Ross Said:

Descriptive/creative story WRITING!?

We Answered:

I wrote these 4 essay's and they just may help.


"THE GREEN GREEN GRASS"

The doorbell rang and woke my baby up and I thought, “great another screwed up day with a cranky kid.” I am so sick of childcare consisting of 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. My husband told me I had to have this baby or get out. Sometimes I hate him, lately more often than not. He is bossy and controlling. I hadn’t even turned 21 before I made a major decision about marriage.

My husband is an anal retentive neat freak and he expects all things perfect all the time. He would come home and if the house were the least bit off he would start yelling and slamming the dishes as he put them in the dishwasher. If the lampshade were a sixteenth of an inch off, he would roll his eyes and correct it in front of me as if I was either to blind or too lazy to do it myself. He would use the leveler on furniture, pictures and the lamps to make sure everything was even all the time. I told him having a baby is going to upset his whole universal balance of cleanliness. My daughter’s first words besides “Mama” and “Daddy” were “fresh” and “clean”. Now the house is always in disarray and I hope the squalor chokes him.

The bell rings again, by this time the baby is screaming, the phone is ringing and the dog is going crazy at the door. Little dogs are so loud and obnoxious with their Napoleon complexes. Who is waking us so early in the morning? How rude! Is it another Jehovah’s Witness with their Watch Tower ideas or a Mormon to convert me to the altruistic ways of Joseph Smith?

My life sucks. I have an entire day of cleaning and childcare. How am I suppose to clean the house, wash the car with such a small child under foot? My daughter is into exploring everything. She finds every crease, crack and hole in the place. I have several loads of dirty laundry waiting for me with my name on it; same goes for the clean ones.

I tell my daughter no less than a hundred times a day to quit tormenting the dog let alone me. She does not want to listen to anybody. She is a bored and lonely child with no siblings. My husband just says “I was an only child too or that I should have had another baby,” like I am some kind of breeding machine.

I walk through the house to get to the door; glancing at all that needs to be done. The shower needs a good cleaning and I take a mental note of it. I want to do it before the mold starts to spread. The grout is a dingy color and it looks like it could use a good dose of Ajax. The mat on the bathroom floor is covered with towel lint and other vacuumable unmentionables.

Toilets have got to be one of the worse things on earth to clean, because I know darn well what people to do in there. It’s one thing to have to deal with you own stink let alone others. My feet are so cold, walking over the marble floors and of course they need mopped too. All four walls in the bathroom have brown stains on them, a mixture of hot steam and dirt blending together and dripping down. I wonder to myself what cleaner would take that **** off.

The kitchen has about 200 square feet of pure mess. The refrigerator needs to be cleaned. When it gets too dirty the butter starts picking up all the other odors in the fridge. It must be kept up constantly or everything will stink. The floors are all tore up because new tile is going in. There are two different kinds of laminate floor showing; one is an old yellow and brown seventies pattern mixed with the dirt that was buried with it years ago and the other is pink and white.

There is dust all over the chair, couch and bookshelves in the living room that must be close to an eighth of an inch thick from all the sanding going on. The family room is littered with hundreds of small toys in an assortment of bright annoying colors, red, green, blue splattered randomly all over the floor.

The carpet has stains galore. Pet stains, kid stains, food and drink stains. The carpet definitely needs to be vacuumed and steam cleaned. I seriously doubt that I can accomplish much with a kid undoing everything as I go along. My goal in life was not to be a life long servant, a cook and a maid. Isn’t there more out of life? I feel completely drained and ruined.

I opened the door to a crisp, clear day. The air is fresh and there is still dew on the grass. The street is quiet and a small white cat leaps into the air and lands on my front hill. There stood before me was a migrant worker. He was of small stature. His face looked as if he had wrestled with the harshness of the weather and lost. He wore a red and black flannel shirt that was much too hot for the day. He had silver in his teeth; which immediately caught my eye. He was smiling. Jesus, surely he can’t be happy. What’s there to be so happy about?

My husband came to the door at about this time. I knew my husband wanted the weeds pulled out and he was glad someone finally came by to do it. Spring is a wonderful season, a time for new growth and bright flowers. The rains, although limited this year, bring lots of weeds with it. There are two large hills with red apple planted. These hills had quite a bit of clover, crab grass and various weeds in them. There is a large flower bed in the back filled with plants like Lilies of the Nile and geraniums that someone saw fit to name after Martha Washington. In between these plants are weeds, weeds and more weeds. It seems never ending. He did these weeds for 70 dollars and I figured it would take him about 4 hours to finish.

After some time had passed, I glanced out the window to see how much was left to go. Watching him reminded me about a recent article I read in the Los Angeles Times about new comers to America. It talked about how recent immigrants are having major problems with housing issues.

The women that were interviewed in the article, spoke about how roaches and rodents caused rashes in their children and that their apartments are moldy. The tap water is the color of apple juice and they know it is not safe. They have been trying for two years to get the landlord to fixed the problems. They say they cannot make too much trouble for the fear eviction or worse deportation. There is really no place to go for most low-income tenants to go. The housing market is tight and their budgets even tighter.

Another woman spoke and says she shares a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Ana with 18 other people because she cannot afford anything else. It is now becoming commonplace to rent living room couches to sleep on for $200 a month. The city is trying to put limitations on the amount of people that can share a housing unit because of the strains it puts on the sewers; even the schools are drained.

Even more difficult is imagining life in a third world country. What circumstances brought them to such a far away place? In China, baby girls are left on the streets to die because each family is allowed only one child and the male child is of the utter most value. In Afghanistan women have no rights. Women are not allowed to be seen in this society and must be accompanied by a close male relative to even step outside. They must cover themselves from head to toe in burkas even in triple digit heat. Ice cream is forbidden because it is considered too erotic. Music is deemed evil because it causes people to lose control of themselves so no radio, instruments or singing. Beatings and death are not uncommon even for the most minor offenses.

In some parts of Africa girls undergo genital mutilations and are circumcised under the most excruciating and unsanitary conditions. In Eastern Europe, women are lured or kidnapped from their homes and forced into prostitution. They are forced into brothels and sex trades without the use of contraceptions to prevent pregnancy or disease. They basically become slaves until they are rescued or dead with the latter being the usual way out.

Life is brutal. So I wonder where this person has come from and how life in America is for him. The old adage that grass is always greener on the other side just has more manure.




A REASON TO BUY LOTTERY TICKETS

That day when Trina bought a lottery ticket from Maria had changed everything. That little peace of paper had a major impact on almost every main character that lived in the flat.

Winning five thousand dollars by Trina change everything for herself. She got married on McTeague so suddenly that I couldn’t believe that they made their decision about marriage so fast. And the wedding itself was something you wouldn’t like to miss where Marcus was making fun of McTeague who couldn’t distinguish champagne from beer. Her parent took of to a new place also at the same day. Trina found herself left alone with her new husband in their new place.

I guess Marcus was the first person whose life was affected by that lottery ticket. He was very upset when he started realizing that he is loosing Trina as a girlfriend. She was going out with his pal McTeague and Marcus didn’t like it, but he was hiding his emotions. And that ticket was last drop for Marcus. He started to treat McTeague differently day by day, and finally he let his anger out in salon where he was drinking and McTeague was seating behind him. He started it by screaming that he wants to get part of that five grands. Marcus broke McTeague’s pipe and almost stabbed him with his pocket knife. Than was that stupid fight in the park where McTeague broke his arm during his second attempt to wrestle down McTeague. And at the end Marcus slammed by the door before leaving by informing the City Hall that Mr. McTeague is doing his practice without graduating from a dental school. For loosing Trina and her money, Marcus decided to ruin McTeague’s life.

Trina was also affected by this money. Who could expect that she is going to be so greedy and so crazy about the money? First she became very angry at McTeague who signed papers for renting a house that she liked and wanted. They would have to pay the rent for the first month and she didn’t even want to help her husband to pay that money. She didn’t want to add some furniture to her house even though that she could afford it. But when she said that she couldn’t send fifty dollars to her mama whose husband’s business vent down was something that I will never understand. She even made McTeague to pay some share of that money which I guess she never send to her mom. And this is a person who actually has fife thousand dollars invested in her uncle’s toy business. But this is not all because she got even worst when her husband had to quit his dental practice. At the auction she even wanted to sell some things that were very close to McTeague, some things that came to his life far before Trina. Yes, it is true that now they would have to save money, but she could give a dime to her husband for a carfare in that raining day when she told McTeague gets out of the house and look for a new job. She even took McTeague’s money that he made and never gave it back to him. She still was making enough profit to fix their new home or move down to a better place from the investment interest and making toys for her uncle. She liked playing with her saving when she was alone, because Trina became possess by the money and idea of saving money. She turned into miser.

McTeague’s life was also changed. Before loosing his practice, he didn’t pay that much attention to Trina’s behavior about the money. He couldn’t believe that his lovely wife is so cheap. He still could afford good tobacco and a bottle of beer every day. Latter everything has changed for him because now he would have to depend on Trina. He started to dislike Trina day by day for her meticulousness. She didn’t even want to buy him a normal beer and tobacco that he usually liked because she said that they couldn’t afford it. McTeague couldn’t understand Trina’s behavior, and as a result he became brutal to her. At first he started raising his voice at her and then he started hurting her when she refused to give him some money for whisky. McTeague became a totally different person to Trina and to himself.

Zerkow is another example of greediness. I’ve never seen anybody possessed by the gold and stories about gold so sick and perverted. I don’t know why Maria was telling that story about gold set to Zerkow every time, but she grew a beast in Zrkow’s mind by doing that. She was telling him that story every time he asked her and nobody could expect what is going to happened from all that. Yes, it is true that Maria married Zerkow because for her he would be the only husband that she could possibly have. But nobody could realize that Zerkow married Maria for terrorizing her every day about that golden set. Even the death of their child didn’t stop Zerkow from poking about where Maria was hiding the golden set. Zerkow was sick about that gold set so much that at night he was looking for it in his apartment by digging the floor and the walls with a knife. Poor Maria later was killed by the monster that she’d created herself by telling a story about the golden set. And the monster killed him latter after realizing and understanding what he has done and became.

The only characters that were affected by that lottery ticket in a good way were Old Graniss and Mrs.Baker. After everyone was gone from the flat and Old Graniss sold his clinic, this couple finally started to talk to each other even though that they have been in love for a long time. Finally nobody could bother them and nobody could gossip about their strange love.




ALL IN A DAYS RIDE TO SCHOOL

Beep, beep! Billy’s ride honks outside of his house. Its horn gives off a nice homely sound. Billy buttons his jacket as he rushes out the door with his backpack in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. He opens up the minivan’s door to see his friend Joey sitting in the front seat. They say good morning as they turn the first corner onto the main street. Then the unthinkable happens.

As little Billy puts his seatbelt on, it locks in place and tightens immensely, pushing Billy into the back of his seat. It grows tighter and tighter until Billy can barely breath and is about to ask for help. Then Billy sees Joey and his mother turn towards him and laugh hysterically. They have evil in their faces and Billy is overcome with a sense of dread. He knows it is not looking good for him.

At the first stop light, Joey’s mom runs the red and cuts off three cars, She laughs out loud and says, “Damn them crazy drivers. Muahahahha.” They are going 120mph now and weaving in and out of traffic. Joey’s mom gets the back of her car clipped but acts like nothing happened. They spin out and she laughs histerically. She straitens it out and goes on. Mother and son are now in a psychotic trance and nothing can break their concentration. Joey has his eyes in the newspaper and Joey’s mom has her face against the windshield. They are both smiling and tense.

The next light is different. Joey’s mom slams on the brakes and both children go flying forward. Joey doesn’t even seem to notice. He just keeps on reading his paper. Joey’s mom taps the gas; ready to zoom off the instant the light turns green. Billy is about to jump out the window when his seat belts pull him back to the seat once more. With a mad burst of acceleration, the minivan is off again.

Joey’s mom starts chanting in a foreign language. Then she and Joey start yelling at each other or chanting together in that same language. Billy can’t tell. All he can do is close his eyes as the traffic goes whizzing past their car. He is sure they will instantly die. Maybe not…he peeks through his hands and sees the school’s opening 500 yards ahead. Billy sees a glimmer of hope through his overwhelming fear of death.

Screeeech! The car’s tires skid out as the van goes on two wheels and turns into the school. It heads strait for a traffic coordinator as it skids to a halt. He shoots both his hands up over his face, closes his eyes, and makes a half turn to his side. The van stops inches within his legs. Billy peeks through his own hands in the same position. He blinks seeing the evil Joey and his mother. Then he comes out of the blink so see the van back into a family car and Joey and his mother normal. The seatbelt unbuckles and goes limp and the van’s doors open. Billy grabs his stuff and stumbles out of the door, shaken. The bell for first period rings and Billy starts to walk towards the front of the school to class. He thinks he is finally safe and it was all a dream. Then Joey’s mom says, “See you again tomorrow Billy. MUAHHAHAHAHAH.”




Descriptive Writing of Family Weekend

The sun shined bright and blazed hot that summer, a summer more than a few years back but not at all that long ago. In the San Joaquin Valley is where our tale lies...surrounded by mountains and rolling hills where you see grazing cattle meandering in an ever coil up the steep golden rises, here perched on the side of a treacherous highway sits a large Flea Market. This market has an unmistakable giant red barn and when days are good the place is filled to the brim with customers and the sounds of haggling, rambunctious children, and their parent’s scolding remarks.

Every weekend the Canezales family would set up their two stands, one for the fruit and vegetables that Antoinetta picked from her garden and cluster of fruit trees at their meager home, and the second, a couple stands down and across, was where Marcos would make and repair zapatos. Now their other children were older and either had families of their own or worked for other farms. But their youngest, who was about eleven, helped them down at the Flea-market. His name was Poncho or Ponchito depending on who addressed him. He always sang in ‘spanglish’ while he played a cheap little guitarra to entice people to come buy his mother’s good produce. His mother was a polite and slightly talkative middle-aged woman whom everyone loved mostly because she was down to earth and treated people as if they were of her own flesh & blood. No one was a stranger in her eyes. Marcos, stern yet humorous like many good fathers, was quite skillful at making and repairing shoes even though it was a side job of his. He regularly worked as a mechanic at a friend’s car garage during weekdays. The couple made just enough to fill their families bellies and buy decent clothes ever so often but the love they shared filled in many, if not all, of the gaps in their tattered finances.

One busy market day Antoinetta was tending her stand surrounded by a couple fresh baskets of lettuce, one of peaches, one filled with tomatoes, and another of various chili peppers. As usual Ponchito was strumming his slightly out-of-tune guitar to the likeness of an estranged version of the Three Blind Mice and singing: “Te apetece comas algo? Are you hung-ung-gry? Mi madre tenas fruta.....y verduras sign se vende!” Between songs about his mother’s fruit, Ponchito would usually blaze into ‘La Bamba’ and folks would gather around and delight in the boy’s enthusiasm and his proud mother’s smile. This time though an arrogant older woman hobbled over. At that very same moment it seemed like a stray cloud from the parched sky passed under and blighted the bright sun. She wasn’t Mexican even though she had a similar complexion and a similar curl yet more tightly wound. She looked like one in her mid-sixties trying to look young but obviously overcompensating. . Her thick coat of make-up barely hid the wrinkles around the eyes & mouth that come from smoking while cheaply dyed hair crowned the Picasso face with its witch-like features. Below her abnormally long & sharp nails, writhing around her aged fingers were works of strange jewelry wrought with an ancient and long forgotten style. Her eyes were of a curious hue and the brows above fiercely stung, sharp and snake-like.

Antoinetta had never noticed this lady before but so many strangers come and visit that it wasn’t too uncommon; still this woman’s cold presence could be felt. The old woman gawked around the stand with cigarette holder in-between fingers so very tall & skinny and stopped in front. “Are you the Antoinetta who sells her homegrown produce?” rapped the skinny old ***** in a raspy voice. “Why yes” answered Antoinetta in a thick Spanish accent. “May I help you with anything? She nervously exclaimed.

“Maybe...Maybe” trailing off as she began picking up some lettuces. “Let’s see if you have what I need....hmmm” she muttered wickedly, and while groping the swollen fruit and vegetables she would toss them carelessly into what ever basket she fancied. Poncho had stopped playing partly in disgust and partly due to his lack of spark yet was unable to turn away like when watching a bad accident.

“Terrible, wretched stuff! Not a thing that I want! Much better things fifty years ago” cried the old woman. He himself was insulted but seeing the pained look on his mother’s face was the last straw. “Esuche! You impolite old bat!” he cried angrily. “First you squeeze and grope the stuff with your wrinkly hands and then you mix up the fruits vegetables! After this you have the nerve to screech that it’s all no good and terrible! Now no one in their right mind will buy our produce!”

With a hint of sass the over due prom queen shot an arrogant look at the boy and with a hoarse chuckle exclaimed: “so you like to shout and holler wildly, ooohhh you’ll be the one who goes ape.” At this moment the bitter wretch shot a gangly reach out to the helpless fruit and bit a ferocious chunk out, choked, and spat the pulp onto the dusty ground. “This fruit is disgusting! Wretched stuff has all gone rotten!

“Those long arms of your should be hacked off if you can’t be polite!” Poncho gasped with more fire than before. Antoinetta seeing that the spectacle was clearly out of hand and noticing that passers-by, growing like a cancerous mass, began to quickly surround the dipute gave a pardon in regards to her protective son and promised the witch what ever she desired as long as she would leave peacefully. So grabbing a bag full of peaches & tomatoes in her left hand, a special blend of different chili peppers in her right, and three heads of lettuce the woman began to slowly stroll away. Antoinetta, though upset about the incident, still had a warm heart and seeing the lady fumble around with the produce in her two bony arms was distressing. So she hollered aside to her son: “Ponchito, I want you to go and offer help to that woman!...and do whatever she asks of you.” Pleading he exclaimed, “Ma ma, pleeeeaase don’t make me!” but as soon as she put her hands behind her hips and gave him that “encouraging” stare he humbly sulked over to the woman who, by this time, had all of her belongings in disarray.

“Mi madre wants me to help you with your vegetables madam.” He said with his face to the ground. “So your mother wishes for her youngest to help carry my things? Humf.” She grumbled. “Well follow me out to the parking lot!” At this the boy picked up the sac of lettuce and moseyed through the multitudes of people.

I’m not sure if it was by chance or that the old lady wanted to park at the very rear of the lot but that’s where her old rusty station-wagon slumped. It was parked half crooked and when she started it up it smoked & backfired several times. When Poncho finished putting the fruit and vegetables away he heard his stomach rumble…he hadn’t eaten all day.

“Been working all day without lunch have you boy?” She eerily blurted. “Why ye-e-yes ma’am” Poncho replied warily. “Well you better come with me, I only live a few zigs and a zag away” The witch said with surprising sincerity. “I don’t know, mi madre might be upset if I come back late.” He exclaimed as a shy excuse. In a convincing and commanding manner she stung: “Nonsense, your mom told you to help me with my things and now I will need you to carry them from my car to the house. So what if you come back late? You will be nicely fed and by that time the market will be free of hubbub…I will even drop you off at the entrance.” So Poncho agreed and got in to the messy old car that looked as if hadn’t been driven in fifty years. Dead walnut leaves still clung to the hardened windshield wipers.

They drove for more than twenty minutes up strange twisted roads and back down around hill sides. They didn’t say any words, but mumbled to themselves… the strange gangly old woman looked as if she lusted to get back to her home by the way she clutched the wheel and by the appetite that hung in her captivating pupils. All of the spooky dirt paths that fork from the main road, the ones people shudder at when on unfamiliar mountain passages during twilight, were the ones that this dilapidated old car took. The last road (the one to her hut) steeply rose up for a bit and as they approached the top one could see that it leveled and emerged into an old and thick, unmanicured walnut orchard. Poncho rolled down his window to the sound of crunching leaves & night insects which, fooled by the artificial dark caused by the trees, were chirping and clicking wildly. He noticed the walnuts that hung in the branches and could see that they were all rotten; they seemed to crumble when sight caressed them.

The car rolled up into a decaying wooden shed covered in rusted tin and just before it ran through the other side it stopped abruptly. “Don’t forget to roll up the window boy!” the old woman hacked. As Poncho stepped out cobwebs plastered his face and strangled him with Closter phobia. He rushed out spitting and slapping the dusting old webs away. The old woman seemed to chuckle under her breath. “Now get my things and hurry inside!” Ponchito managed to get the fruits and lettuce that the woman had swindled from his mother and brought them to the front steps. The little house was once a teal now a dingy shade of its original color and chipping badly. The sad wooden shingles that covered the feeble home were covered in moss and lichens. The steps led into a filthy glassed in porch similar to those found in Victorian architecture. This one was filled with old trash, miscellaneous children’s clothes, eye-glasses, and mismatched shoes but when the entrance widened he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Bright tapestries weaved of truer and deeper colors than the rainbow lined the upper walls and other knick-knacks little Ponchito had didn’t recognize stood on beautifully crafted shelves. A heavy aroma of incense also awakened his senses as he dragged in the hoard; he slipped several times on the shiny glass floors that lined the brilliant inside. There were different areas of decorative style; some parts were furnished with Egyptian artifacts and furniture, Marble columns, much like the ones found in ancient Greece but the miniature, held up the corners of the house. Stuffed animals, now extinct, hung in cleverly decorated places and all seemed to contain some kind of plea in their eyes.

The sun shined bright and blazed hot that summer, a summer more than a few years back but not at all that long ago. In the San Joaquin Valley is where our tale lies...surrounded by mountains and rolling hills where you see grazing cattle meandering in an ever coil up the steep golden rises, here perched on the side of a treacherous highway sits a large Flea Market. This market has an unmistakable giant red barn and when days are good the place is filled to the brim with customers and the sounds of haggling, rambunctious children, and their parent’s scolding remarks.

Every weekend the Canezales family would set up their two stands, one for the fruit and vegetables that Antoinetta picked from her garden and cluster of fruit trees at their meager home, and the second, a couple stands down and across, was where Marcos would make and repair zapatos. Now their other children were older and either had families of their own or worked for other farms. But their youngest, who was about eleven, helped them down at the Flea-market. His name was Poncho or Ponchito depending on who addressed him. He always sang in ‘spanglish’ while he played a cheap little guitarra to entice people to come buy his mother’s good produce. His mother was a polite and slightly talkative middle-aged woman whom everyone loved mostly because she was down to earth and treated people as if they were of her own flesh & blood. No one was a stranger in her eyes. Marcos, stern yet humorous like many good fathers, was quite skillful at making and repairing shoes even though it was a side job of his. He regularly worked as a mechanic at a friend’s car garage during weekdays. The couple made just enough to fill their families bellies and buy decent clothes ever so often but the love they shared filled in many, if not all, of the gaps in their tattered finances.

One busy market day Antoinetta was tending her stand surrounded by a couple fresh baskets of lettuce, one of peaches, one filled with tomatoes, and another of various chili peppers. As usual Ponchito was strumming his slightly out-of-tune guitar to the likeness of an estranged version of the Three Blind Mice and singing: “Te apetece comas algo? Are you hung-ung-gry? Mi madre tenas fruta.....y verduras sign se vende!” Between songs about his mother’s fruit, Ponchito would usually blaze into ‘La Bamba’ and folks would gather around and delight in the boy’s enthusiasm and his proud mother’s smile. This time though an arrogant older woman hobbled over. At that very same moment it seemed like a stray cloud from the parched sky passed under and blighted the bright sun. She wasn’t Mexican even though she had a similar complexion and a similar curl yet more tightly wound. She looked like one in her mid-sixties trying to look young but obviously overcompensating. . Her thick coat of make-up barely hid the wrinkles around the eyes & mouth that come from smoking while cheaply dyed hair crowned the Picasso face with its witch-like features. Below her abnormally long & sharp nails, writhing around her aged fingers were works of strange jewelry wrought with an ancient and long forgotten style. Her eyes were of a curious hue and the brows above fiercely stung, sharp and snake-like.

Antoinetta had never noticed this lady before but so many strangers come and visit that it wasn’t too uncommon; still this woman’s cold presence could be felt. The old woman gawked around the stand with cigarette holder in-between fingers so very tall & skinny and stopped in front. “Are you the Antoinetta who sells her homegrown produce?” rapped the skinny old ***** in a raspy voice. “Why yes” answered Antoinetta in a thick Spanish accent. “May I help you with anything? She nervously exclaimed.

“Maybe...Maybe” trailing off as she began picking up some lettuces. “Let’s see if you have what I need....hmmm” she muttered wickedly, and while groping the swollen fruit and vegetables she would toss them carelessly into what ever basket she fancied. Poncho had stopped playing partly in disgust and partly due to his lack of spark yet was unable to turn away like when watching a bad accident.

“Terrible, wretched stuff! Not a thing that I want! Much better things fifty years ago” cried the old woman. He himself was insulted but seeing the pained look on his mother’s face was the last straw. “Esuche! You impolite old bat!” he cried angrily. “First you squeeze and grope the stuff with your wrinkly hands and then you mix up the fruits vegetables! After this you have the nerve to screech that it’s all no good and terrible! Now no one in their right mind will buy our produce!”

With a hint of sass the over due prom queen shot an arrogant look at the boy and with a hoarse chuckle exclaimed: “so you like to shout and holler wildly, ooohhh you’ll be the one who goes ape.” At this moment the bitter wretch shot a gangly reach out to the helpless fruit and bit a ferocious chunk out, choked, and spat the pulp onto the dusty ground. “This fruit is disgusting! Wretched stuff has all gone rotten!

“Those long arms of your should be hacked off if you can’t be polite!” Poncho gasped with more fire than before. Antoinetta seeing that the spectacle was clearly out of hand and noticing that passers-by, growing like a cancerous mass, began to quickly surround the dipute gave a pardon in regards to her protective son and promised the witch what ever she desired as long as she would leave peacefully. So grabbing a bag full of peaches & tomatoes in her left hand, a special blend of different chili peppers in her right, and three heads of lettuce the woman began to slowly stroll away. Antoinetta, though upset about the incident, still had a warm heart and seeing the lady fumble around with the produce in her two bony arms was distressing. So she hollered aside to her son: “Ponchito, I want you to go and offer help to that woman!...and do whatever she asks of you.” Pleading he exclaimed, “Ma ma, pleeeeaase don’t make me!” but as soon as she put her hands behind her hips and gave him that “encouraging” stare he humbly sulked over to the woman who, by this time, had all of her belongings in disarray.

“Mi madre wants me to help you with your vegetables madam.” He said with his face to the ground. “So your mother wishes for her youngest to help carry my things? Humf.” She grumbled. “Well follow me out to the parking lot!” At this the boy picked up the sac of lettuce and moseyed through the multitudes of people.

I’m not sure if it was by chance or that the old lady wanted to park at the very rear of the lot but that’s where her old rusty station-wagon slumped. It was parked half crooked and when she started it up it smoked & backfired several times. When Poncho finished putting the fruit and vegetables away he heard his stomach rumble…he hadn’t eaten all day.

“Been working all day without lunch have you boy?” She eerily blurted. “Why ye-e-yes ma’am” Poncho replied warily. “Well you better come with me, I only live a few zigs and a zag away” The witch said with surprising sincerity. “I don’t know, mi madre might be upset if I come back late.” He exclaimed as a shy excuse. In a convincing and commanding manner she stung: “Nonsense, your mom told you to help me with my things and now I will need you to carry them from my car to the house. So what if you come back late? You will be nicely fed and by that time the market will be free of hubbub…I will even drop you off at the entrance.” So Poncho agreed and got in to the messy old car that looked as if hadn’t been driven in fifty years. Dead walnut leaves still clung to the hardened windshield wipers.

They drove for more than twenty minutes up strange twisted roads and back down around hill sides. They didn’t say any words, but mumbled to themselves… the strange gangly old woman looked as if she lusted to get back to her home by the way she clutched the wheel and by the appetite that hung in her captivating pupils. All of the spooky dirt paths that fork from the main road, the ones people shudder at when on unfamiliar mountain passages during twilight, were the ones that this dilapidated old car took. The last road (the one to her hut) steeply rose up for a bit and as they approached the top one could see that it leveled and emerged into an old and thick, unmanicured walnut orchard. Poncho rolled down his window to the sound of crunching leaves & night insects which, fooled by the artificial dark caused by the trees, were chirping and clicking wildly. He noticed the walnuts that hung in the branches and could see that they were all rotten; they seemed to crumble when sight caressed them.

The car rolled up into a decaying wooden shed covered in rusted tin and just before it ran through the other side it stopped abruptly. “Don’t forget to roll up the window boy!” the old woman hacked. As Poncho stepped out cobwebs plastered his face and strangled him with Closter phobia. He rushed out spitting and slapping the dusting old webs away. The old woman seemed to chuckle under her breath. “Now get my things and hurry inside!” Ponchito managed to get the fruits and lettuce that the woman had swindled from his mother and brought them to the front steps. The little house was once a teal now a dingy shade of its original color and chipping badly. The sad wooden shingles that covered the feeble home were covered in moss and lichens. The steps led into a filthy glassed in porch similar to those found in Victorian architecture. This one was filled with old trash, miscellaneous children’s clothes, eye-glasses, and mismatched shoes but when the entrance widened he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Bright tapestries weaved of truer and deeper colors than the rainbow lined the upper walls and other knick-knacks little Ponchito had didn’t recognize stood on beautifully crafted shelves. A heavy aroma of incense also awakened his senses as he dragged in the hoard; he slipped several times on the shiny glass floors that lined the brilliant inside. There were different areas of decorative style; some parts were furnished with Egyptian artifacts and furniture, Marble columns, much like the ones found in ancient Greece but the miniature, held up the corners of the house. Stuffed animals, now extinct, hung in cleverly decorated places and all seemed to contain some kind of plea in their eyes.

The sun shined bright and blazed hot that summer, a summer more than a few years back but not at all that long ago. In the San Joaquin Valley is where our tale lies...surrounded by mountains and rolling hills where you see grazing cattle meandering in an ever coil up the steep golden rises, here perched on the side of a treacherous highway sits a large Flea Market. This market has an unmistakable giant red barn and when days are good the place is filled to the brim with customers and the sounds of haggling, rambunctious children, and their parent’s scolding remarks.

Every weekend the Canezales family would set up their two stands, one for the fruit and vegetables that Antoinetta picked from her garden and cluster of fruit trees at their meager home, and the second, a couple stands down and across, was where Marcos would make and repair zapatos. Now their other children were older and either had families of their own or worked for other farms. But their youngest, who was about eleven, helped them down at the Flea-market. His name was Poncho or Ponchito depending on who addressed him. He always sang in ‘spanglish’ while he played a cheap little guitarra to entice people to come buy his mother’s good produce. His mother was a polite and slightly talkative middle-aged woman whom everyone loved mostly because she was down to earth and treated people as if they were of her own flesh & blood. No one was a stranger in her eyes. Marcos, stern yet humorous like many good fathers, was quite skillful at making and repairing shoes even though it was a side job of his. He regularly worked as a mechanic at a friend’s car garage during weekdays. The couple made just enough to fill their families bellies and buy decent clothes ever so often but the love they shared filled in many, if not all, of the gaps in their tattered finances.

One busy market day Antoinetta was tending her stand surrounded by a couple fresh baskets of lettuce, one of peaches, one filled with tomatoes, and another of various chili peppers. As usual Ponchito was strumming his slightly out-of-tune guitar to the likeness of an estranged version of the Three Blind Mice and singing: “Te apetece comas algo? Are you hung-ung-gry? Mi madre tenas fruta.....y verduras sign se vende!” Between songs about his mother’s fruit, Ponchito would usually blaze into ‘La Bamba’ and folks would gather around and delight in the boy’s enthusiasm and his proud mother’s smile. This time though an arrogant older woman hobbled over. At that very same moment it seemed like a stray cloud from the parched sky passed under and blighted the bright sun. She wasn’t Mexican even though she had a similar complexion and a similar curl yet more tightly wound. She looked like one in her mid-sixties trying to look young but obviously overcompensating. . Her thick coat of make-up barely hid the wrinkles around the eyes & mouth that come from smoking while cheaply dyed hair crowned the Picasso face with its witch-like features. Below her abnormally long & sharp nails, writhing around her aged fingers were works of strange jewelry wrought with an ancient and long forgotten style. Her eyes were of a curious hue and the brows above fiercely stung, sharp and snake-like.

Antoinetta had never noticed this lady before but so many strangers come and visit that it wasn’t too uncommon; still this woman’s cold presence could be felt. The old woman gawked around the stand with cigarette holder in-between fingers so very tall & skinny and stopped in front. “Are you the Antoinetta who sells her homegrown produce?” rapped the skinny old ***** in a raspy voice. “Why yes” answered Antoinetta in a thick Spanish accent. “May I help you with anything? She nervously exclaimed.

“Maybe...Maybe” trailing off as she began picking up some lettuces. “Let’s see if you have what I need....hmmm” she muttered wickedly, and while groping the swollen fruit and vegetables she would toss them carelessly into what ever basket she fancied. Poncho had stopped playing partly in disgust and partly due to his lack of spark yet was unable to turn away like when watching a bad accident.

“Terrible, wretched stuff! Not a thing that I want! Much better things fifty years ago” cried the old woman. He himself was insulted but seeing the pained look on his mother’s face was the last straw. “Esuche! You impolite old bat!” he cried angrily. “First you squeeze and grope the stuff with your wrinkly hands and then you mix up the fruits vegetables! After this you have the nerve to screech that it’s all no good and terrible! Now no one in their right mind will buy our produce!”

With a hint of sass the over due prom queen shot an arrogant look at the boy and with a hoarse chuckle exclaimed: “so you like to shout and holler wildly, ooohhh you’ll be the one who goes ape.” At this moment the bitter wretch shot a gangly reach out to the helpless fruit and bit a ferocious chunk out, choked, and spat the pulp onto the dusty ground. “This fruit is disgusting! Wretched stuff has all gone rotten!

“Those long arms of your should be hacked off if you can’t be polite!” Poncho gasped with more fire than before. Antoinetta seeing that the spectacle was clearly out of hand and noticing that passers-by, growing like a cancerous mass, began to quickly surround the dipute gave a pardon in regards to her protective son and promised the witch what ever she desired as long as she would leave peacefully. So grabbing a bag full of peaches & tomatoes in her left hand, a special blend of different chili peppers in her right, and three heads of lettuce the woman began to slowly stroll away. Antoinetta, though upset about the incident, still had a warm heart and seeing the lady fumble around with the produce in her two bony arms was distressing. So she hollered aside to her son: “Ponchito, I want you to go and offer help to that woman!...and do whatever she asks of you.” Pleading he exclaimed, “Ma ma, pleeeeaase don’t make me!” but as soon as she put her hands behind her hips and gave him that “encouraging” stare he humbly sulked over to the woman who, by this time, had all of her belongings in disarray.

“Mi madre wants me to help you with your vegetables madam.” He said with his face to the ground. “So your mother wishes for her youngest to help carry my things? Humf.” She grumbled. “Well follow me out to the parking lot!” At this the boy picked up the sac of lettuce and moseyed through the multitudes of people.

I’m not sure if it was by chance or that the old lady wanted to park at the very rear of the lot but that’s where her old rusty station-wagon slumped. It was parked half crooked and when she started it up it smoked & backfired several times. When Poncho finished putting the fruit and vegetables away he heard his stomach rumble…he hadn’t eaten all day.

“Been working all day without lunch have you boy?” She eerily blurted. “Why ye-e-yes ma’am” Poncho replied warily. “Well you better come with me, I only live a few zigs and a zag away” The witch said with surprising sincerity. “I don’t know, mi madre might be upset if I come back late.” He exclaimed as a shy excuse. In a convincing and commanding manner she stung: “Nonsense, your mom told you to help me with my things and now I will need you to carry them from my car to the house. So what if you come back late? You will be nicely fed and by that time the market will be free of hubbub…I will even drop you off at the entrance.” So Poncho agreed and got in to the messy old car that looked as if hadn’t been driven in fifty years. Dead walnut leaves still clung to the hardened windshield wipers.

They drove for more than twenty minutes up strange twisted roads and back down around hill sides. They didn’t say any words, but mumbled to themselves… the strange gangly old woman looked as if she lusted to get back to her home by the way she clutched the wheel and by the appetite that hung in her captivating pupils. All of the spooky dirt paths that fork from the main road, the ones people shudder at when on unfamiliar mountain passages during twilight, were the ones that this dilapidated old car took. The last road (the one to her hut) steeply rose up for a bit and as they approached the top one could see that it leveled and emerged into an old and thick, unmanicured walnut orchard. Poncho rolled down his window to the sound of crunching leaves & night insects which, fooled by the artificial dark caused by the trees, were chirping and clicking wildly. He noticed the walnuts that hung in the branches and could see that they were all rotten; they seemed to crumble when sight caressed them.

The car rolled up into a decaying wooden shed covered in rusted tin and just before it ran through the other side it stopped abruptly. “Don’t forget to roll up the window boy!” the old woman hacked. As Poncho stepped out cobwebs plastered his face and strangled him with Closter phobia. He rushed out spitting and slapping the dusting old webs away. The old woman seemed to chuckle under her breath. “Now get my things and hurry inside!” Ponchito managed to get the fruits and lettuce that the woman had swindled from his mother and brought them to the front steps. The little house was once a teal now a dingy shade of its original color and chipping badly. The sad wooden shingles that covered the feeble home were covered in moss and lichens. The steps led into a filthy glassed in porch similar to those found in Victorian architecture. This one was filled with old trash, miscellaneous children’s clothes, eye-glasses, and mismatched shoes but when the entrance widened he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Bright tapestries weaved of truer and deeper colors than the rainbow lined the upper walls and other knick-knacks little Ponchito had didn’t recognize stood on beautifully crafted shelves. A heavy aroma of incense also awakened his senses as he dragged in the hoard; he slipped several times on the shiny glass floors that lined the brilliant inside. There were different areas of decorative style; some parts were furnished with Egyptian artifacts and furniture, Marble columns, much like the ones found in ancient Greece but the miniature, held up the corners of the house. Stuffed animals, now extinct, hung in cleverly decorated places and all seemed to contain some kind of plea in their eyes.

Tracey Said:

Help with my creative writing please?

We Answered:

You just have to use your imagination. Put yourself in the character's place. What would you do?
Who is your character? What does your character do for a living? Where does your character live?
All these things will have a bearing on what you put into your action sequences.
For instance: Is he right or left handed? Does he wear his wristwatch on the underside of his wrist?
Mike pushed his way through the door into the bright sunlight. The meeting had taken longer than expected and the sun was low over the rooftops. He squinted his eyes in the glare then flipped his wrist over to check the time on his Rolex. Late. Karen would not be best pleased. He hunched his shoulders and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. She'd have to live with it.

Jessie Said:

Help with creative descriptive writing please?

We Answered:

i love writing about the characters. you could do it from another persons point of view, like a friend or family member. erm...
harry watched as gwen walked across the perfect lawn. her hair was a dark mahogony and contrasted with her beautiful pale skin. her wide, blue eyes looked startled like a deer caught in the headlights, as usual. her long graceful legs were covered in jeans today and her red heels left marks in the grass. harry laughed as he watched her counting the stones she saw lying on the ground, an ocd she had had since they were little, and as she danced around the cracks in the pavement...

something like that. hope i helped :)

Jennifer Said:

Does 'creative' writing have to be descriptive?

We Answered:

No. It means to be imaginative. It's probably a good idea to be descriptive too, but "creative" doesn't necessarily mean "descriptive." It doesn't mean you have to use lots of complex sentences and extend vocab either, it just means you're supposed to use you imagination.

Christopher Said:

Descriptive creative writing phrases please.....!!? thank you X?

We Answered:

You seem to be looking for paradoxes.
"Blinding darkness of the night"
"Bright shadows"
"I stole wakefulness from the night, and was punished by insomnia"
"I gave myself the gift of giftlessness"
But I also recommend you might spell correctly.
"deafening", Tortuous" are the correct spellings of those words