So You Want To Be A Professional Writer
The other day I picked up a copy of Jean Kent's The Professional Writers' Phrase Book during my regular swing through the Value Village. The book promises "thousands of descriptive tags that put pizzazz in any copy," and after looking it over I can assure you that I'm going to be hunting down copies for all my friends and colleagues.
I'll provide you with a few handy examples to help get you started on your own career as a professional writer. Believe me, it's easy as pie, and with even this brief list of phrases I think you'll find that the possibilities are endless. The rest is up to you!
ANGER
time to bring out the heavy artillery
the words were sudden and raw and very angry
feisty as hell
she gave him a most unladylike dustup
the rage in him was a living thing
their eyes traded strings of malevolence
like an awakening giant
if I hold it in any longer, I'll blow out my teeth
LIMBS
hooked her thumb in her panties and cocked her hip
he swatted her behind
raising the tea cup to his heavily mustached lips
kissed his bunched up fingers...MNYEH!
a moth-wind flutter of her hand
rotates a finger near his temple
HEAD
he twisted a benzedrine inhaler up a hairy nostril
and took a somewhat beery breath of fresh air
she pushed her hair back, the better to glare at him
BODY IN MOTION
all his gestures were outside and violent
grabbing up her gown for the run to the kitchen
she slapped her sleeves to get rid of the crumbs
grasped his tightly rolled umbrella like a sword
she ditted around past all the channels
he sat on the porch and waved away the flies
a body so supple it twanged
he moved like a slug
the slow-spitting and squatting men watched her covetously
standing at the lip of a hole
she walks like a construction worker
he moved with the sure grace of a forest creature
a nudge here, a hip there, and an occasional light shove
left the room like a scolded hound
still beavering away
taking on that 'Let's be reasonable' slouch
BODY MOTIONLESS
a thin old man, frozen on the edge of the fallow fields forever
huddled in the water
standing there with an indolent, tomcat grace
TRADE TAGS
bronzed and beautiful
the massive chest of a body builder
a tropical tan even where it doesn't show
foundation training in the iron game
highly visible in an alluring bikini
with great stability in the shoulder girdle
BUILDINGS--EXTERIOR
a small, nasty shed with a furtive look
a security system that had everything but a moat filled with alligators
it wasn't an ordinary building but a home
a suspect motel named El Ranko
the sort of railroad flat you find in the ghettos
INTERIOR
sat at a table about as big as a diaper
a husky oak table
the walls started to sweat
the room smelled of dust, mildew, and old love
rancid grease hung in the air like a wet sheet
CRIME AND FIGHTING
a man doesn't become an investigator without a capacity for cruelty
a man who didn't think but let his sinews rumble him to oblivion
his first foray into thrilldom
and then came a moment of atavistic horror
he was covered with blood and vomit
the pain in the testicles streaked up to his stomach
the velvet trap of easy living and hard drugs
the code of the vendetta was absolute
an animal instinct told him all was not well
no gun racks in the pickup truck
he ran like unleashed hell
my goal is to stay out of the morgue drawer
DEPRESSION
in the twilight world of the half alive
restless, seeking
hoping the wind and rain would take away the brooding hurt
he stood in the burning lake of himself, unable to escape
slumped into morose musings
pain and loneliness walked with him in the dark
a life which daily negated all her dreams
FACES--DESCRIPTIONS
the upper-echelon mafioso type
his nose looked like a wedge of cheddar
perspiration on her forehead, like water beads on good butter
a nose that could slice cheese
he looked something like a hawk with mumps
he had a face like a benediction
HAPPINESS
a few crocuses of hope poked through the surface
the feeling of happiness rising wonderfully inside you
beer commercial joviality
when I feel this delicious, I laugh at practically anything, sometimes nothing at all
Enjoy!
INNER THOUGHTS
he took the world by the nose
I still believe happiness can be worked out. I am a fool.
there's nothing worse than a hero out of work
you could catch it and kill it and pin it down, but then it wasn't a butterfly anymore
The word was jungle. Only the strong survived.
Bastard! she whispered behind his back.
yet deep, deep inside he still burned with his love for her
preoccupied with matters of nomenclature
you can't fall off the floor
love was a weed that flourished in the dark
as bad as being told God dislikes you
PHILOSOPHY
I live in a silent movie
a satisfying influx of Mexicans
not everything was cotton candy
two nice people made for each other
when you walk among women, do not forget your whip
Who knows where terrific things begin?
SMELLS
I smell sneakers
I could smell her light, warm femininity
the lusty odors of earth and cattle
God Almighty! See what I mean? What you have here are the raw materials to make a writer out of the drabbest, most tongue-tied closet dreamer. And I haven't even made it to the phrases related to lovemaking (he took a look down her decollete). I'll buy lunch for the person who can send me a reasonably coherent story that makes judicious use of the largest number of these helpful phrases, and I'll also post the story right here on my blog. Get busy! And send those entries to bzellar@citypages.com
Lennie Tristano
They say Lennie Tristano could hear as fast as any man alive. They say he liked his world sped way up. He liked to listen to his audio books --he was blind-- at 78 instead of 33 and-a-third. He just didn't have the patience to listen that slowly.
No Monks in the Mall
I mean, all of a sudden I'm the bad guy on every television station and in every newspaper in town. You know, for doing my fucking job, for being the poor bastard who has to tell the monks they can't sing in the shopping center. Policy, I had to say, you know, we schedule events months in advance. If we let every group that wanted to just come in here and sing or dance or raise hell about animal rights or whatever, come on, then where would we be? People wouldn't be so up in arms if this was some bunch of black kids we were talking about. I say all this in this carefully scripted way, fifty times, but it still boils down to I'm the guy saying the monks can't come in the mall. What I'd really love to say, I'd love to say, hey, you know, I can't stand that droning monk racket and let 'em go chant in some church where they belong. The hardest part of it all was the monks themselves; they were like incredibly abusive, very, I thought, ungracious for monks. One of them, I swear, actually cursed me.
Greenland Earle
Greenland Earle brought a bone to school, and would dawdle down the hallway, rattling the bone against the lockers. He once brought his bird to school as well, a bird black as a blowfly's scalp. The bird had the mouth of a strip club comedian --this was a bird that worked nothing but blue. The bird's name was Philip, and his signature phrase was, 'You bet your sweet ass.' That bird couldn't find a good word to say about anybody, and you don't know what it's like to be cussed up and down and insulted until you've been cursed and insulted by a bird. The funny thing was, Greenland hardly ever said a word.
The Spine Hears, But Not Too Good
Lately it's nothing but Czech composers, night after night. In January at three a.m. even Charles Mingus or Nick Drake sound like Czech composers. Last night my brain was in the corner, under the nightstand. I had to get the dog to find it. It's not like the heart; when that thing gets away from me I can hear it beating, however dully. I can generally find it even in the bottom of the hamper. The day behind me was nothing but rolling horizontal bands of static, stacked across my empty skull from ear to ear. The spinal cord keeps the rest of the show rolling, but he can't read and he can't daydream. He hears a little, but not too good.
I've been lost the last couple weeks in etymology, combing through old word books. How about this definition for 'fanatic,' by way of the Latin fanaticus, from Cooper's Thesaurus Linguae Romanae and Britannicae: 'Ravished by a propheticall sprite.' And how can you not like a word like absquatulate, and wonder not just at its meaning but also it's origins? (To make off, away, skedaddle --one marvel to define another, and as for origin, the experts throw up their arms). The etymology of abstruse couldn't be more perfect: from the Latin abstrudere, to push away. And here is the lovely South African name for an antelope: klipspringer (cliff springer). Finally, I give you the Greek origins for testicles, translated literally as 'bystanders.'
Breeders, Beware
What does corrupting time not diminish?
Our grandparents brought forth feebler heirs;
We are further degen'rate; and soon will beget
progeny yet more wicked.
--Horace, Odes, Book III
4:54:42 PM 
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