The Writers Guild

With many of us being stuck indoors and socially isolated, I'd like to extend the opportunity to participate in a descriptive writing exercise. This isn't a contest, just a club activity. The theme is up to you, the individual writer, but what you write should be descriptive in nature. You can choose to simply write about what's around you, or you can make something up. Be sure to really use all of your senses. I'd like the readers to feel like they are there with you.

Anyone is welcome to join this exercise. I know I'm going stir-crazy and could use an outlet, so why not do this together? I'd love to see what you all come up with. There's no specific length. If you'd like to share your work publicly, you are more than welcome to post it here. If you'd rather have a designated partner to share your work with, we can do that too. 

Please remember, this is simply meant to be a fun little creative outlet. Critiques are only allowed if the author asks for them.

Morena clutched herself and shivered as she stared up at the moon. Was the moon really so menacing, or was it human nature to push one's emotions onto something else, to experience loss and heartbreak and to see it reflected in the blind, shivering moon? In any case, the wind was cold. Though spring was edging over the hills by day, during the nights it burrowed underground, folding up its flowers and tucking itself away.

It was time to tuck herself away, too. She shouldered open the door to the balcony and shut out the moon. Only a fire lit her way here, full of fury and the constant sense of loss as it devoured the very thing that created it. She bit her tongue taking in the smell of smoke and grimaced as it mixed with blood. A shudder and a swallow and it was gone, leaving her alone with the dim simmering fire, still shivering as she huddled into the smoke-swaddled easy chair. A scratchy blanket calmed the shakes, and it began to work its way through her heart, weaving a path with the lingering scent of her cats that had passed years ago, the bristle of a stray hair, the ping of a long-ago shed claw.

She wept. She was part of these old things, and soon she would be nothing more than a few hairs and fading scent on a blanket. Her body was the fire, cancerous cells eating themselves in a desperate bid for existence. Her body was the moon, nothing but the reflection of a spring she would never live to see. Oh, how she wanted to see her husband again, but how could she believe in such things, surrounded by death and age? She wanted to go outside again, but her frail body could not handle the cold. She was no longer part of the spring, part of the regrowth and renewal. She was a collection of bones in a closet.

The light clicked on. The fire receded, shadows growing dimmer. She saw her hand on the switch, but did not remember flicking it. A breeze blew through the window, tickling her nearly pure white hair. She almost tasted spring, the scent of flowers was so strong. She curled again into her chair, gnarled hands clutching at the blanket that suddenly seemed almost soft. It smelled of comfort, of home, of sweet forgotten things and an acceptance that one day soon she would be gone. She would not leave the world with nothing. She would sink into the earth with her memories, let them out into the cool soil she could no longer feel, so that she would not be one of the forgotten things. It would carry her to bed, carry her to her dreams, carry her to the land of the old so that the new could return with the spring. She would be a dream. She would be a dream.


I'm not really sure where this came from. I really just let the words flow where they wanted to go. It's a bit darker than I wanted it to be, and doesn't entirely flow or make sense, but I'm rather happy with it. If anyone has any critiques, I'd love to hear them!

I apologize if this is a little rough, it's been a while since I've had any inspiration to write so I just went with it. Happy reading. Critiques are welcome, though please message them to me.

The metal music blared from the speakers of her parents’ white suburban van as she carefully lit a stick of Dragon’s Blood incense and balanced it in the slots of one of the air conditioning vents. Her High School graduation cap tassel and various brightly colored Mardi Gras beads hung from the rearview mirror, swinging wildly as she took a sharp left onto Main Street nearly at speed. Several car horns blasted but she didn’t care; she was on a mission. Deftly, she pulled into the media store’s parking lot and snagged a premium parking spot right up front.

As she slid out of the driver’s seat, she pulled her ponytail tighter and made sure her chain wallet was securely attached to a belt loop and snug in her back pocket. She carelessly thrust her cell phone into her right pocket and kept her keys in her left hand, the keyring resting around the middle finger. 

She loved the smell of the store. The smell of new books, brewing coffee, and baked treats sent her heart into overdrive as music rang out from the music section of the well-lit shop. It was her favorite place to hang out in the afternoons, but today was more exciting than others. Her favorite author had released a new book of her favorite series, and she had just gotten paid for the week. 

She didn’t need to wander the store to find what she was looking for; she simply strode up to the café counter and ordered a white chocolate peppermint frappe with a double shot of espresso. After giving the barista her name, she went straight to the paranormal genre of the book section and quickly located the author’s name. It took only a few minutes to scan the books to find the correct title. Quickly snapping up the book, she stared at the cover art in near bliss as she wandered back to the café never once looking up to see where she was going. Just as she arrived back at the counter, her order was ready; after all, it wasn’t the first time she’d made such a trip. At this point, she was almost a regular. Half of the store staff knew her by sight, if not by name.

She grinned happily at the cashier as she paid for her coffee and book, anxiously picking at her already chipped black nail polish. She couldn’t wait to get started on the rest of her afternoon, and she had a feeling it was going to be a great one.

Last edited on 2020-04-15 at 09:36:45 by Mouse

some things I'd like to mention beforehand:
- Moose and Lincoln Buerns are the same person, Moose is his nickname
- there is absolutely none of it in the actual writing, but the word "abusive" is stated towards the end, so if reading that part would upset you in any way then please just skip this one and read the other things people have posted here :)
- this character has a whole lot of story behind him so I am very aware that this might not make much sense without context
- this was meant to focus more on the senses but it kinda strayed away from that whoops




The wrapper of his final nutrition bar floated down to take its place amongst the others at the bottom of his backpack, which was now undoubtedly home to a disgusting amount of crumbs. Its owner couldn't care less, though, as he stared out the bus window at the storefronts of the tiny old city they were breezing through, picking at the oddly-patterned fabric of his seat as the excitement consumed him. He'd spent the last day and a half, plus the previous night and the night before that, jumping from public bus to public bus in order to reach his destination, and now he was finally almost there. He had lived entirely off of nutrition bars for nearly two whole days for this, went without anything more than a single water bottle for that same amount of time as to avoid having to break schedule and use the restroom more than a couple times for this, ran away from his father's house in Detroit at ten o'clock at night for this, took public transit from Michigan all the way to Virginia for this, swallowed his old bitterness and repeatedly thanked his stepsister for this. The payoff for all that was nearer than it had been at any point before, and even Moose couldn't push away the giddiness he felt.

He could see the bus stop up ahead. He kept his eyes glued to it as it grew closer, closer, until finally the bus' brakes pulled it to a halt. Moose jumped up like an excited kid upon arriving at an amusement park on a school field trip, slinging his guitar case strap over one shoulder and a backpack strap over the other before almost jogging down the center aisle to the door. He handed the driver a dollar as thanks before scrambling down the steps, only slowing his pace once his feet touched the sidewalk. He watched the bus as it began rolling again, its tires kicking up what little dust had come to settle on the old, cracked pavement as it rumbled away. The teenager took a moment to catch the breath he hadn't been aware he'd lost in his uncharacteristic ecstasy, taking in his surroundings as he stood there. There were only a couple other vehicles he could see in that strip of town, both of which were parked out front of defunct-looking shops. Upon beginning to walk down the sidewalk towards where he was ultimately headed, he grew closer to one of those shops, and when he crossed in front of  it he realized that it was in fact open, just very dark inside. The sign on the roof, which looked like it had at one time lit up, but probably didn't anymore, stated that it was a pawn shop, though the various posters and advertisements of pawn shop nature facing out from the insides of the windows kind of gave that away themselves.

Before long, Moose could see the edge of the city coming into sight; the road he was walking alongside continued on through the approaching trees with cracked asphalt that continually dropped in quality, but it looked to be the last sign of development for quite a while, as the looming forest surrounded it on both sides. He knew, however, that if he continued down it a ways, he would emerge into an even older part of the little city, the historic part of it, where his stepsister — his refuge — had come to live. And so he walked on.

Not too terribly long after the buildings had been replaced by woods, Moose noticed a large wooden sign up ahead on the opposite side of the road. He tried reading it, but the lettering had become impossible to decipher long ago, every word either too faded and chipped to read or completed rotted away. He figured it was probably a sign welcoming him to the town, though, which is what finally caused the reality and truths of the situation to reveal themselves to him. And he had hope. For the first time in a very long time, Lincoln Buerns had the smallest sliver of hope, and that hope is what carried him forward without once stopping until he reached the doorstep of the small house his stepsister was renting.

He did in fact pause before knocking on the door. He still felt the awkwardness of the prospect of sharing a residence with his abusive stepfather's daughter who he barely even knew. He wasn't immune to that. The hope couldn't do that for him. But it had gotten him that far, gotten him to that doorstep and allowed for him to even be in that awkward situation, and that was enough. Finally being free of his family wasn't going to be easy, and neither was knocking on Reena's door, but Moose was just glad he got the opportunity to. That was enough for him.

Last edited on 2020-04-15 at 12:06:02 by Raptor

I have another one. It doesn't flow quite as smoothly as the last one, but for a first draft I'm quite pleased.

Water reflects the mood of the sky. The ocean, the powerful ocean, was subject to the whims of the clouds that floated by. This was the sole thought of Marcy Brownes as she struggled to pull in the sail amidst waves that threw her tiny boat between themselves in a wild game of water polo. She’d always fancied herself a philosopher, but was this really the time to be thinking about that? Her gaze burned into the towering thunderheads, daring them to strike and dash her boat to pieces. If not now, when? When she floated among the remnants of her craft, waiting for the sharks?

Her train of thought broke as she crested a wave and plunged down the other side, her screams lost among the rain and tearing wind. She finally managed to lash the sail, but the wind still drove her from the top of one wave to another. There was no end to the sky, the water, the storm. There was only herself and her boat, clinging to a surface that roiled beneath them. It went on and on, each toss of waves sending shudders through both the craft and its occupant. Marcy struggled to return her thoughts to philosophy, but the jagged streaks of lightning and struggle to hold on were a bit of a barrier.

Then she remembered an old technique her therapist had taught her. Grounding. The smell of salt, the taste of rain, the cold that burned up and down her limbs, the gnawing sense of growing panic that removed all ability to be rational... Was grounding supposed to work even when there was no ground to stand on? But she was at a loss. No human, or human-made thing, could stand up to the might of a storm such as this. She let herself sink to the deck, clinging to cracks in the wood as the wind tried to pry her away. She wanted to let go, she was so tired, but something human in her made her hold on. Just a minute longer. It will pass. Just a little more. And so she rode out the storm, crumpled in a heap on her battered boat, weeping and shuddering until the dawn eased itself out of the east, and the sun burned the cold from her bones.

Marcy woke slowly. Not from sleep, but from a daze dark and dreary, a protective numbness that struggled to believe that she was alive. As her weary strength returned, she lifted her gaze to the horizon. Land! She wasn’t in the middle of the sea at all. Land! And within reach. And not just land, but buildings. Shattered buildings, trees torn up by the roots, boulders strewn about like pebbles. Sunlight streaming summer warmth. And an ocean as blue and pure as the sky above.

Again, critiques welcome!