Practice with phrases and clauses 2

Disadvantages of living in my town

Because the neighborhood is so close, everyone knows everybody's business.

It is hard to get a job, unless you can work in a nursing home, hospital, fast food restaurant or manufacturing facility.

It has two Wal-Marts which have taken business away from smaller shops.  The smaller shops which would encourage specialty shops cannot exist because there is no one to buy from them during nine months of the year.  Tourists mainly visit in the summer months.

There are too many restaurants and bars for the locals to visit so many of them don't last very long.

Practice with clauses and phrases 1

Advantages of living in my town.

The buses can take you almost anywhere.   It is located near Lake Michigan, which not only keeps the city warm in the winter, but cool in the summer.

Everyone in your neighborhood knows you.

People have easy access to the mayor, who tries to get things done.

There are several shopping areas where people can visit different types of stores including: grocery, clothing, department and maybe several specialty stores for clothing, games, or food.

It is not far away from major shopping, and two bigger cities are within a two hour driving distance.

It has a large local library which is connected to several smaller libraries.  There are many different and various religions.

Module 2 Writing Activity

In your journal, continue your observations of the scene observed in journal 1.  Note several vivid action verbs that you have already used. Revise some of your sentences using action verbs and/or write 2-3 new sentences with action verbs. Try not to use any of the forms of “to be” (is, are, was, etc.).  Underline the action verbs in your sentences. Again, you will want to keep all of these sentences at hand as you do the peer reviewed writing at the end of the unit.

this is the scene that I was using... looks like I have to work it over a bit.

As I stared into deep brown eyes of my dining companion, I was unaware of the hustle and bustle going on around us.  Servers were getting orders and visiting with their customers.  The hostess showed more customers to tables around us.  My companion and I spoke to our server and ordered. The server was efficient and the food served quickly.  We dug into the deep fried fish, I had perch, while my companion ate cod.  The plates were filled with French fries, coleslaw and rye bread.  

I wrote this in the past and as you can see there are many "helping" verbs and not as much action.

The sentence "servers were getting orders and visiting with their customers" can definitely be changed.

"I had perch, while my companion ate cod."

"The plates were filled with French fries, coleslaw and rye bread."  Most of this is quite bland and needs more action to show the hustle and bustle of the busy restaurant.

Quite boring and needs more work.

Writing Assignment 1 for coursera Writing class



The tall purple flowers bloom near the bird feeder in my small backyard garden.

The small blonde woman walks determinedly towards the coffee shop where she will purchase breakfast.

2nd or third attempt seems to be ok.

This is what I will turn in.

this is for the second post of journal writing

Verbs                                                                 

1. saw

2. discuss

3. have

4. was

5. hung

 6. leap

7.crawl

8. spun

Adverbs

1. suddenly

2. always

3. lovely

4. darkly

5. romantically

6. sharply

Writing journal for cousera

I am going to be using this blog for my writing journal for my current coursera writing course.

The assignment was to write nouns and adjectives describing a scene.
                                                             

1. bed
2. computer
3. printer
4. books
5. clothes
6. light
7. closet
8. walls
9. chair
10. desk

Here is a list of adjectives:

1. blue
2. messy
3. clean
4. cold
5. warm
6. green
7. light
8. dark
9. three
10. seven
11.  

March

Things are changing.

My coursera courses are almost finished.  Yea!

Snow is melting.  We actually got almost 17 inches the other.  On top of 6 or 7 from previous snowfalls, so there is quite a bit of snow that will have to melt.

Today is sunny which makes everyone feel better and think that spring is finally on the way.  However, there is still the tournaments.  Minnesota tends to get at least one more storm during Boy's basketball tournament.  I am not sure what happens in WI.  Haven't been here that long.

Camp NaNoWriMo is next month.  I may use that to rewrite Jill's story.  I know that was ok at one time, but it needs updating and an ending.

There is Writer's Digest Writing competitions in May.  I am going to seriously think about those as well.

Book club is in about two weeks.  I have finished reading the book (again).  I still want to go over what happens in each chapter so I have the story straight.