Another area that needs extra attention in my writing, is description. Here's an exercise I did last night.
Exploring Description
The stiff breeze blew all about Ellie, sending flurries of snow flakes in circles around her. She pulled her red chenille cardigan tightly around her slight body. The thin sweater was hardly adequate for the shroud of pristine, frigid whiteness that began to cover every reachable surface of Provo’s Historic District. The quaint brick store fronts with their bright and colorful window displays were lost in the zigzagging eddies of icy flakes threatening to conceal them completely. The air temperature dropped quickly as Ellie hurried toward the bus stop. She wore her new cream colored pumps and every few steps she slid along the sidewalk, forcing her to walk even more slowly and with increasingly greater care.
If she could only get to the covered bus stop, this nightmare might end. Hope was all she had. Well, hope and a mind full of determination and stubbornness.
The glass walls of the time worn bus stop were just feet away. Ellie looked behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed. She saw nothing but the gathering intensity of the coming blizzard. The seeming wall of white obscured anything or anyone who might be following her. Hopefully the frosty tempest meant that she couldn’t be seen either. Ellie hadn’t heard footsteps or anything else but the whistle of the wind and the rattling leaves of the Cottonwood trees that lined the street. Her toes, fingers and slightly upturned nose were beginning to tingle. Ellie wished she had grabbed the folded bus schedule from her boyfriend Jeffrey’s desk before she left his office. Normally the buses came every thirty minutes but this was a quiet Sunday. Who knows when the next ride will be here? Ellie’s relief at reaching the shelter of the glass enclosed bus stop was quickly being replaced with the fear that had been tormenting her nearly every waking minute for the last three days.
Ellie rubbed her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to create warmth. Goosebumps covered her fair skin, now pink and nubby. Her head was covered in a mass of limp curls. Her usual mantle of soft auburn ringlets was tonight a matted heap, white and heavy with moisture. She remembered wearing her grey poet’s cap earlier in the day. Had the wind blown it away? It was expensive and she’d never be able to replace it. What a silly thought at a time like this.
A light in the distance caught Ellie’s attention and she jerked her head up quickly, nearly losing her precarious balance on an ice patch. A bus!
Ellie attempted futilely to straighten the black skirt of her dress and brushed her untidy collection of saturated coils and waves away from her face, hoping she didn’t look as much like a drowned rat as she felt. The light came closer, growing until it illuminated the immediate area around the bus stop. The falling snow took on an ethereal, peaceful quality in the bright lights of her approaching rescuer. Ellie felt a sense of comfort and safety pouring over here and began waving her frozen arms above her head. It wasn’t necessary as this was actually a scheduled stop but Ellie didn’t know that and wasn’t taking any chance-- plus it helped to get her blood circulating and she at least felt for a moment like she had a modicum of control in the recent discord of her life.
Exploring Description
The stiff breeze blew all about Ellie, sending flurries of snow flakes in circles around her. She pulled her red chenille cardigan tightly around her slight body. The thin sweater was hardly adequate for the shroud of pristine, frigid whiteness that began to cover every reachable surface of Provo’s Historic District. The quaint brick store fronts with their bright and colorful window displays were lost in the zigzagging eddies of icy flakes threatening to conceal them completely. The air temperature dropped quickly as Ellie hurried toward the bus stop. She wore her new cream colored pumps and every few steps she slid along the sidewalk, forcing her to walk even more slowly and with increasingly greater care.
If she could only get to the covered bus stop, this nightmare might end. Hope was all she had. Well, hope and a mind full of determination and stubbornness.
The glass walls of the time worn bus stop were just feet away. Ellie looked behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed. She saw nothing but the gathering intensity of the coming blizzard. The seeming wall of white obscured anything or anyone who might be following her. Hopefully the frosty tempest meant that she couldn’t be seen either. Ellie hadn’t heard footsteps or anything else but the whistle of the wind and the rattling leaves of the Cottonwood trees that lined the street. Her toes, fingers and slightly upturned nose were beginning to tingle. Ellie wished she had grabbed the folded bus schedule from her boyfriend Jeffrey’s desk before she left his office. Normally the buses came every thirty minutes but this was a quiet Sunday. Who knows when the next ride will be here? Ellie’s relief at reaching the shelter of the glass enclosed bus stop was quickly being replaced with the fear that had been tormenting her nearly every waking minute for the last three days.
Ellie rubbed her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to create warmth. Goosebumps covered her fair skin, now pink and nubby. Her head was covered in a mass of limp curls. Her usual mantle of soft auburn ringlets was tonight a matted heap, white and heavy with moisture. She remembered wearing her grey poet’s cap earlier in the day. Had the wind blown it away? It was expensive and she’d never be able to replace it. What a silly thought at a time like this.
A light in the distance caught Ellie’s attention and she jerked her head up quickly, nearly losing her precarious balance on an ice patch. A bus!
Ellie attempted futilely to straighten the black skirt of her dress and brushed her untidy collection of saturated coils and waves away from her face, hoping she didn’t look as much like a drowned rat as she felt. The light came closer, growing until it illuminated the immediate area around the bus stop. The falling snow took on an ethereal, peaceful quality in the bright lights of her approaching rescuer. Ellie felt a sense of comfort and safety pouring over here and began waving her frozen arms above her head. It wasn’t necessary as this was actually a scheduled stop but Ellie didn’t know that and wasn’t taking any chance-- plus it helped to get her blood circulating and she at least felt for a moment like she had a modicum of control in the recent discord of her life.
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