1. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    Write me a sentence, a long one...

    Discussion in 'Word games' started by Wayjor Frippery, Jul 7, 2016.

    Today I can’t write, which is a pain in the proverbial because today I have time, precious time, just a little, eked out from a busy schedule of teaching, nursery runs, a visit to the doctor’s, cleaning the toilet (begrudgingly – today is not my turn) and making lunch (ox burgers, chips and a beautiful olive, tomato and mozzarella salad whose recipe a friend gave me on my last visit to her plush mountain chalet – lucky so and so), so you can imagine my frustration, I’m sure, that on a day like today, with its unexpected spare hours, an empty flat and no engagements, I can’t write, can’t write a word, have been staring at my monitor stupidly, vacantly, desperately, for the last hour, and now I’m wasting time with this, this enormous rambling sentence that I’m not sure how to end, which is galling, to say the least, because look at it – words are pouring out – but none of them are helping to move my novel forward, none of them are going to turn me from a wannabe into a real, living, breathing, money-earning writer who breezes through his days with nothing but words on his mind and dreams in his heart (and money in his bank account), which, once again, is galling because I feel like I have a story worth telling, a story that may not be the most original in terms of plot or style or prose, but a story with compelling characters, a few original twists (original in the telling, at least), and the commercial potential to kick off a series, that is, if I can ever find an agent and a publisher who will take a chance on a newbie writer like me and put it out there, publish it widely – I hope – to great critical acclaim (who am I kidding? I just want the money, the fame and the three-movie film deal with Hollywood or Bollywood or HBO or the BBC – believe me, I’m not fussy), and yet none of these things are going to happen, not while I’m sitting here wasting my time writing a stupid long sentence that is is little more than a thinly disguised whinge at my own failings, my inability to find the muse or light a spark, any spark, any damn pinprick of heat to ignite the dry tinder of my imagination and get this wretched chapter finished, get me past the hump of the middle (third middle hump – I’m on the third draft), the hump of the middle that seems insurmountable, unscalable, the Everest of humps, and I’ve lost all my Sherpas, my ropes and probably my clothes and my eyes and my heart – but enough is enough, time to write, to get back to the rock face, crampons on if nothing else, fingers to the cracks to inch my way forwards one word at a time, until the mojo comes back and I can write once more, write like a pro, like a Tolstoy, a García Márquez, a Kerouac, a Woolf, a Wilde or an Austen – or even a Rowling (especially a Rowling – give me the money; did I mention money before?).


    [and it came to an end in a punctuation car crash – must try harder]



    Write me a sentence, fellow scribes, a long one, as long as you can make it, the longer the better.

    Write me a sentence.

    Please.

    [mine was 526 words – you should try and beat it]
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
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  2. SethLoki

    SethLoki Retired Autodidact Contributor

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    I would write a stream of five hundred words and I’d write five hundred more if I had the time but I haven’t much so I’ll crack on for a wee while and pay little mind to counting and not keeping any sort of score because to do that may distract me from this mission which is to serve your request which I’ve made doubly difficult for myself as I’m trying to have it both understandable and punctuationless with the vaguest hint of a rhyme that I’ll add in there some of the time yet I’m figuring now such self imposition will further hamper any chance of this sentence’s advance especially bearing in mind it could end up a catastrophe as I’m realising now puntuationless must surely also mean a lack of apostrophe for that’ll leave this with only two elements of the three and with that I’ll sign this sentence off as I’m actually holding my breath too and ruing the shortness of this offering sat immediately below and therefore presented as quite the smaller brother when contrasted to yours as I type and calculate this whilst consoling myself it's only a thirty three point three percent calamity.
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2016
  3. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    Skills! :agreed:
     
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  4. SethLoki

    SethLoki Retired Autodidact Contributor

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    :) Never thought reading my own stuff aloud would take my breath away!
     
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  5. nastyjman

    nastyjman Senior Member

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    Tick tock goes the digital clock, and my spreadsheets are eating me inside out, like little termites, or perhaps parasites, gnawing at my soul, although the soul does not compose of zeroes and ones, but if such a person is exposed to horrible things for decades, the ephemeral substance was said to be corrupted and malformed into something that sounds like the old modem of the 90's, which causes nostalgia, oh, a beautiful noise, but this man's soul pines not for days of yore, but for escape, for creative freedom, yet the gatekeepers are aloft and the publish button ever so tempting, so I must continue on the sideline in keeping the debits and credits balanced.
     
  6. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I daresay you should have excluded native speakers of Spanish from this reto, given the love affair that Spanish has with paragraphs that span pages, yet consist of only two or three sentences at the most, none of which show any sign of a grammatical subject, not to be confused with the logical subject to be found in all sentences, regardless of language, and then add to the aforementioned love of waxing rhapsodic the draconian standard that Spanish sets in regards to repetition of words, most notable in the way a first mention of a noun (sustantivo) makes obvious enough sense, but as one goes along one is forced to reach for synonyms that range further and further afield, to the point where there is hardly any arguable relationship at all between what one just wrote and what one originally wrote, and though English has a style rule that may seem similar, it is by no means at the same level of severity one finds on the tongues of Castilians and their brethren across the globe, of whom I count myself amongst, though I am often given to feel that the Castilians still in Castile would rather forget that I am their kin because they baulk at the battery of West African words in my idiolect and look even more askance at the Taino words I use, and no matter how often I point out that my aspiration of S's and dropping of the semi-terminal D in past participles are linguistic features that can be found in the very south of Spain, still they turn their long Ibiric noses at my "Spanish", all the while they are mumbling away with marbles in their mouths, turning every S into an SH and making use of that damnable ceceo of theirs that makes me think that speech pathologists must be in high demand across the length and breadth of Cervante's home.
     
  7. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    I dare say I should! You had me laughing aloud by the end!
     
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  8. Michele DeNorth

    Michele DeNorth New Member

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    Some people on this planet have way too much, I mean, overly abundant time on their hands to reflect, which is the basis for deep contemplative thought that leads to more creative ways to whittle away time, both of which concepts are intangible, but isn't all thought anyway, and that is the reason that I for one am wondering why I am taking time out of my very full day in between helping my son renovate an old house that should have been torn down, that is razed, rather than spending an ounce of energy repainting, cleaning, hammering, plumbing, and more for the sake of saving an historic, well not really, house that now stands on a collapsing foundation in its hundred years or glory, and I am wondering if my time sucking dead bugs from windows could have been more valuable than typing words which stand for concepts of thought, in a frenzy so as to not tie myself up in knots trying to compete with some person who is in fact real whom I've never met who wrote an extremely long run on sentence, or was it a true run on I ask myself, in the spirit of writing which is as fine a pursuit of spending one's time not idle as any and most enjoyable, but only if one has enough time on one's hands to endeavor into such frivolity, and now I am thinking I am sounding more and more like what's his name with his steady stream of consciousness and wondering if I have succeeded in writing a longer sentence about nothing than the previous chap who is most likely feeling satisfied that he invited someone into his calamity because he did not meet his goal and perhaps neither have I.
     
  9. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    A fine sentence!

    And now, just playing...
     
  10. Aroki

    Aroki New Member

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    The established realms of rational thought that have of late infested the minds of our primate species is not merely a fad, but also an indication of changes brought on by enhanced technological deviancy where the simple termite stick and bark-stripping devices have been slightly modified to have telepathic and planet-busting capabilities, features which sit rather well with popculturists who have made it their singular goal to consume as much entertaining media as they can salvage from web-ports, shady corner-shops and mobile phones, phones which have been proven a detriment to the coconut-gathering abilities of humanity as a whole and accountants in particular, though surprisingly these same phone have led to an increased population of ants on certain northern islands, a strange phenom which can be attributed to certain types of radiation that have not yet been discovered and thereby act as the perfect scapegoat for any future antpocalypse, a strange word which was coined by one F.A Hodgeloop, who was by all accounts a nutter and a quack who's recipe for tiger curry was rejected from most respected culinary schools now in earth's orbit.
     
  11. Vagrant Tale

    Vagrant Tale Active Member

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    Great scott I have a ton of homework tonight I have to do discussion questions for two classes one of which will require research, a decision making assignment where I have to pretend I am going to make some kind of purchase and have four options and list pros and cons and then compare them all, then for my other class I have to do two homework assignments and a project and a quiz, which shouldn't be that hard but it is going to require the time and focus to just sit down and not think about anything else for a while as I completely focus on it all, I think what I'll do is just knock out one assignment at a time and then give myself some kind of reward instead of rewarding myself while I'm doing to assignments to keep myself sane so that I don't get too distracted, which is going to be hard because I think its my sister's day off and she's going to try her best to get me to do things with her because we never get to do things together but I have mountains of homework and I have to get it all done so that takes priority!
     
  12. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    @Aroki and @Vagrant Tale, another fine pair of long 'uns. Aroki's made me laugh (and you posted on Saturday – I only read it now! – bad Wayjor) and Vagrant's made me sympathize with homework hell, although I think you bolted a couple of sentences together, Vagey - chuck in a couple of dashes, a semicolon or mabye a full one and you'll be peachy.

    More! Give me more!
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2016
  13. obsidian_cicatrix

    obsidian_cicatrix I ink, therefore I am. Contributor

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    I'm pretty sure I turned my straightening irons off because I told Jules I had to hang up to go do it, or was that to go to the loo —wish I could remember— but I'm pretty sure it was one of the two, so I needn't worry because that would only be silly and pointless as I can't do much about it right now as I'm on a bus that's been diverted to goodness knows where, in order to avoid the marathon runners, otherwise we'd be stuck in the traffic behind them making me late for work and, while I remember, I'd better call since my boss hasn't forgiven me for turning up to the regional manager's meeting a hour late, but that's only because Jenny dropped Mr. Chunky down the toilet and refused to get dressed until I'd run him through the washing machine and dryer, and even then it was under protest so I'm thinking she might be sickening for something and a trip to the surgery might be in order, besides, I want the doctor to check out that mole on her back because you read terrible things in the magazines about malignant melanoma and I know how bad complacency and It won't happen to me thinking can be but, maybe, that's just me being paranoid and neurotic which brings me neatly back to, "Did I leave my straightening irons on?"
     
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  14. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    Ha! @obsidian_cicatrix, beautiful circularity - see the sentence twist and turn and fold right back to the start.

    The bar has been raised, ladies and gentlemen...
     
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  15. dbesim

    dbesim Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Steve gazed at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, earnestly not wanting to break eye-contact with the gazing reflection on the other end who apparently looked like a bathroom reflection of him, yet he was convinced that this guy resembled him in no way whatsoever, as he took in the incomprehensible stare, and the fire flashing straight through its pupils, through the screen of the mirror, wondering whether the expression was one of like, lust, trust or resentment, his back-to-front twin not giving much away, it's lip gradually curling into an amused smile as if challenging Steve to stare for a lot longer time than he had done yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, clearly not beating the record he had already achieved nine days ago, basically a staring contest between him and his reflection, who was on the verge of triumphing over him in this staring match as he had done all those other days ago, but this time Steve refused to let his identical back-to-front twin triumph over him, since he was convinced, as he has been all those days ago, that he knew nothing about Steve's life, nor his day-to-day existence, though the challenge in the eye will have assumed to know it all, but Steve knows that this very real-seeming guy knows nothing whatsoever about him - nor now, not tomorrow, not next week, not ever - so if he thinks he could hop out the mirror and assume his existence, he could think again, because Steve will not be moving from here no matter what and he won't be breaking eye contact with the glassy figure on the other end either, and this time he'll make sure he wins this staring match, and he'll make sure he doesn't break away first, no matter how long he has to stand here grimacing back at it, he will stand firm in this spot and he will never move.
     
  16. dbesim

    dbesim Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    :) @Wayjor Frippery
    Thought I'd give it a go, sorry if it sounds like nonsense, it was very on-the-spot, lol..
     
  17. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    @dbesim, far from it! You were not spurned – in those twenty-three minutes between our posts above, I went to bed, but now I'm up! (although I'd rather sleep some more – damn merry-go-round never stops) You're the first to post an obvious story sentence, away from the 'I' and into the 'he' (is Steve still staring, I wonder?) – 'tis to be applauded and applaud you I do (fire flashing pupils made me shiver).

    db has moved us into storytelling – Becket, Faulkner, Fitzgerald eat your hearts out. :)

    Any more for any more...?
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2016
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  18. VynniL

    VynniL Contributor Contributor

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    I will indulge you @Wayjor Frippery and write you an extraneous and long sentence filled with profound, mind-bending wisdom and dangerous, never to be repeated secrets that will make you a hideously wealthy and powerful man, if only you could live long enough to use the information I will share in this laboriously hard to read and over-runny sentence, because all the world governments will come after you the moment you cough, whisper or croak a single word relating to what I will soon reveal to you, once I can remember what it was because I wrote it down on a scrap of paper, ripped it in half and buried it in different places, just in case the government tried to torture it out of me and I needed to have some sort of leverage to prevent them from killing me, only, I have a bad memory and now I can't remember where I dug the holes in my garden, so you need to have some patience while I check, and while I am out looking, it would be worthwhile considering the repercussions of becoming the holder of such terrible yet profitable knowledge, and how it will change you as it did me, only in your case, mentally, your outlook will be skewed with endless turmoil, paranoia and moments of clarity so bright your nose will bleed, while physically, you'll be forced to live a life with your hair dyed purple, a pink mustache, tattooed eyebrows and enough cosmetic surgery that facial recognition technology would never match you to all the happy snaps you have posted all over Facebook from a former life you will sorely miss, but will eventually become a distant memory, once you begin your career in the music industry and compete with the likes of Lady Gaga in the freaky fashion stakes and engage in petty Twitter warfare about who wears the kinkiest clothes, which is ingenious because you'd be hiding in plain sight and no one will know you have access to information that will change everything, and I mean everything, that is, once I remember what it was that I was suppose to tell you, which still requires me to find the two parts of my message, which on second thoughts I am too lazy to find for you, so please disregard this long-winded single sentence of nonsense I just wrote because I am still hiding from the government myself, and it would be a little inconvenient if they came after me now and I don't know what it is I am suppose to tell them...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 14, 2016
  19. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    @LinnyV, I am freaked out thriller style by your dark twisted words, and you ended with ellipsis! Does that sentence never end? Or is it, even now, spinning off in some parallel universe, continuing the tale unmentionabley? 'Twas a wizardly display of dazzling words. Welcome to the long-winded club!

    :)

    Inspired by @dbesim's tale spinning, I offer you this, fellow scribes...


    Knowing that the clapped out old boat was going to sink, and given that the boat in question was more than a thousand nautical miles from the nearest land and sinking here in this desolate spot implied certain death, even allowing for the fact that the boat had a life raft, a distress beacon, and a locker full of survival suites, the only thing the clapped-out old boat’s clapped-out old captain, old bent Jimmy Reeves, could think of in this time of storm-tossed crisis was not the wife and seven kids he had left back on shore or the six crewmen whose lives were in his hands and who were about to drown with him or even their loved ones, not even young Phillipe with his proud young wife and her bulging mother’s belly, and certainly not the miserly rubber-faced owner whose pockets would be hard hit by the loss of another rusty death-trap of a boat or even the mistress he had promised to leave his wife for the night before sailing, though he did spare a thought for the twenty-eight thousand pounds of swordfish on ice in his hold that would now have died for nothing, but rather all Jimmy could think of was smoking a last cigarette before the churning waters took him, a final blast of nicotine to sooth his liquid nerves before the sea swallowed him up, dragged him down to the dark crushing depths and turned him into chum for the beasts he had spent his life out hunting, and with that thought clear in his mind, the choking smell of diesel burning his nose, the scream of the engines ringing in his ears, and a smile on his salt-weathered face, old bent Jimmy reached for his Zippo with a shaking hand as the cold black waters rose around him in a fisherman's embrace.

    --------

    Keep 'em coming...!
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2016
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  20. Possum

    Possum Member

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    I feel a mild sense of concern at the sudden concept of writing a sentence that goes on so much longer than a sentence needs to go on, especially considering that I have nothing to write about other than this writing prompt that I have needlessly made myself undertake, all the while acting pessimistic about it even though it is nothing more than a lighthearted attempt at fun with the purpose of entertaining us for a short time before we inevitably turn to some other, more attractive distraction offered by this strange, vast land (the internet) that we call home in the 21st century, even though it has no walls to protect us and runs incredibly slow sometimes, so slow in fact that it provides us with a strange sense of peace, even as we rage against it, because its slow speed slows us down and makes it feel like we have longer to live, and so the slow internet has now become our generous benefactor, smiling upon us kindly and bestowing us with the gifts of life, love, and happiness, which is made more special by the fact that you can't touch these things with your body within the limits of physical space, so it is only through the freedom of a slow internet that we can truly coincide with the beings that we have been unconsciously striving towards sense we were born; which in essence proves my point beyond a reasonable doubt.
     
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  21. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    I am utterly convinced. (Though I think I missed the actual point. ;)) Another fine sentence to add to the collection. :)

    Anyone up for giving us another single sentence story...(a singenceory)?
     
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  22. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Yorkshire Daughter.

    When she was little, father sent her away to big school because it was the right thing to do, and all that stuff were his thing, being a man of convention whom she loved, her daddy, she yearned for his attention, read in a letter the mention, a recollection his regiment might pass the gates of school, high among the hills, driving green tanks – she was thrilled that day when she heard tread from behind a fence, saw afar, sat in a turret Papa biting pickle, taking tiffin, his luncheon meat: a sandwich spread over a white handkerchief, for it was him, high here on the moors, she trilled her delight, expected a visit to the austere academy, joy, surrounding like Arnhem-on-the-Rhine with all the lonely, rather ugly girls gathered but his transport turned the other way at the junction, back to barracks, hussars never stopped, or popped by the school, though he was their captain, a caller he was not, no: another soldier; she faced humiliation see, this century asks me now, how, why did Daddy not come say hello with tanks for that was my wish: wish I had ever been champion of the world watching, wrapped arms (a)round my brave captain when I was a little girl.
     
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  23. Wayjor Frippery

    Wayjor Frippery Contributor Contributor

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    @matwoolf, speechless!

    More, more, more!
     
  24. ChaosReigns

    ChaosReigns Ov The Left Hand Path Contributor

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    To write a sentence as long as yours @Wayjor Frippery would be hard one, for the grammar that i am used to is one that requires me to have a lot of full stops and starts again, it is not something that i wished to have done, but as i have a writing challenge to do, and i need to bolster my word count, I fear that this must be my only option, now, where do I begin, it is a tough one to decide where one's long sentence does come from, as it would need to be something spectacular to compete with the many different options that are show above, i for one miss using the full stop as i know that if i try to run like this in speech i would fall something chronic around about now, as I'm not one for taking shortcuts or breaks with how i handle things, there definitely are points where I'd like to use a full stop, but i know that the challenge is a long sentence, and i know @obsidian_cicatrix is partial to a long-running thought defying sentence, i hope i do not seem to be a cheat with all these commas, but i need to break this up a bit so my head does not explode from the lack of full stops, full stops are definitely my friend as they serve a very good function within my pieces, especially as I'm known for not writing short works at all, and thusly i do not enjoy writing short works, but i was tempted by the challenge of the 10th anniversary contest, that although i did not win, i certainly enjoyed, and writing a sci-fi piece that @matwoolf so kindly reviewed for me, he was an absolute star and was actually rather kind given it was my first ever sci-fi piece i wrote, i impressed myself, even if the judges weren't all that impressed, though i would have probably been better off entering the sci-fi contest the time before, I think because i wasn't confident that with Sci-fi i left it, now, that's me rambled on long enough, and your eye's are probably hurting right now from trying to read this and so i will stop.
     
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  25. Seraph751

    Seraph751 If I fell down the rabbit hole... Contributor

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    There she was, leaning against the old wooden bar in the corner by herself, her lips moving but what ever she was saying could not be heard over the raucous cacophony of the pub, her soft voice singing a silly ditty about a man, a rabbit and a his misadventures with women and work courtesy of his own ineptitude, impromptu timing, and a interfering brown polk-a-dot white rabbit who was not your typical small adorable fluffy woodland creature, but a were-rabbit who on the night of the full moon became a tiger with a penchant for frogs and whistles.
     
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