Beautiful Wisdom | William B. Gray

Las Vegas: Where the bandits are one-armed and steal legally.

Lukeman Exercise Part Two | William B. Gray

I decided to shorten paragraphs. To keep the sense in it, I didn't really change anything, so it mainly just adjusts the timing of the piece.

Here's the revised edition: (here's the original)

The wind howled outside my bedroom window. I knew it was cold. I still wanted to be out shooting pictures of the night. Mom said I'd catch a cold. I didn't care about that.

There were so many things to explore at night. First there were the stars. They called me to take pictures of them with my shutter open for hours. I'd bundle up to stay warm. Mom didn't care. She'd never understand. But I just had to go out in to the night.

It snowed yesterday too. There's a full moon tonight. I couldn't wait for the day to take pictures of the snow and the moon. The sun would ruin everything. I'd have to keep the shutter mostly closed. The clouds would just be in one spot in the picture. With the shutter open I could let the clouds move softly across the frame.

The wind still howled. I decided to defy Mom and take pictures of the night without her permission. I opened my window to check the temperature. The wind took my breath away. It had to be well below zero. I gathered up the camera and some film. Then I grabbed my tripod and a coat.

Where are my gloves? I couldn't find them. I tried to think of where I left them. Then I remembered. In my coat pockets. They were right where I left them. I crept through the door. Mom might be awake. I had to be quiet so that I didn't disturb her. I tip-toed down the stairs. I tried to avoid the noisy stairs. Finally I opened the back door. I stepped out into the cold.

Lukeman Exercise Part One | William B. Gray

I decided to write a short story without using any commas. I found that to still be grammatically correct a lot of my sentences were very short, which fragmented the story a bit. Then I also noticed that it was rather impossible to use things like: "Alas, ..." and "Of course, ...", which I use a lot in my writing. I probably could stand to not use things like "Of course, ..." quite so much.

For the character, it does create a kind of urgency. He has a pressing need to get outside, and short sentences help to emphasize his anxiousness to leave the house, especially w/o his mother knowing about it.

Here's the story:

The wind howled outside my bedroom window. I knew it was cold. I still wanted to be out shooting pictures of the night. Mom said I'd catch a cold. I didn't care about that. There were so many things to explore at night. First there were the stars. They called me to take pictures of them with my shutter open for hours. I'd bundle up to stay warm. Mom didn't care. She'd never understand. But I just had to go out in to the night.

It snowed yesterday too. There's a full moon tonight. I couldn't wait for the day to take pictures of the snow and the moon. The sun would ruin everything. I'd have to keep the shutter mostly closed. The clouds would just be in one spot in the picture. With the shutter open I could let the clouds move softly across the frame.

The wind still howled. I decided to defy Mom and take pictures of the night without her permission. I opened my window to check the temperature. The wind took my breath away. It had to be well below zero. I gathered up the camera and some film. Then I grabbed my tripod and a coat. Where are my gloves? I couldn't find them. I tried to think of where I left them. Then I remembered. In my coat pockets. They were right where I left them. I crept through the door. Mom might be awake. I had to be quiet so that I didn't disturb her. I tip-toed down the stairs. I tried to avoid the noisy stairs. Finally I opened the back door. I stepped out into the cold.

William B. Gray | Introduction

My interesting story begins about two years ago when I was a Photopass photographer at Walt Disney World. While working at WDW I had free admission to the four theme parks and I went to all the parks when ever I felt like it. One day I got the notion that I should do a coaster marathon. That is, ride a roller coaster over and over for the entire time the park is open. My favorite roller coaster is Space Mountain, so I naturally chose to marathon on it.

The day I decided to marathon, I got to the Magic Kingdom before it opened to be sure I was at Space Mountain as early as possible. I ended up getting to the ride right at 9:00, which is when everything opens. I hurried though the queue and was the first guest on the ride. One of the nice operations cast members rode with me on so that I wouldn't have to ride alone. In the small time that it took to start the ride, I told the cast members that I was going to ride the ride all day. They were all really cool about it and let me bypass the queue and get straight back on the ride after getting off.

The first two hours were really fun. I had ridden about 20 times by then. Sometime during the third hour though, I started to get motion sick. Space Mountain isn't very intense by roller coaster standards, so it took a while to even start to feel any sickness. By the time I'd ridden it about 26 times I was quite sick. Since it was about 11:40 I decided to take a break and have lunch. This wasn't really a good idea, and instead of making me feel better, the food make me feel worse. Foolishly, I got back on to Space Mountain. After that, in a vain attempt to help settle my stomach I went on a non roller coaster, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. It helped slightly, but only because it helped to take my mind off the nausea for a few minutes. Since I was feeling better, albeit slightly, I rode Space Mountain again. Unfortunately, the coaster made me sick again, and I decided to stop after 28 times.

So there is. I rode Space Mountain 28 times in the space of about three hours and was sick for the rest of the day.