Thing

Here is a working draft of a piece by Daniel Mignault: 

The ground shuddered, and the face rose, an impassive death mask shifting to sudden surprise - sudden fear - before the thunder from my copper wire wracked its features and dragged the humanity out of him (or it). The rest, arms crossed, slowly arose, totem-like, from the earth, and soon I had a corpse - standing straight up, rigid, awaiting my command. The hole in my hand crackled, and the shed tooth (not mine - my new friend's) in my mouth melted away like enamel ice cream. "Come on," said I, "Little no-more-dead friend." He groaned, but complied, voice not yet coming and body still stiff as a rod.

As I walked, more new friends - decaying, crumbled, a few without eyes - came out of the earth as I ate more teeth. The flavor, sweet and bitter, like honeyed wine and parsley in my mouth, was at once horribly saccharine and disgustingly acidic, but I persevered. The same came when the night watchman entered the circle, shouting, and I cut him down with the sharp end of my rusted shovel. And my sweet dead scions fed on his remains, which I graciously gifted to them. Consciousness would return in three days, and they might be horrified at that point - at needing flesh to live - but they'd thank me later, because they'd need flesh to live forever.

I was a messenger now, bringing immortality, and the world would not be returning my gift. They'd learn to love it. Eventually.

Optional Prompt for 3/23 and 3/29

So, SUNY Purchase is on Spring Break during the last week of March, so we will not have class on the 23rd or 30th. If you would like to work on things during the break, there are a couple of things you could do: some of you have started writing pieces and could continue working on those; some of you might not have done this yet. If you haven't, I suggest you go through your writings for the class thus far, and see if there are any prompts you would like to turn into a more developed piece, and to start that.

What We're Doing (aka, the syllabus)

This semester, we're going to be thinking a lot about character. We will be touching on other forms, including poetry. Each class will introduce a new concept or technique and have an accompanying exercise, but students are also given time to develop one or two pieces that they may spend more time on drafting, revising, and polishing. They can share those pieces at the reading and in our literary journal, which will go up at the end of the course.

Week

1. Introduction
2. Character
3. Villains
4. No Class, 3/23
5. No Class, 3/29
6. Dialogue, Pacing.
7. Poetry
8. Practice Reading, read-through: Please print out your pieces and bring them to class! (This would also be a good day for Nerd Jeopardy, just FYI)
9. Reading: Please invite your family and friends to this event! There will be a short reception after.

CWI, Spring, 2013, Week One

Welcome to the spring semester of CWI!

I want to give you guys a chance to share your work with each other, even if you didn't read it in class. The prompt for today was to write a scene, sketch, or short-short story, that reveals through shows what the character wants. If you'd like to share, you can post your pieces in the responses below.

See you next week!