I’ve started writing on 750words.com, doing at least 750 words everyday, the idea being to get into the habit and accept the discipline of writing regularly. I’d like to think that at least once a week what I write there could just come straight here and be a blog post, but it may not be that easy. Anyway, here is today’s effort. (This isn’t 750 words, I wrote more which wasn’t relevant.)
The view out of the window – they always say write about what you know!
My office window looks out onto a major highway, the only one going from Western Australia across to the rest of the country. I have no idea how many vehicles go past every day, but it’s a big number. Everything from cars to buses to huge trucks. Sometimes, actually quite often, it’s people on bikes, and I cannot imagine what makes them want to ride on the highway. I would be petrified, apart from all the exhaust fumes they must breathe in. There are several back roads they could take through here instead, and even a walk/bike track which would surely be much more pleasant.
Even though it’s a major highway, there as still plenty of trees in view. Some in front of the office on this side, and on the other side of the road there are only trees to be seen. The houses are hidden behind them, well back from the road. The trees are almost all native, some indigenous to this part of Australia and some not. Actually some of the trees over the road are going quite yellow, so I’m not sure what they are. I don’t ever recall having seen deciduous trees over there before, but maybe there are. Otherwise it’s mostly eucalypts, and small acacias underneath them. There is quite a range of colours, from grey-green through mid to dark greens, the slightly yellow green of the trees I don’t know, to bright green grass on our side where the drains run out. The rest of the grass is dead and brown as it always is at this time of year. The tree trunks range from brown, to grey to cream, some a brownish almost pink colour. The sky at the moment is quite grey and overcast, as if it might rain, but it’s not very likely to by the look of it. Been waiting for it to rain since yesterday morning, but hardly enough yet to drown a flea, let alone lay the dust.
I’m trying to come up with descriptions of things which haven’t been used to death. For example, grass as green as ? Emeralds, been done. Actually thinking about it, green as grass is perhaps more usual. What else is bright green, and could be used as a description? What would everybody, everywhere, recognise as green? Astroturf? Still a variant of grass. Kermit? Better perhaps. Perhaps that one’s too hard.
The sky? Ash grey? I don’t think you hear that one too often. Dove grey, leaden is overdone. Sounds, continuous swoosh of traffic going past, broken by the occasional heavier note of a truck, or the roar of a speeding motorbike. Sometimes a siren, at which everybody looks up to see what type of vehicle, and during summer heaves a sigh of relief if it’s not a fire truck. Again, heaves a sigh of relief, breathes again, how could that be better described. A touch of guilt at feeling thankful that it’s only an ambulance, and somebody else’s problem. Fire has the potential to be devastating in this environment, but an ambulance can mean a devastating event in somebody’s llife.
julielivingstone 