Sunday 20 September 2009

Improv Challenge Day One


(the sweet shop near primary school)

On Friday i ventured the idea of trying to improvise a series (7) blog posts and invited suggestions. To date there have been three - depending on how you read the comments.

The idea is still open and you can read about the idea here, and add suggestions to the comments.

The definition of what makes the post improvised is still unclear but i think it needs to be thought about and written at the same time. that means that i have tried, and you have to trust me here, not to consider possible approaches whilst i have been waiting for any suggestions to arrive.

I considered that there should be no editing either, that it should appear as it was written - but looking at the number of spelling and typo errors in what fellows i have limited myself to grammar and spelling corrections only.

Today's post follows Vicki's suggestion which was -

"And here's another one:
-The first sentence should begin with A, the second with B, the third with C and so on.
-Oh and every third sentence needs to be an interrogative."

So, here goes...........

A post where each sentence begins with a consecutive letter of the Alphabet.

Bending over backwards to accommodate this insane suggestion.

Can I do it?

Don’t expect the post to educate, illuminate or entertain you.

Expect something weird.

Forgettable?

Gillian was the first girl I ‘loved’. She was my country-dancing partner at primary school. It was a subject I loved and I loved doing it with her. She was pretty, a great dancer and I was proud she was my partner, but then unexpectedly her family moved and she left the school.

“Heartbroken!”

Is life fair?

Jonathan moved to the school a year later and became a fierce rival.

Karen had become my new “girlfriend’ we held hands and kissed once but Jonathan stepped between us. I started to feel emotions I couldn’t name at the time -Jealousy, loss.

Love, is it worth it?

My next girlfriend was Janice. I ‘met” her at the end of the alley that led from the street where I lived to the street where her friend Alice lived. They were leaning out of the window, giggling and asked me if I was sexy.

Now, I didn’t know what they meant but I was wlling to find out.

Ok, and the result?

Perhaps it would be best to say she dumped me. I didn’t have what she was looking for and perhaps it would be best to avoid stereotypes and write about something else – they always say this is all men think about.

Quite the opposite, it’s probably football.

Really?

So, my next love was Wendy, I had met her at a party, I was about 15 and I came to school one day, opened my desk and all my friends had written –Chris loves Wendy – on the inside of my desk and all over my books.

To say that I was embarrassed and blushed would be an understatement.

Und what happened next? (Literary licence)

Very quickly we started going out together, very quickly she dumped me too.

We were at different points of our adolescence and I was shocked to walk into a pub a week later and see her sitting on a 19-year-old biker boy’s lap.

Xylophone music playing very sadly in the background, right?

You got it! And as …

Zeberdee used to say in the Magic Roundabout. – Time for Bed.

7 comments:

Janet Bianchini said...

Absolutely brilliant! Well done. Very clever indeed. The boy done good "und" poetic licence is duly granted..

A great idea from Vicki and one which will be tried out with my future students...

popps said...

thnx Janet.
Next up Brave New World - which is more scary for me (i'm good on alphabets).
Now, about that English
- the boy done good!!

Janet Bianchini said...

Yep! Literary licence was granted especially for me for the "boy done good" phrase.

Looking forward to "Brave New World" :)

Vicki said...

Wonderful! Bravo!

Anne Hodgson said...

Fun, fun, fun! I'm doing an academic writing class this week and we'll be copycats. Will drop by and peek frequently at your marvellous improvs. Chris, this is great :)
One improv I love is stream of consciousness writing: 10 minutes of nonstop writing, the only rule is: No breaks! If you don't know what to write, you write "so what should I write now?" I do this as a pen and paper exercise. I wonder if it works in blogging?

popps said...

Is that a suggestion?
See the previous post
http://bitsnbobsshowntell.blogspot.com/2009/09/down-rabbit-hole.html

Dave said...

@anne I guess the only difference is that you wouldn't normally do that exercise in public would you. Chris is a brave man or something close to that... :-)