"Publish or Perish"

Dialog Exercise

Jimothy and Steve

Jimmy ran out of his house. Of course, his parents didn't chase after him, but instead locked to door behind him. Jimmy ran all the way through town and into the next. The next town over was more of a farming town, which Jimmy enjoyed looked at. He would watch the cows and horses run around in the fields. He would also sometimes run into the fields of corn and steal some for dinner.

Jimmy was admiring the baby cows to his left when he hit the ground. He got up immediately, "Watch it! I was running!"

"Why?" the man on the horse said. It took Jimmy a solid minute and twenty-three seconds to realize what the man said. Jimmy just couldn't get over the man's funny hat.

"My dad told me to do my homework and I didn't wanna do it but he said he would take away my gameboy and so I went to go get a pop from the fridge and I saw that there was no pop so I just took one of my dad's drinks and it was real good so I took another and did my homework and then my momma asked me how I did it so fast and then I took the cigarette out of her mouth and smoked it like she does and she yelled at me so I ran out of the house and now I am here."

Jimmy said this all without taking one single breath. The man on the horse was amazed at the little jittery boy he had just hit with his horse. The man was going to say something, but Jimmy chimed right back in.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"Because," Jimmy didn't really hear what he said, but he didn't want any space in between the man's words and his.

"What's your name?"

"Vincente."

"Why?"

"Why what?"
"Why is your name Vincente?"

"Because that's the name my mother gave me."

"Well, I don't like it. I'm going to call you Steve,"

"That's not my name,"

"Steve, don't cut me off." Steve looked at Jimmy waiting for him to continue. It wasn't like he was going to say much anyway.

"Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?"

"What's your name?"

"Jimothy. Most people just call me Jimmy. I don't know why my name is Jimothy, but there was this kid in the fourth grade with a name Timothy. We called ourselves 'Jimothy and Timothy' and we wanted to have a television show, but my dad told me to grow up."

"Well, that's a nice name."

"Why do you talk funny?" Steve stared at Jimmy as the old memories passed through is head.

"When my wife and I were robbed, I tried stopping them and they knocked all my teeth out. When I realized what had happened, it was too late for my wife." Jimmy hesitated.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"She's dead." Jimmy's eyes widened.

"That's real unfortunate. I'm sorry, Steve." Silence filled the open fields.

"Shouldn't you be heading home?"

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"My dad will probably shoot me in the side of the head...figuratively."

"That's not something you should joke about."

"Why can't I come where you're going?"

"Because that's not a place where little boys like you should be."

"Why? Will there be guns? Or bombs!"

"No." Steve pat the side of his horse and whispered in its ear. Jimmy had never seen someone talk to a horse and command it that way. But, the horse did what Steve must have wanted it to, because it began to move along the road.

"Where are you going?" Jimmy called out. Steve didn't answer, but instead left Jimmy alone in the middle of farming fields. It was getting dark, and as much as Jimmy tossed around the idea and the possible dangers,

Jimmy ran after Steve.

Description Exercises

The Writing Room

The walls were so off-white it was as if they let a bunch of second graders come in and put their dirty hands on them. The computers seemed too old to use, but that didn't bother me too much because my hands were too small for the keyboards anyway.

The lighting was dim and the lack of sunlight made me feel like it was raining outside. To add to that, it was extremely cold in the room. It was excessively cold outside to begin with, but now inside too? Forget rain, it was fucking Antarctica.

One of the things that I admired about the room was the lack of noise. I am one of those people who cannot stand it being too quiet, but this kind of silence was more tolerable. It was quiet enough to concentrate, but not too quiet where I felt alone.

As I glanced around another time I knew that this was the perfect place to write my great

American novel.

The Coffee Man

I hadn't heard much about him before. I had seen him once when my friend left her water bottle in his class, but that was about it. The only thing I had heard was from her and she said he was a little...out there.

As we piled into the room, he just stood in the front behind his computer. Music was faintly coming out from the medium sized laptop's speakers. From a distance, I only noticed that his clothes were dark and his hair was longer.

When the last bell rung, he stopped the music and began to stroll around the room. No one really spoke, so all you could hear was the heavy steps he took.

His voice was deeper than I expected, and the closer he got, the more I wanted to sink

into my seat.

As he got closer to me, I noticed that he had a cup of coffee in his hand, and that his shoes had heels on them. He probably needed the heels because the coffee caused him to stop growing. Or that's just how he was. I decided I would listen to my first idea about his height, so I could tell myself that he wasn't as scary as I assumed.