Bounce and Roll

There is little better, in the day of a writer, than being able to bounce your ideas off a friend. Nothing more distracting, either. And, sometimes, it’s downright amusing. What follows is a snippet of a chat log between myself and my writing buddy, Jennifer Burke, where we just rolled with it.

Note: This exchange could easily have been the other way ‘round. I probably ‘craft’ more terrible sentences than Jenn does and when it comes to purpling it up, she’s got talent.

Jenn: Jfc, Jenn, that’s the stupidest sentence you’ve ever written.
Jenn: “He reached into the reserves of the magically enhanced physical prowess that made him a Knight.”
Jenn: No. No. Bad Jenn.
Kelly: I don’t see what’s wrong with it.

Let’s pause here.

Really, Kel? You didn’t see what was wrong with that sentence?

No, I didn’t. I suppose it could be described as a little wordy and overly descriptive. But I’ve read worse in published novels. Much worse. And sometimes you have to put down all the words so you can see them, right? Then you can choose the ones to keep or swap.

Jenn: It’s just so purply.
Jenn: Magically enhanced physical prowess
Jenn: It’s just….
Jenn: Magically delicious!
Jenn: And then you add prowess
Kelly: I guess.
Jenn: And now I’m thinking of leprechauns and rainbows and big dicks.

I was already there.

Jenn: (magically delicious is the jingle from Lucky Charms, the marshmallow cereal with the leprechaun and rainbows…)

Being from Australia, I’m not always familiar with American jingles. Little did Jenn know I already had this one wheeling through my head with rainbows and x-rated marshmallow shapes.

Jenn: Was kidding
Jenn: I’m not kissing any wads

Jenn chats to me using Swype. Some of her best autocorrects have become a permanent part of our vernacular.

Kelly: He reached into the throbbing font of power, enhanced by the supernova of magic available to all knights…
Jenn: And now we’re back to prowess and racing into his prowess…
Kelly: His muscles rippled in response.
Jenn: And there’s the wad
Jenn: Right there, on the flour

I’m still not sure where the wad came from, but I was on a roll.

Kelly: A wad flew from his lips as a primal grunt raced up from his lungs.
Jenn: Which is on the floor
Kelly: and landed on the floor.
Kelly: which was dusted with flour.
Kelly: Strike that.
Kelly: Which was dusted with the flour of excess magic. He had so much.
***Kelly is laughing.
Kelly: See, your version doesn’t seem so bad now.
Jenn: Then he slipped on the flour, and fell on the floor…
Kelly: and spun on his back, executing a perfect break dance move.
Jenn: And then she fell too, right onto his magically delicious prowess
Kelly: Colours shooting from his fingers.
Kelly: (two kinds of people)
Jenn: Lololol

We wrote a whole novel together. Yep. We’re still editing it. No, there are no Lucky Charms inside the covers.

What are friends for?