Writing Exercise #6
#2. Think about the street outside and write about it for ten minutes. Then, go out into the street and spend 10 minutes writing down in actuality what you see. Compare both descriptions and analyze which is best/most effective. 1) The street outside my flat is of pavement both wet and black, at almost all times and sometimes reflects an interesting puddle-mixture that appears to contain oil, cigarette butts, and pebbles. The exception here arises from the fallen leaves that sometimes reside with a glue-like suction, to the pavement. Cigarette butts oft litter the ground. There is, during the weekdays, usually the smell of coffee, as the neo café immediately adjacent to the exit from my flat operates brief but busy hours for morning commuters. The grass of the vast, open fields of Northwick Park carries a scent I’m quite used to at this point; dew-ridden natural greenery. The metropolitan line runs along the park, making for the noise and clatter of the station’s regular hours of operation: the sound of the doors inside the trains opening and closing, “Mind the Gap”, “This is Northwick Park”, “The next station is… Harrow-on-the Hill”. Most often, though, I hear the slamming of doors around the halls. I hear them from inside my flat at all hours of day, and still am unsure of which doors it is that reminded me of gunshots my first days living on-campus.
2) It’s only 7:30 but it looks and feels like midnight. I notice now that I’m outside that the wind is a much more prevalent element than I recall from the warmth and comfort of my flat just several hundred yards away. There's an acapella group rehearsing just outside the entrance to the Northwick Park tube stations. I've never seen them there before. The leaves rustle and speak in a low-chatter in the audience. Low-flying commercial and cargo planes make their regular commutes here, too; just in the sky instead. It's funny, because I usually can't see them since it's nearly always cloudy out - but I can always hear them. Even from my room.