Liberating my writing

It has probably been just a little short of forever since I journaled/blogged or wrote. Today's impetus is a new book, The Write-Brain Workbook, by Bonnie Newbauer. She takes Natalie Goldberg's famous precepts of writing and encapsulates them in 366 "exercises to liberate your writing". The first, entitled Circle Game, invited me to choose one word from each of three groups of five and then use those three words in a story that began: "Sometimes I feel like a gerbil running around and around on his wheel." The words I chose yesterday were "banister", "jambalaya" and "keepsake". I really only thought about the exercise yesterday - which isnt' a writing practice to speak of. Here's today's fingers to keyboard entry:

Sometimes I feel like a gerbil running around and around on his wheel. Sometimes I feel like a nut, but most times I don't. I wish I had had a banister to slide down when I was a kid, but I doubt I would have, being too consumed with "appropriate, good girl" behavior. And if I had found one to slide down, and had slid, with my lack of coordination, I would most likely have broken a bone and had a cast for a keepsake. I'd have hoped many friends and acquaintances would come and sign it for me. What kind of a keepsake would a virginal cast be? There should be a pastische of signatures and other graffiti embossed on it. A spicy, personal jambalaya of a cast.

OK. So I wrote and then went back and finnagled and finetuned. I don't really think that's cheating. Maybe I'll even post this effort on my blog.