Creative Writing - How To Look At A Strawberry Series of 4 Minute Timed Writings

 Written 11 Mar 21 - Transcribed 15 Mar 21


This is a series of four-minute timed writings. The object is to dig down into the details of an object. Sean uses a strawberry as his example. I didn't have a strawberry handy, so I picked an orange for this exercise for myself. It's a series of 4 minute timed writings first just looking, then feeling, smelling, tasting.


In retrospect, I found this to be very difficult. This is something I'll need to work on, for sure!


NOTE TO SELF - I didn’t know in advance what the various pieces of this assignment were going to be.  In retrospect, I would have been better off to have peeled the orange first and done all of this with a peeled orange.  (And, at some point I’ll give myself a do-over on this exercise.)

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It reflects my overhead light in a singular spot.  That spot is an eye, this morning.  It’s looking at me.  That bright white reflection is looking at me. .


The shadow on the paper towel underneath it is black. The shadow runs around most of the bottom of the orange.  It’s  bigger on my side and fades to nothing as it disappears behind the object.


The Orange is textured. It has indentations or tiny dimples everywhere.  You don’t notice them at first.  But, under the bright overhead light, shadows are cast into the bottoms of these tiny pits. The darker parts of the orange, which are more in the shadows, appear to be smoother. Waxy.


It's an imperfect sphere. Yet a perfect piece of fruit.

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#2 - 4 Minutes Timed Writing...Write about the smell and feel. This whole “How To Look At A Strawberry” exercise is to practice creating words out of things that are non-verbal. 

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It's cold in my hand. Not cold like a snowball or piece of ice.  It didn’t come out of the freezer.  It came out of the refrigerator. 


It feels almost smooth. But the smoothness is disrupted by tiny indentations or dimples. You can feel them with your fingers tips and a light touch.


The orange is not squishable in my hand. There's a bigger indentation where the stem used to be connected like an umbilical cord to the orange tree. It's a darker shade of orange. It feels coarse.


The navel (it's a navel orange) is almost an outie, but not quite. The navel has a deeper center point the size of the tip of my pen.   The outer rim funnels down to that point.

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# 3 -  This is a 4 minute timed writing.  We can pick up the object (in this case my orange) and smell it and let our lips touch it imagining what it will taste like when we bite into it.

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Imagining the taste and texture of the fruit inside the skin from the skin itself is a challenge. I'm holding it against my lips now. The skin has a very faint orange smell. Sweet. But no discernable taste on my lips.  I can’t imagine the texture of the fruit once peeled simply on the basis of touching and smelling its outside part.   The skin provides no hint about the taste and texture of the fruit. Based on experience, however, I know exactly what the taste and texture of the fruit will be when I expose it. Oranges have always been my favorite fruit. Sweet and juicy. I think of oranges as dessert. 

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#4  - Eat it and write anything you want - 4 minutes timed.

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Why, I wonder, do I love oranges so much?


I always had an orange packed in my lunch going to school. I don't remember if it started as my choice or if Mom just started putting an orange in the lunch box and, later, the lunch bag. Regardless of how it started, I think at some point I made it clear that I would prefer an orange to any other fruit choice Mom may have made.


It's the juice, I think. And the sections. Eating a juicy Peach can be a mess. But, I can section my oranges into semi bite-sized pieces. Then the juice is manageable.  


And, the packaging of the thing is exquisite. It keeps the contents safe. The skin is Samsonite Luggage - indestructible!

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