Alright. So I figured I should try my hand at coming up with writing exercises for the sake of practicing as well as for the sake of getting more inventive.

I was driving down the road the other day and heard a snippet of a song I love, reminding me of how wrong I was about the lyrics at first. This got me to thinking, and my mind wandered off on a pretty crazy tangent, but I came up with this writing exercise:


What would insanity sound like? Imagine yourself in a not-right state of mind, and think of the sounds you would notice the most in your everyday environment. Would they annoy you? Would they soothe you? Try to imagine what craziness would go through your head if you were insane and hearing everything from that perspective.


(To see what I wrote for this particular exercise, click "Read More.")

The silence is almost overwhelming. It's amazingly quiet when the children are at school, nothing going on except for the incessant tap-tap-tapping of my fingers across the keys. If it weren't for my irritation at the scratching of pen on paper, I would not be typing... but this is the lesser of two evils.

There are noisy appliances here. Not to most people, but to me. Between the fridge sounding like it's leaking water from somewhere to the dishwasher and washing machine sounding like they're struggling not to break... it's enough to drive anyone mad.

In all actuality, I love the sound of the washing machine and the dishwasher. It comforts me, lets me know that there are some things I don't have to do manually. The television does drive me nuts when it's too loud, though... so do the kids. Everything from constant screeching to loud, cackling laughter to tattling and whining, it all gives me a headache. When they're quiet, though, the silence is almost too much.

It's the same when they're gone... such a strange, foreign world when the house isn't full of chaos and noise....

Silence is the sound of insanity.