At last I’ve gotten around to a writing exercise I’ve been planning on trying for a while, something I’ll call “music writing” since I really can’t come up with a slug that explains it any better.
(UPDATE: My Twitter friend @badbadbad suggested “Writing to music,” which of course is the right thing to call these. Thanks, my friend.)
The idea is to listen to an album, a song, an orchestral work, a piano piece, a concert or any other type of musical composition and write as I’m listening to it, trying not …

The past few weeks I’ve shared some music, some photos and some best wishes. So it’s time to get back to writing.
For this next short piece in my growing collection of pieces inspired by Harvard sentences, I decided to alter the mind with a little jazz. I was more experimental with the prose here, almost musical, to better create the atmosphere. And, for the most part, it’s one long sentence.
Enough said. Enjoy.
A pot of tea helps to pass the evening
Charlie Parker never had a gig like this.
I imagined he did, …

It’s been a little while since I last posted a Harvard Sentence Inspired short piece, but I’m glad it’s this one that I’m breaking my hiatus with. The whole point here was to capture a perfect moment, something you wouldn’t want to change the slightest thing about.
I hope you enjoy it.
Kick the ball straight and follow through
She dragged the pink toes of her gym shoes as she shuffled to the batter’s box, leaving two, thin straight lines in the packed-down dust behind her.
He played with a rock he’d picked up …

It’s been a while since I wrote a long piece, which is probably why it took so many months for me to finally finish this latest short story, “Forgive me, father.” It’s also the first one that I’ve finished for a future short story collection of tales set in suburbia. Some of the stories in that collection will be much wackier than this one, but I was going for more of a sentimental and psychological effect with this one. It’s a character probe with a very simple plot line, a …

So I’ll admit this latest Harvard Sentence-inspired short is a bit dark, but it’s where my imagination went. My hope here is it gets the reader imagine who the boy is. There are clues to his personality, but I want to leave some of the characterization up to the reader here.
Enjoy.
The boy was there when the sun rose
He’d never run that fast before, though it felt like his legs, as if re-entering the atmosphere, were falling apart, tearing muscle with every step, wrenching his heels, shattering bone.
A hundred times before …