Aimee Bender’s January Writing Exercise

By Slake Media

Write about a character who makes a very unrealistic New Year’s resolution. If you’re stuck, let it begin with a G.

1. We were late for the New Year’s Eve party. Lenny’s bedroom door was stuck shut again. “Dude,” I moaned, “I am not climbing out your tiny-ass window this time.” Len glared at the hinges as he rubbed the toe he’d just stubbed on the wall. “No, it’s ok,” he decided, “ I was hoping to practice this a bit more before really doing it, but I’m ready.” He hunched his shoulders, ducked his head, and ran at the door and bounced off. My heart sank. Len made a sour face. “We’re gonna have to call my sister to get us out. But I swear, this will never happen again– I’m learning the resonant frequency of the door handle. When I can make the door vibrate the right way, the handle will just kind of melt, and we’ll be free.”
—Squiggles Macphearson

2. Grainy and faded at the edges, that’s how the photos looked. Timo hid them beside a slat between the walls. Watching reruns of Cops on TV, eating leftover tacos from Dino’s Mexican, he couldn’t stop thinking about his next door neighbors, the evening murmurs they made. Today was the day he would stop pressing a glass cup to the wall near his window, writing down what they said, making photocopies, hanging them on the wall.
Today he would stop thinking about his neighbors wants and the two dogs they walked at the park in the mornings. He would go outside while it was still daylight, maybe go to a museum, look at photos of people he didn’t know. The stolen talks, he would give them all back.
-Jackie the Destroyer!!!

3. Gorman resolved that in the year 2012 he would refrain from schtupping Daisy. To anyone else this would be an easy promise to keep but for Gorman it was the thing he thought about every cruel moment of every day. A vicious cycle of shame haste temptation delight that repeated itself. Dawn of 1/2/12 Gorman rose with a confidence. He put on his sweat suit and ran 4.5 miles. He drank ample water, he showered. He promptly dropped and did 35 push ups. His towel loosened around is questionably taut midriff and there she was. Barricading the entrance to his bedroom. Daisy splayed longwise- her naked skin glistening. Her eyes wet. Her tail. Thump thump thump.
-Melissa

4. Roberta decided her new year’s resolution would be to unlearn how to ride a bike.
-Anonymous

5. This year is the year I will stop working. I’m going to do it. I’m going to march into my bosses office and say, “Thank you very much but no thanks,” and “by the way, stuff it,” and I will walk out of that office a free woman. No more people telling me what to do, or when I have to get out of bed. I will survive on the beauty the world has to offer 9-5, Monday through Friday all day everyday. I just hope my parents will let me have my old room.
-Krisserin Canary

6. Calendar had never understood new years celebrations; had never been a fan of the day let alone the day before it. For her, a year was just a tangled string of moments, no less tangled than the year before and, furthermore, inextricably tangled to it. January the first always felt like god’s big thumb thumbing through god’s big Rolodex in the clouds, flipping leaf at a time in consistent search of that old friend he’d rather confide in. So when 1pm rolls around, hunching brightly on the window, feeling the arbitrariness of her own denominations, Calendar squirrels herself upright in the back seat, yawning. Her tattooed fist unraveled into an open palm, permanent marker smudged and resmudged from a night full of sweating, but the message still decipherable:

get off your ass

make great decisions

let it begin with G.
-Ryan Williams

7. Gessy thought this was the year if the Blue Whale. If she couldn’t learn to inhale big gulps of water and deep sea dive her way into becoming a Giant of the Sea now,
when would she ever? It was a precarious line between drowning into a fish and holding her breath long enough to stay warm-blooded. Soon she will have to do things like marry + have babies + “have a career” + get old. So this was her year. Gessy was resolute. She would grow a spout + black eyes and feel the ocean floor scrape across her stomach.
-Sara Finnerty

8. Claire told herself in the mirror that this was the year for a new boyfriend. But this story is not about Claire its about her scoundrel boyfriend, “G.” G did not know how good he had it. Claire was the perfect girlfriend, she even used breathmints after going down on him.
It all came out during New Years. “G” had been having a fling with Claire’s sister Joanne. The next day, “G” apologized like crazy and even made the resolution never to cheat again. Claire laughed and cried at the same time after hearing such utter bullshit! She forgave him and she told herself again that she needed a new boyfriend.
Later that month they went for a walk in the Silver Lake reservoir. Claire noticed an outhouse that seemed to come out of the sticks. She pointed it out to “G” and he went to explore. The door opened to a cave where there sat a giant looking Jackolope. “G” ran out the door but Claire stood still. The creature walked towards her. Claire reached out her hand and noticed that the creature was a giant bunny. She instantly fell in love and went deep into the cave with her new boyfriend.
-Hector Torres

9. Glenda from Glendale resolves to uncover the Romney-Huntsman conspiracy to save the soul of the true conservative candidate: the Gingrich (Kathy) Griffin love-child.
She’s older than she looks­–way older.

10. I, Newt Gingrich, pledge to be less of a jackass in 2012. I believe I am up to the challenge with the support of my beautiful wife and you, the American people. I have set up a website to solicit your feedback. If you see me slip on my New Year’s resolution please write to me at newandimprovednewt.com. I look forward to getting America back on track after 4 years of communist, liberal, ‘I believe in the social safety net BS.’ Oops, I’ve broken my resolution already…I just can’t seem to help myself. But I do believe in family values so that should make it okay. God bless.
-Jill

11. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Last year she tried giving up sleep. She made it to March 3rd. By then her cat had run away, she had lost her job, and she couldn’t remember her husband’s name. This year her resolution is to add hours to the day. On January 12, her day is 36 hours long and includes light, dark and more light. The week is long. The weekend never comes. All the things she is afraid of are forestalled. She can spend 2 hours on her nails and watch 5 episodes of Jersey Shore in a row. She sleeps for 13 hours at a time. And she will never die.
-Mia Taylor

12. Geese in V-formation, taking their time in Winter. The hurried, obedient legs of a centipede escaping shadow. Be it a bird, be it clouds. A newborn’s cry and the heavy ache of its mother’s teat. Dolphins dipping and rising as a single body, a tongue’s nod to salt, to sweet. 2011, for Darius Mede, had been marked by a lack of order. The months meant nothing, a dozen apologies for falling out of step­–independence was overrated. Darius would spend the next year following the grain of wood, trailing other cars to their predetermined distinctions, dancing to the beat of the common drum, following directions, abandoning questions. A pledge of complete synchronicity with everyone and everything that arrived. Freedom from decision.

13. This is the year I make Denitra fall in love with me. This year there will be no failures, no unanswered texts, no blocked Facebook profiles, and no awkward silences on the street. I resolve to be magnetic and charismatically attractive every time she enters the parking lot by My Taco. I resolve to show her our shining destiny as One Being and to let her down easy when she asks to be my wife.
-J. Michael Walker

14. Golf clubs lay strewn across the floor; the fish tank’s shattered glass dimly reflected the midday sun that struggled to pierce the opaqueness of his cheap, plastic window shades. Gus sat, naked and panting, in the middle of his shabby, frayed, foot-worn Kmart area rug and wondered how long his prized Betas would survive. And as he watched their eyes bulge and mouths’ gap-sucking but not breathing­–Gus came to ponder the frailty of life; the miracle of existence; the privilege of birth. And at one singular epiphanic moment in his otherwise Vapid Beingness, Gus promised to himself, “Gus” he whispered, “this year you WILL make a hole-in-one.” And the fish died…

15. God, when would she learn. Every January 1st it was the same 5 pounds of Christmas chub and resolutions that always went unresolved. Every year she spent the lonely anti-climactic winter months lost in a sea of spandex and self help. But the old lady next door would die soon and she promised she would try her damnedest, as hard as anyone from Jersey could try, not to curse or roll her eyes when the old lady complained about her son, less than trained dog or, as the old lady put it, fickle sprinklers. But at 8:00 in the morning with coffee spilled on her dress she could feel the f-bombs forming on her lips.
“I thought you were taking that mutt to obedience school,” said the old lady. “ You might want to enroll that odd looking boy of yours as well.”
“Morning Mrs. Hubbard,” she said, teeth making tiny indents into her lower lip.
“Honey, you have coffee spilled on your dress. You’re never going to find a new husband looking like that.”
“Happy New Year,” she called to the old biddie. She thought of all the over-the-head retorts she could throw over lawn ornaments, but bit her lip again, went inside and opted for chocolate cake. She sat in the silence of her messy home, contemplating a new neighborhood. Resolutions are for quitters.
-Kelly Grace Thomas

16. There was this guy, he had this upsetting almost-exaggerated facial tic every time he tried to say something he thought was profound. This past New Year, this guy, his name was Gary, he raised a toast, holding up a plastic flute filled with the bad champagne everyone was drinking, and said, “This year, let it be said, that after all the cancer, all the sadness and anger, after all the hate, the Mayan curses and future atrocities, that this time next year we resolve to resolve again.” He shook like he was having some kind of seizure.
-Jay Brida

17. For years and years, Harold had been hearing people say the world was getting smaller and smaller. And it was true. Harold, who in his first 40 years had never traveled outside his own country, had in the last five years been to Hong Kong, Casablanca, and Istanbul. So if the world was so small, Harold thought, if we were all just one human family, why not go out and meet them. All of them. On December 31, Harold cashed in everything and set out to meet the family. If he started in New York City, Harold reasoned, he would get a good chunk of the family out of the way. He would have a long way to go, but he would have something under his belt. Harold never got out of the block in the East Village bounded by Houston and 15th and 2nd Avenues. He worked to make sure he got everyone before he moved on, and he could see a lot of the same faces kept coming up again and again as was tempted to move on. But then someone who looked new, or felt new, came around the corner and Harold stayed put. It felt terribly important not to leave anyone out. So he stayed, and stayed and shook hands with new friends and old friends and old friends he’s forgotten and who had become new friends. He took comfort in the meeting and re-meeting and re-meeting all over again. Because each time it was new. Each handshake, each hug, was a family reunion, and there was no need to move on. The world had indeed grown very, very small.
-Scott Doyle