The Lotus Eaters Forum EX#19: SImCity - a Literary Ga..

Since you're computer literate, I take it you know of the game of SimCity, that came out so many years ago, before SimPlanet, SimUniverse, SimHell, or whatever else needs planning. In SimCity the player got to do some city planning, organizing where to put up houses, then utilities, government buildings, etc. All of this was to make the city prosper. There have been many, many games since with the same idea, building the Roman Empire, medieval castles, futuristic cities. For this writing exercise, and several to follow, each of us should create our own town or city.

The idea isn't original. There is a rather well known book by Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town, in which he challenges writers to create small towns of their own, and take aspects they have seen in real towns, but then to make them their own. I will try to write of some exercises that are a little different, but the premise is the same. Create a town or city that does not exist yet.

This does not have to be intimidating in scale. That's where I hope, by typing up some specific exercises, you might just concentrate on one street, or one building, or one family, or even one person. Don't worry about creating a town in one piece, or in one sitting; that's not important. We are going to write pieces that may fit together later.

The first exercise, for poetry or prose, is to write of what is in the center of your town. Is it the courthouse? a bar? a water fountain? I don't want to suggest too many things because I don't want to spoil it. But once you have what is in the center, describe it. And describe one event that has happened there, at any time in the history of your town. Because this is the center of town, it should be central to the soul of the town.

If you write something for this, and it's unfinished, not ready to be posted as a poem or a fictional piece, I would say post it in this thread. Because we are writing pieces, to be fit together later, we're probably not going to have a lot of stand alone works. But feedback could be very helpful. This is one exercise I would like to see a lot of people in this group do, to write along with the class.

I got down in the floor a while back and drew a map of my fictional town. When I go home tonight, I'll see what's in the center and write about it. This sounds like a lot of fun!

I hope others are practicing this exercise too. I have found that, after a few days, I have several fragments. I've started a new notebook with these fragments to eventually fit together for stories. It's important to write even fragments. After years of writing I have the ability, now, of going over years of previous writings to come up with something better. The fragments you write now may be a part of something complete later.

 

I wrote prose first, then turned it into verse. I'm not sure which is better at this point, so I will post both, as both add a little to the story of the town of Mount Moriah, Wisconsin.

 

   In the center of town there's a memorial to five Civil War soldiers. It was remarkable that in a town of three thousand, at that time, five men went to a war that hardly affected them, living this far north. That was the nature of the people of Mount Moriah, given a good idea they would risk everything. The bronze statue of a Union man is well taken care of by an old woman named Agnes, known for her beautiful garden, her commitment to this statue, and never having married. Of course she was a volunteer nurse, until recently, when she needed the services herself at the age of eighty. The town agreed in a hall meeting, the rare time when Agnes wasn't there, that they wouldn't discuss the upkeep of the statue until Agnes was gone. Everyone knows that her generation was the last to settle in one place. Funny she never married.

 

In the center of Mount Moriah

stands a soldier

memorialized in bronze,

who's imbued with the spirits

of seven men who took up

the Union cause.

Unusual that seven men,

in a town of three thousand,

would volunteer to fight a war

that hardly touched their lives.

But the people of Mount Moriah

understand sacrfice and risk everything

for a good idea.

An old woman named Agnes

takes care of the Civil War soldier.

She used to be a volunteer nurse

until she needed their services.

The town at a hall meeting,

where rarely Agnes was absent,

agreed not to discuss

who will replace her

until Dear Agnes is gone.

Everyone knows hers is the last generation

of Americans who aren't nomads.

Funny that Agnes never married;

Lord knows it wasn't lack of commitment.

1.  I'm so doing this excercise.  I joined your group because it was so much more involved than the others I'd seen, but then I haven't had nearly the time to commit to it, but I have to do this one. 

2.  I think I'm in part inspired because of my love for Stephen King's imaginary Maine.

3.  While it cheapens things sometimes, to compare them to other things, I mean the highest compliment when I say your poem reminds me of a Garrison Keilor story.