Such Wealth is Not in This Box

I have so many story ideas. Just little plot bunnies. They hop around in your head, refusing to leave until you scoop them up and do something with them. Problem is, I don't have anything more than a vague idea about anything. So I don’t know what the next project is.

I'd like to write some things to submit to the local college publication at the end of January, but again, no real ideas. I submitted "A History of Falling Off the Wall" last year, and they didn't want that one. So I need to learn from my mistakes and write something that is very much not that.

I need to take a page out of Oliver Queen's book and become someone else. Something else.

For me, that means learning to describe random crap that doesn't matter. Because that's a thing you should do, I guess. So we go to our next prompt, which is to take an everyday object and describe it thusly:

• 5 visual descriptions
• 4 tactile descriptions
• 3 audial descriptions
• 2 olfactory descriptions
• 1 description of how it might taste
• And a partridge in a pear tree

First I'll need an everyday object. I have a box.

It's a wooden treasure chest with rough corners and edges, small enough that it fits into one hand. An artificially aged swing latch holds it closed, although it doesn't do much in the way of locking it. Gaining entry is easy enough. But a particularly small intruder could be detained inside. One of the screws on the latch protrudes a tiny bit, causing the latch to click when it's opened and closed. The curved top is covered in some kind of soft leather-like substance, marked with a pleasing array of dull cracks. Inside are a bunch of armchair activist buttons, meant to show support without having to actually do anything. The rattle around against the dark-stained wood interior. It looks like it should smell like any number of boxes shaped like things that you might find at Ross or Pier One, and it certainly used to, but it has long since faded. Now it only smells lightly of wood. It would probably taste similarly. Or like dust, depending on where you licked it.

So that's it. That's my object. I think I might be a little short on some of the requirements. But since I didn't do them in order, I got a little lost. It was a solid effort, at any rate.

But now maybe you see why I don't describe things. It's not exactly my forte. It's not even my pianissimo.

I'll be spending the next month and a half trying to come up with stories to submit. I mean, I wrote last year's in three days. So even if we get down to the wire, there's plenty of time.

See you Friday.