But, this image was shattered when she opened up her mouth. She always started in the middle of her thoughts. Her mouth lined with red lipstick, small but always moving, twitching, running down the stream of her ever expanding mind. She read a lot because she had a lot of time to spend alone.
Solitude was her only friend.
She read so that she could share her knowledge to all victims. Her mouth held steamed wisps of absolute truthful absurdity.
"Do you know Big Birds address for his nest on TV's Sesame Street? She did not expect anyone to know the answer. So, she waited for ten seconds, counting in her head: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one and then answered aloud-"123 1/2 Sesame Street." (Her victim would stand, with a look of , Why the heck did you just tell me that. How does that have anything to do with what we were just talking about kind of look.)
She would shoot steam at anyone that crossed her path. Ms. Lovo was like a mail train who brought bills to all the people who accidentally crossed her path. When people saw her pushing carts, (her job at the local grocery) they walked with a determined step to the entrance. They attempted to get to the front doors before she did. She attempted to wave at her victims, but her victims kept their eyes forward and moved fast.
Ms. Lovo could be talking about macaroni and cheese, or the death of her beloved grandmother in Sioux City Iowa with the same urgency. She was a runner, a runner on rails, who ran her mouth like she was a steamed-up locomotive; but there were no crossing guard to prevent people from being ran over. Her mouth was a small powerful weapon, and she left her victims scattered for their fear of being vaporized from her released steam. Ms. Lovo stood, talked, and ate alone (chugging along all the same). People wanted to reach out to her but her smoky-whispers repelled them.
(This post was a revision from one I posted on 6.26.2010- for a note on what I think so far about revision read further).
Revision: Go back to the posts done in the years for that month. Eg. June 2009, 2010 (Refer back to these posts).. that way you 1. See how much you have improved. 2. Have a seed idea for a new piece of writing. 3. Your flow will start more easily.
- When revising a character sketch think about a metaphor that this person could be refered to. Alexia Lovo in my post on 6.26.2010 to me felt like a beautiful doomed train. So I thought of her as a steam train and made sure my references were about her as a train, that way I could model her as steam train that people worked hard to avoid. (E.G. think about how many cars attempt to beat the train across the rail road tracks only to be hit). Lovo is attempting to get to someone so she can cure her loneliness, only people do not want to get close to her. An interesting and simple conflict.
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