1. Use the following words: scorch, commiserate, people, address, thought. (10 min)
Jen frowned. The address matched, but it didn't seem quite right. She glanced at the scrawled directions one more time, then shrugged and stepped forward. There were people here, which she hadn't expected. The building was just crawling with them - tall, thin, well-dressed couples meeting people and being led in and out and around the yard.
Never mind "not quite right", it was just completely wrong. Jen stepped onto the freshly cut lawn and stalked down the side yard, ignoring the visitors as they ignored her. The backyard was also tidy, pruned back drastically. She fingered a blunt-ended branch; it was also freshly cut. A thought occurred to her, and she approached the building itself.
There, under the back porch, were scorch marks. This was the right place after all.
Jen sat down and leaned her head against the blackened wood, mostly hidden underneath the porch. They hadn't had their chance to commiserate, she and the house.
2. Write about an oddly named place. For example, we passed a road to "Salient Point" last week. (10 min)
She had come a long way to see it. Once, it had been the only house on the bluff, but that never lasted. Through the stair risers, she could see the water of Broken Arm - a good view now that the trees were pruned. She patted the house guiltily. Pruning, painting, cleaning the tile roof - all things they had promised the house they wouldn't do.
She stared at the opposite shore, scoured clean by water protesting the sudden right-angle turn.
3. Write about an unexpected problem. (10 min)
Steps echoed around her as one of the visitors stomped across the porch, then she heard them exclaiming at the view. It was a noisy day - footsteps, conversations, hammers and saws and diesel generators. The house didn't speak. Jen turned her head, looking at the unpainted underside of the porch, leaning against the black wood. It was too loud, she told herself. Too loud to hear its voice over all the man-made sounds.
None of the visitors wondered why this house, out of the whole subdivision, was complete. None wondered why it was old-fashioned, missing the modern quirks, in a brand new development.
The house must be speaking, must have spoken, to have been renovated instead of torn down by the developer.
But it wasn't speaking to *her*.
