He freezes her in the headlights of his assumptions, tries to wedge her into the portrait that was a bad likeness even back then.

This line is fabulous, ita.

Kristin, it was more weird than I could really get across in 100 words, but I posted the drabble anyway. The house was originally built in about 1910, so it was already old and noisy when we lived there in the early '70s. I was in the area in June of 2003 and just meant to drive by the old house, but when I saw that it was now an office building I decided to see if I could get a tour. I don't think I would have had the courage to knock on the door if it had still been a residence. I found that the things I notice about "what makes a good house" are very different now than when I was ten.

I left out the lines about my memories of the dark dirty cellar with the evil scary boiler that fed the steam radiators in each room. The radiators are still there, but are reduced to being decorative. They use a heat pump in the winter now. All that is left of that whole section is the line about the air conditioning.

That brings up a general question for all the drabblers. Who tends to start with a few key thoughts and expand from there? Who likes to write it all out, and then prune to 100 words? Who can do both?

I almost always have to prune, though I tend to do so pretty quickly. I find the 100 word rule keeps me crisp and forces me to really figure out what's important.

I never count...obnoxious, huh?ETA: Thought of y'all as I'm sitting here researching the whole murder thing...there are a shocking number of bands named "Blunt Force Trauma" And an intern keeping a blog from an M.E.'s office whom I would invite to be in our plural marriage if it didn't look like it was an old blog.

Erika, I don't think that's obnoxious at all. I just do it because it helps me--if it doesn't help you, then I wouldn't do it either.

I'm not sure if it would help or not, Kristin. I just get as far as "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges." And that's it...it really blows my mind that I ever for one second was an apple-polisher or a grade-grubber, but I can't deny what my friend calls my Pinkie period. (Because I wrote something and wrote(blush). L&O fandom is overrun with like the Drabble Police(Ha!) And they piss me off.Munch could take 100 words to take the trash out. And another 100 to bring her home. Bad Dum pum.

Now I'm wallowing in nostalgia about that old house. I put up some pictures here.

I decided to do my drabble on my old, dear Smith Corona because I'm tired of reacting only with melancholy to the drabble subjects. I'm trying to think of how to keep a drabble about our new library, which was put into the old school buildings down the street, down to something around a hundred words. I don't count either, but go for what looks like the right number of lines.

I just write. I don't count until I'm done; I don't start out with a key theme. It's a picture, or a memory, or a story, or just a moment gone, and then it's on paper. If it's too short, I leave it or expand it. If it's too long, I either prune it or expand it. It depends on the bit in question.

Do you think I should try to write 2500 words for a contest by the end of December?I'm a little tempted.(But I lose a lot)