Writing prompt:

Unlikely pairs

Pick two articles from two different sections of the newspaper, such as sports and obituaries, lifestyle and local news, or world news and business. For each article, write down a list of words that are central to that article. Write a short story, essay, or poem that uses words from both lists or central images or ideas from each article.

Weekend workshop: Great Movies, Great Books and the Enneagram

Want to create credible character arcs and character-driven plot twists that seem both inevitable and surprising? Learn about the Enneagram, a personality typing system that examines (among other things) people’s underlying motivations, which are oh so important in fiction.

One way to learn about the Enneagram is to attend an intensive workshop, called “Great Movies, Great Books and the Enneagram,” October 10 and 11, at the Holiday Inn Express, 2333 NW Vaughn. Judith Searle, the author of The Literary Enneagram and Sex, Love and Your Personality: 9 Faces of Intimacy, will use extensive film clips to illustrate the nine basic personality types. Each participant will receive a 120-page workbook with excerpts from 18 novels that illustrate the interior process for a male and a female of each type. The cost is $245, or $210 for seniors.

Workshop and presenter details are available here. Or check out the Enneagram Institute website to learn about the Enneagram itself and see where it takes you.

“The Intruders” (excerpt) by Howard Schneider

Howard Schneider turned to fiction writing in his retirement. He started out with flash fiction but then turned to longer stories about a not-so-average retired couple: husband Max, who has super powers, and his wife, Lena, a former CIA assassin. Howard has written 19 episodes so far, with the aid of Nancy Woods’s class on novel writing. He also has written flash fiction.

Max Manus was jolted out of a deep sleep when a vivid image alerted him to the likelihood of imminent danger. Instantly awake, he realized at once that something was different, that he had changed. He felt it throughout his entire body. He was vibrating with energy, as if a pulsing motor had been switched on in his chest cavity. He could even see better in the darkened bedroom, registering the time of 2:35 on the old clock sitting on the dresser across the room. He sat up on his side of the bed, noting his wife Lena stirring on her side, but apparently still asleep. He remained absolutely still for a moment. He listened for any unusual sounds but detected nothing other than the quiet night hum of their modest Southeast Portland bungalow.

Then he felt that familiar urge, his bladder calling—nothing out of the ordinary for a 67-year-old man. Carefully lifting aside the covers, he kicked his right leg down toward the floor, then brought the one with the bad knee over the edge to join the other one. But then, standing next to the bed, he heard a faint sound. It came from the front of the house, down the hall. It was the front door. Or was it just an echo from that dream that had awakened him so abruptly?

He tensed and listened hard with his good ear. A moment later he heard the faint sound again, then once more, only a little louder. Then the front door creaked open and he heard someone enter the living room, followed immediately by another person. He heard their every step, as if he were in the room with them.

The door from the living room to the hallway that led to the bedroom was closed, allowing him to rush unseen from the bedroom across the hall and into the kitchen before whoever was out there had time to get their bearings. But even in his quick scramble he couldn't help but notice the lack of the usual pain in his arthritic knee.

Standing in the kitchen at the open knife drawer, he quickly scanned the row of blades neatly organized by function and size. He grabbed his 8-inch carving knife. He reflexively tested its finely honed edge and sharp point. This knife had served him well in the past, and he had no reason to think it wouldn’t again.

Quietly easing the heavy drawer shut he noticed a stream of wavering light spilling under the closed door from the dining room. That and a creaking floor board informed him that someone was treading lightly toward the kitchen and would probably come through the swinging door in the next few seconds.

Quickly moving to the other side of the room, he positioned himself behind the door, his left shoulder pressed firmly against its backside. He clutched the carving knife tightly in his right hand. When the footfall sounded close to the threshold he shoved against the door with all his weight, slamming it full speed into the intruder, propelling him back onto the edge of the dining table with a dull crack. The intruder let out an anguished moan and dropped to his knees, a mix of surprise and terror spread across his face. He then fell back onto the floor, dropping his flashlight as he went down.

When Max leaped over the threshold and sped into the room the disabled man reached out with both arms in a feeble effort to entangle Max’s legs. Max easily jumped aside, then flung himself forward and plunged the sharp knife into the man’s thigh, feeling the keen point dig deep into the oak boards underneath. The man screamed. Blood oozed from the wound onto the polished floor.

But at that very same moment the grotesquely large head of the other intruder appeared around the half-open hall door. Max heard the man’s heavy breathing and looked up to see a giant of a man edging into the living room, a pistol in his huge hand. The big man looked over toward Max, glanced down at his helpless partner lying half under the table, at the blood gathering around his impaled leg, then slowly advanced forward pointing the gun directly at Max’s head.

“So, you’re the famous Max Manus,” he growled with a thick Russian accent and an evil sneer on his now-revealed ugly face. “Now you will please to pull that knife from my friend’s leg and then to come with us. There is someone wants much to speak with you.”