortunate miniature football that has been spiked a few too many times, confirms that while a member of the citrus family, this is no orange or grapefruit that I hold. This is a zesty lemon with the power to pucker.

16 comments:

  1. I will work on this prompt when I have more time but for now I want to congratulate you on being nominated for the Kreatif and Sunshine awards. go to
    http://clarbojahn.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/won-the-kreatif-and-sunshine-awards/
    for the rules and to pick up the awards.
    Congrats, Clar

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    1. Hooray! Doing a happy dance. :) i will get it up on my blog ASAP. Thank you, Clar!

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  2. Once small white flowers that covered the tree, it slowly grows as the months pass. In the Spring it is appears to be a large green gumball as the blooms fall. It smells like breakfast outside and takes over the dewy air of the morning. Ah, but by fall the color lightens to a light orange. As I pull it off the tree, the branches begin to shake and it feels like a baseball in my hand. I carefully start to open the thick peel, and it sprays with a "Woosh". Careful not to get the spray in my eyes I continue to peel as the color of a ruby is revealed. Taking one sliver in my hand...the first bite. Sweet, juicy and delicious is a red orange off my tree :)
    (I'm actually in the blossom stage now but I had to go with the story. ha ha)

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    1. Beautiful. Love the spray, the ruby color, the comparison to a gumball. This is great. Thanks so much for sharing!

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  3. Here is my own, personal experience with a fruit that many of you may never have seen.

    The yellow-orange pod looked like just another exotic fruit. Who knew that this unassuming, oblong object could fuel the passions and imaginations of an entire planet? In a way, it almost resembled a small melon but without the hollow "thump" when tapped. The skin was smooth but the overall shape, with its lengthwise ridges, made it more like an eight-inch football than a honeydew. The aroma it exuded upon opening was delicate and quite fruity, belying what was yet to come.

    Inside, the translucent, milky white, mucilaginous pulp surrounded the 3/4-inch seeds. This peach-smooth pulp was another deceptive aspect of the fruit: not at all as anyone would expect. The refreshing taste was like lychees, pears and citrus, all at once.

    The whitish seeds, however, were my actual quarry. THEY were the REAL source of the food of the gods. I spread them out in the sun to ferment and dry for a couple of weeks, then carefully roasted them in my oven.

    Once ground up and cooked in some hot milk with some sugar, they made some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had!

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    1. Really? This is what a cocoa fruit looks and tastes like? You've eaten the flesh of the cocoa? Fascinating. I learned something new. Thank you!

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    2. The neighbours of a friend of mine even has a pair of cacao trees in their front yard as part of their landscaping. One of these days, I really need to ask them if they wouldn't mind letting me take some cacao. I'm not even sure if they even use them for themselves, since the trees were actually there from the house's previous owners. I'd love to take the next step and go beyond the drinking chocolate to longer grinding and the addition of sugar to make eating chocolate. It's probably not something I would do a lot, but it would be great to try at least once.

      Here are a couple of links to some sites with good cacao pictures:
      http://pinecrestgardenguy.blogspot.com/2011/09/grow-your-own-chocolate-why-not-cacao.html
      http://cocoaphilippinesblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/mature-cacao-trees-brgy-balatas-naga.html
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/stylurus/6414806369/

      Interesting: the location of that last picture is only a few miles from me.

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    3. Very cool! Thanks so much for sharing. If you ever do make the homemade eating chocolate, you will have to let me know how it turns out.

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  4. It is there. Blood red fading to a burnt orange, it invites you to pick it up. As your hand folds around it, the furry skin tickles your palm. You bring it up to your face to admire Solomon's perfumed garden. And yet, the fragrance is like that of no other. Sweet and light, it is what you have waited for all summer.

    There is a soft crunch as you bite down through the fur, the dark yellow flesh and sticky effluent cover your tongue. It fills your mouth and begins to dribble down your chin. Your fingers greedily scoop the excess and you share it with your partner....

    Peaches are like that.

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    1. Yes! A peach! I was trying to figure it out in that first paragraph between the vivid colors and the furry skin. I couldn't quite figure it out, but once I read the last sentence, it was absolutely right on target. You would be a great riddler ... A perfect description with a hint of a challenge to figure out just what it could be.

      Craving peaches now ....

      Thanks for sharing!

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  5. You've only been blogging a year? You have developed a very good style and content stream in that time.


    Lee
    An A to Z Co-Host
    Tossing It Out
    Voting for A to Z Video Contest Now Open

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    1. Oh my gosh, Lee, I am honored that you would say that. Thank you. :)

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    2. Agreed, Lee! I would have never guessed that Writercize has been up for only one year so far. It's one of very few blogs that gets me to write at times when I really don't feel like writing. I never expected it to yield that kind of power over my weekly writing habits! lol.


      The Madlab Post

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    3. Aw, shucks. You guys are making me blush.
      Thank you for that boost. :D

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  6. It was fuzzy and I didn't know quite what to do with it. Of course, I'd had fuzzy fruit before, peaches and apricots come to mind, but that disturbingly animal-like brown fur made me shudder in anticipation of the prickle in my mouth. I rasped my thumb gently across the fur, caressing the fruit like some tiny, skittish creature.

    "You don't eat the skin," she said, slightly impatient. She reached over and cut the small brown ball neatly in two.

    Bright, vibrant green grinned up at me; the sprinkling of tiny black seeds like a star-burst in an alien sky.

    I raised the fruit to my lips, sniffing at the acidic tang that drifted into my nostrils. Flicking out my tongue, I took the smallest of tastes, barely catching the droplet of juice that had formed along the slice.

    My taste buds exploded; sweet and bitter, lemon and green apple and every sour candy I'd ever eaten all wrapped up in one flavor that evoked the same bright, neon green as the fruit's juicy center.

    I decided that I loved Kiwi.

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    1. You are so right on with the flavor - I never thought of it that way, but it really does encapsulate all of those tastes. Amazing.

      I am loving all of these fruit descriptions, but man, are they making me hungry! :)

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