The 3 A.M. Epiphany Exercises

Exercise 1.
THE RELUCTANT I. Write a first person story in which you use the first person pronoun (I or me or my) only two times – but keep the I somehow important to the narrative you are constructing. The point of this exercise is to imagine a narrator who is less interested in herself than in what he is observing. You can make your narrator someone who sees an interesting event in which he is not necessarily a participant. Or you can make her self-effacing, yet a major participant in the events related. It is very important in this exercise to make sure your reader is not surprised, forty or fifty words into the piece to realize that this is a first person narration. Show us quickly who is observing the scene.
600 words

I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus, couldn’t find the inspiration needed. The white blank page returned my gaze, taunting its viewer, as if it could do better. Then the noise started. The constant groan, creak, the hum of the lights. How is anyone supposed to find inspiration in this place? Excuses they might seem like but how can they be when they actually prevent creativity. Today there was a new sound. One which wasn’t abstract. One that didn’t bounce around the room, disguising its location, like a ninja waiting to strike, and throwing off its prey. Investigating, there she was. Hannah her name was, an artist. A Painter. She was moving in and asked for some assistance. Beautiful, mesmerising, beguiling, confident, even arrogant, but in a way which would melt your heart. Unloading her boxes, carrying them up three flights of stairs wasn’t easy, but from somewhere motivation rose up, and it wasn’t even a problem. At one time, she was carrying a heavy box which looked bigger than she was. Returning to collect the next box, she was there, laughing in a hysterical fit the box under her, as she clung onto it with all her might. Her long, seductive fingernails proving to be more than just an aesthetic decision. There were, to all intense and purposes the only thing stopping that humongous box from rolling all the way down a flight of stairs. Helping her up, we managed, with great difficulty together to raise the box from its teetering position and carry it together up to her room. We took a break, had some tea, the first cup of the day is always the best, and to share it with her, somehow made it taste like the finest cup of tea ever drunk. As if each leave had been handpicked from the mountains of India, and brewed instantly. As we sat waiting for the tea to cool, there was a palpable tension between us. As if each was trying to fathom the other. Her eyes where the most piercing blue, her long blonde her, looked liked it had been fashioned out of gold leaf. But it was her neck which struck the strong chord. The long curves, the soft skin, leading down to endless possibilities of happiness. The only clue to what happiness and joy, those worn, lived in hands, which spoke volumes about the world this god of art worked in. Through them you could gauge the obsession she felt for her creativity, that she was a slave to her art, that her hands were victims of the enduring pain and ecstasy of painting. On one of her canvases was the name Athena, scrawled as if carelessly applied to a meticulously composed masterpiece. It stood out against the careful, fine brush strokes which revealed her character as some who pays ultimate attention to the task at hand, someone who did nothing without first knowing, completely, that this was the best possible option. Yet the name, Athena, its scrawl across the piece, unveiled a hidden side to her, a spontaneity that which not be kept in check, that forced its way up through all the pre-meditation, the contemplation, the careful planning to leave a final signature on a personality so effortless beautiful, so unaware of her spellbinding charm, that to reveal it to her would be to burst the bubble of her ignorance. An ignorance which subdued her evident arrogance. This was the most beautiful woman the Creator had ever conjured. His great magic trick, and it seemed the fates had conspired to make he, the unwitting victim of her magnificence.
THE END