My Next Venture: Describing a Smile

Writing Exercises | Moose

I am still yet to post up some of my descriptions of males, but for now I am going to share something that I am working on this week:

                Describing the smile

I will admit, that so far, this has been hard. Describing a person can be as simple as just finding a place to sit down, and observing someone, from their mannerisms to the way that they dress and act. You can learn a lot about someone in just ten minutes of sitting there.

A smile, as I have regrettably found out, is so hard to come by. People in a city, or at least the one’s that I have encountered so far in London, do not smile regularly. They walk to the station, with deadpan faces, get the train and sit there, without emotion, playing on their phones. They will then walk to work where, although some may talk and laugh at times, the focus is on work and they are often found to be quiet. By the end of the day, they are tired and, as a result, do not smile. (Note: I am not trying to describe a laugh, so those attempts at work to grab my attention have failed to draw me in). I cannot look at something online because many of those smiles are clearly faked for a photo.

A Smile is a very human emotion, and, having read up on it, is a very reactive one.

Without purposely doing so, though, this is the perfect week to try and describe a smile as I chose this time to perfect my own smile. I had heard that it is a great way to improve your social ability (something that I am lacking in at times). Due to this, I have done a lot of reading up on what makes a smile, and where I originally thought that a smile is revealing in the movement of the lips, a genuine smile uses a great deal of the muscles around the eye.

This is a particularly good blog (obviously not a reputable source but effective nonetheless to give me a basic understanding that I can build on), so have a read:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-science-of-smiling-a-guide-to-humans-most-powerful-gesture

A smile can lead to a smile.

This is what I intend to do over the next few days: I will show off my improved smile to random people, on the train, in the tube, at work, and hopefully they will respond with the genuine smile that I crave. This will help me to improve my ability to describe a smile. I have described some that I have seen, which I will post up before the end of the week, but as I have said, it has been rare to see one.

I look forward to this. I enjoy smiling, and, more significantly, I love that very human response: the smile.

Describing Women Pt. 3

Writing Exercises | Moose

This is the end of the week in which I am working on my description of women. This was definitely a fun exercise for me and I hope that you enjoyed it to as readers. Next week, I'll be trying to describe men, which I have learnt is a very different task. However, I will definitely be returning to this task, hopefully in more inventive ways, and really work on describing the seductiveness and beauty of some of the women that I come across

If you were to see this woman only by the skin on the proximity of her face, from the forehead and following round to the cheeks, you would believe that this thin brunette woman was relatively young, right in the prime of her life, especially after listening to her talk with such passion and energy. As she revealed more of herself, however, it became obvious that she was much older than that. With the features that you may describe as the stereotypical Halloween witch, she had a pronounced nose that had a boil on the end of it, and her dark, sleepless eyes were surrounded by a large number of wrinkles that spread out to roughly an inch around her eyes. These wrinkles were most pronounced around the edges of her nose, especially where the skin of the nose met the bags underneath her eyes. She had a wonderful laugh though, which, despite not being the most attractive, was very contagious, and gave extra life to the conversation that she was having with the man next to her.

This was a woman who really interested me when I was on my final train home of the week from work on Friday. There was something about the contrast of her wrinkles and the youth that she displayed which meant that I really wanted to describe her. 

She sat to the left of her lover on Valentine’s Day in the local coffee shop, which was inside a clothes store: not the most romantic of ways to start the day. Nonetheless, she had a decent amount of makeup on her face, something she had practiced to perfection, and was wearing a black top with sparkles on the shoulders to draw more attention to herself. She was not a naturally beautiful woman, and had a large head that was riddled with large features (all except for her nose which looked petite and out of place in comparison). Her mouth, in particular, was big which meant that she spoke with a great amount of emphasis on each word. It was clear that this day meant a lot more to her than it did her lover, and she was trying to steal his attention from the wall ahead of him with chat, but was forced to jump from conversation to conversation as he responded with closed, uninterested answers. Undeterred by the simple responses that she was receiving, with each word spoke with real clarity as she looked deep into the eyes of her man, despite not receiving the same gaze in return, she continued to try desperately for his attention like a young puppy, though eventually, after working exhaustively, she herself lost interest, and started to gaze longingly into the shop next door, forgotten, reminiscing on the fun, loving person that this man used to be to her. She grasped the glass of coffee on the table and leant forwards towards the lap of her lover, hoping for a kiss on the cheek as she took a sip of her drink. A curl of her jet black hair fell onto her face so she flicked it behind her ear seductively, before running her fingers through her hair towards the messy bun on the top of her head, and looking with her flirtatious hazel eyes towards her man (though flirting did not come instinctively to her). Yet he continued to display no meaningful response and resumed eating the biscuit in his hand. Disappointed, she reached into her handbag, which was sitting on her lap, and took out her phone, not before taking a quick look at the ring on her hand, wondering if something could have been different.

The one thing that I really hope that was displayed in this piece was the disappointment that the woman felt at having been forgotten, or disregarded by the man she was with. I felt that I positively described the way that she tried to show herself off, but despite her efforts, they fell on deft ears. Woman in the coffee shop, you should know that I appreciated it!

She was defined by her wonderful smile that highlighted her beauty, and made her more pleasant for the customers that she was addressing. Stuck on coffee duty, though, for the majority of the time she had her back to these very customers, that suggested that she was the newest of the five workers who were very close in age. She had long brunette hair tied back, which, though tied behind her head, still reached the depths of her lower back. Fortunately, by tying her hair back, she was able to reveal the soft tenderness of the skin on her cheek. She was a very thin young woman, which made her appear taller than she actually was, even despite the weak neck that led to her head pushing forward, and ultimately displaying the poor posture of her natural state. This made her look like a very delicate woman, like someone who had found it easy in life, likely due to the fact that other people had made it easy for her, and the fact that she was a beautiful and slight woman as well, made this appear all the more likely. She stood on the fringes of the other three women in conversation though, and clearly struggled to speak her mind. Soft in voice, she would only add to the joking once the chat had died down. Clearly a very smart woman, she would add something funny, and the other girls, led by the Manager in her lighter brown shirt, would take over her contribution and develop it into something greater, which she again struggled to get involved with. When a customer did approach the counter, she was the first to step away from the chat, before producing an endearing smile and making this client feel worthwhile, whilst the other three women were left to gossip behind the counter. 

I would have liked to describe in more detail how beautiful this young woman was. She was clearly very confident in her abilities, but was a bit quiet, which is something that always intrigues me. I always want to find out more about women like this, because I find that they are normally the most interesting. They always have something to say. 

Describing Women Pt. 2

Writing Exercises | Moose

Moose here again, continuing my task of describing women. As ever, I would love some feedback on my writing below.

I know the train and work seems to be a common theme, but I am planning to sit in a coffee shop, a library and other places this weekend to observe, and try to describe, women from all fashions of life.

Covering her shoulders with her white and black shawl that helped her to stay warm in a cold office setting, she sat staring at the computer screen in front of her. Her long black hair was tucked behind her petite ears where it proceeded to flow over her covered shoulders. She maintained her focus whilst making her way through the multitude of emails that had been left following her meeting, only moving her head slightly to scan the large screen, and mouthing the words of each email she read. Her lightly tanned skin, still full of colour despite being in the cold depths of winter, gave her cheeks some life, which was only aided by the light red blusher that she wore. Surrounding her eyes was a dark eyeliner which highlighted the allure of her blue eyes, even more striking among her dark red, seductive lips. Though she maintained her reticence, one could tell that there was something within her personality that was genuinely worth getting to know, and it was a part of her that she had struggled to share with the world: a tall woman, she was close to six feet without heels, the voice of the bullies from her younger years kept her true self hidden. The hard working woman, only months above the age of thirty, continued to stare at the screen as she began to chew on the gum that she grabbed from her desk, and it was clear that, with her mind focused on work, she could relax and simply let the events of the working day take over.

This is a woman that I see at work every single day, and I have come to know that she is quiet, but that there is something within her that wants to show her true personality. This task helped me to realise that sometimes it is good to describe people that you know, though imperative that you do not make generalisations that may prevent the reader from picturing them in their head. Though I described this woman from a side on view, I would like to put more effort into analysing the face. 

A thin, dainty figure, the woman, with thick ginger hair that flowed down her shoulders from a fringe on the front of her face, was sat up as close to the train's window as possible; this made the journey very comfortable for the young blonde woman sitting next to her. Wearing square, thick-rimmed glasses which barely managed to stay on her tiny nose (though distinctly proportionate to the rest of her face), her focus was on the conversation that she was having with the woman sitting opposite her. One suspects that she did not have much interest in the musings of the other woman, who continued to talk about the difficulties in her life, because her only contributions to the conversation were just confirmations of the other voice. It was a very matter-of-fact conversation, based solely on the life of the other woman, and the only joy to the conversation was from this ginger haired woman who laughed at her own comments by opening her mouth as she tilted her head back, and forcing out a short, difficult breath of air, as though she had been a smoker for years. When she did speak, though, she only moved her jaw and let the emanating sounds from her throat do the work, which meant that her speech always seemed to mumble and her vowels extended far beyond regular speech, and, in fact, almost made her seem uneducated. She wore a long black coat which covered her well, but only emphasised how small she really was, no less for the fact that her tiny hands poked out of the sleeves of the coat, with a tiny, though expensive, wedding ring on one of her fingers.

Looking back on this, I would have liked to describe her age a little bit more. I would have liked to describe the way she talked a little bit more, but let me know what you think of the way I did end up describing it. 

Her blonde hair was an almost golden colour which perfectly matched her pleasant blue eyes. It is disappointing to see that this woman has spent all of her time staring at her phone, with only a few occasional glances around at the rest of the train, because her eyes deserved to be shared more with the world, and not hidden beneath her thick eyebrows. She was fixated on the large screen of her phone which was layered by a golden protective case. Showing increased discomfort on her face, by creasing up her eyes, forehead and the area around her nose, she reached down to itch a part of her leg hidden by the dark blue jeans she was wearing. It was hard to guess her age because she had passed the desirable beauty of her younger self, but did not yet have the wrinkles of an older woman. As the train approached her stop, she stood up to reveal herself as a very short woman, and, judging by her forward leaning posture and the dissatisfied look on her face, she was not a very comfortable person.

I tried to describe her actions more in this description. 

Her skin was a dark sandy colour, the sign of someone who had not cared for herself properly, which, judging by her age, was the result of having spent too much time in the sun during her youth.

A very short description, I only saw this woman as I approached my final stop. I would like to have had more time describing her, as she had a very complex look to her.

Describing a Character Pt. 2

Writing Excercises | Moose

Continuing on my theme of describing a character. Here are two more, both from my train journey though this did make me realise that I need to make more of an effort to describe people that are not on their train journey home: they are normally tired and looking forward to sitting back and relaxing in their homes where they are more comfortable. On that point, however, maybe it does suggest a lot about the world we are in: that we accepting of working a job that we do not enjoy. Maybe I'm also looking too much into it. Either way:

His eyes we closed, and just by looking at him, you could tell he was in his own world of peaceful bliss. The music that was quietly emanating from his black headphones, which were hanging over the crown of his bald head, allowed him to escape from the incessant hissing of the train as it sped past the various trees and buildings, sometimes other trains, that surrounded the tracks. The man's stern face, with wrinkles around his eyes, displayed a resignation to the tough characteristics that

At this point the man got off the train, and I was unable to describe him any more. Does this give you an idea of this person?

To some, the long journey home from work is a blessing, a welcome escape from the labours of work. This young woman, in her long brown coat, a similar design to all of the adverts in the popular clothes shop designed for the modern working woman, exemplified this need to escape. While some, enamoured by their labour, will work until late, and may even complete their tasks on the train, she has escaped to this train, the same one as every single day, which is the first one that she can get at the official end of workday that is stipulated in her contract; and with her head firmly fixed on her tablet resting on her lap, she was happy to escape even further, using the sound of the online show to distance herself from the train journey which served as the final reminder of the her tough labours at work. Sure, you could argue that she looked the part, with her coat, paired with the professional looking black skirt, tights and shoes. The fact, however, that her hair did not complete the look, her blonde streaks were brushed straight and almost looked greasy, was the final proof that she did not feel as though she belonged to the world that she had inculcated herself within. To an observant person, it was clear: she wanted something different. No one can know exactly what that something is, but it was a little too obvious.

I probably need to work on describing the look of the person a bit more. I'm making assumptions based on what I seeing, but not allowing the image to develop that picture. 

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Let me know!

Moose. 

Speckles of Sugar

Writing Excercises | Milo

I was challenged by Moose to set a scene in 200 words or less. Did you enjoy my attempt? Do you think you can do better? Put it in the comments! Milo Out. 

Speckles of sugar stuck to the puddle of spilt coffee atop the tin table, and glistened as the outside light hit it. The shine was similar to the spark caused, when moonlight penetrates the raindrops caught in a spider’s web. Of course one had to be sitting at just the right seat, and positioned correctly in front of the right window, in order to spy this cheap imitation of the natural world. The next customer to enter this quaint, cluttered café would, by some miracle, occupy such a seat in order to see this unremarkable phenomenon. Perhaps it was predestined that such a man would enter as such a time, because the sight resonated with him in ways that he could neither articulate nor fully understand. His sleeves stopped just above his knuckles, and his trousers fell far below his ankles, often becoming cut and wrinkled by his shoes. The man didn’t wear clothes that fit him properly, and he possessed a less than impressive silhouette, however he still hoped that were he to be accosted by the right light, he too might glisten like speckles of sugar on a tin table top.