This week’s exercise is all about writing overblown, flowery prose. You know, the sort of stuff that we’re supposed to pare out of our final drafts.

I’ve been meaning to read House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday for years, and it’s been sitting in my to-read pile for about six months. It’s slim size finally got it into my purse, and it’s been transforming my mundane bus rides into surreal, detail-rich journeys for the last few days.

And now the silent land bore in upon him as, little by little, it got hold of the light and shone. The pale margin of the night receded toward him like a rising drift, and he waited for it. All the rims of color stood out upon the hills, and the hills converged at the mouth of the canyon. That dark cleft might have been a shadow or a pool of smoke; there was nothing to suggest its distance or its depth, but it held the course of the river for twenty or thirty miles. The town lay out for a time on the verge of the day; then the spire of the mission gleamed and the Angelus rang and the riverside houses flamed. Still the cold clung to him and the night was at his back. Just there to the east, the earth was ashen and the sky on fire. The contour of the black mesa was clean where the sun ranged like a cloud in advance of the solstices.

A car appeared on the hills to the north; it crept in and out of his vision and toward the town and made no sound until it was directly below him. Then it turned into the town and wound through the streets and into the trees at the mission. All the roosters of the town began to crow and the townspeople stirred and their thin voices rose up on the air. He could smell the sweet wine which still kept to his clothing. He had not eaten in two days, and his mouth tasted of sickness. But the morning was cold and deep, and he rubbed his hands together and felt the blood rise and flow.

He stood for a long time, the land still yielding to the light. He stood without thinking, nor did he move; only his eyes roved after something…something. The rain-furrowed apron of the hill dropped under him thirty feet to the highway. The last patches of shade vanished from the river bottom and the chill grew dull on the air. He picked his way downward, and the earth and stones rolled at his feet. He felt the tension at his knees, and then the weight of the sun on his head and hands. The dry light of the valley rose up, and the land became hard and pale. (p. 23)

That is a single scene, 400 words to describe Abel entering town at sunrise. Enter the inner editor: Surely that could be cut down substantially? Surely some of those repetitive phrases could be stricken? Perhaps, but sometimes it’s marvelous to lose yourself in those rich images, like sinking into a candle-lit bubble bath with a glass of wine.

This week’s exercise: Every day for one week, choose a simple scene, action, or moment and use at least 500 words to describe it. Make your prose as purple as you can.

Maybe in the end you’ll end up cutting it down to a mere few sentences, but if in all your overblown description you come up with a couple gems like “The town lay out for a time on the verge of the day; then the spire of the mission gleamed and the Angelus rang and the riverside houses flamed,” or “the rain-furrowed apron of the hill,” it will be worth it.

I’ll be posting about my progress in the next few days.