Rewriting Steinbeck...Oh My! Satwe Gather Writing Essential

Challenge: Rewrite some famous piece of literature, poetry, opera, or song. Not the whole thing, obviously, just a sampling of a few paragraphs, stanzas, or verses. Make it your work. (Include the original text so readers can compare them.)

When the fair gold morning of April stirred Mary Hawley awake, she turned over to her husband and saw him, little fingers pulling a frog mouth at her.

“You’re silly”, she said. “Ethan you have got your comical genius.”

“Oh say, Miss Mousie, will you marry me?”

“Did you wake up silly?”

“The year’s at the day. The day’s at the morn.”

“ I guess you did. Do you remember it’s Good Friday?”

“He said hollowly, The dirty Romans are forming up for Calvary.”

“Don’t be sacrilegious. Will Marullo let you close the door at eleven?”

“Darling chicken-flower - Marullo is a Catholic and a wop. He probably won’t show up at all. I’ll close at noon until the execution is over.”

“That’s Pilgrim talk. It’s not nice.”

“Nonsense, ladybug. That’s from my mother’s side. That’s pirate talk. It was an execution you know.”

“ They were not pirates. You said yourself whalers, and you said they had letters of what- you- call-it from the Continental Congress.”

“The ships they fired on thought they were pirates. And those Roman G.I.’s thought it was an execution.”

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

Awoken by the sun cutting through the privacy curtains and the garbage man outside Mary Hawley opened her eyes to see her husband pulling up his nostrils into a pig like expression.

“ You can be such a moron sometimes”, she said. “Don’t quit your day job or we will starve.”

“ You know Missie, sometimes you are no fun at all.”

“ Are you awake or really bad joke walking?”

“ Aaah, thank goodness its Friday.”

“ That is “Thank GOD it’s Friday” and Good Friday at that.”

“ Aaah the “Good Fellas” must be getting ready for another Valentine’s Day.”

“ Will you please be serious for just two minutes. Will the Manager let you go at noon?”

“Only if I do an Oscar winning performance that would preclude a call to 911.”

“Don’t say stuff like that because then it could come true and you would need 911.”

“ Oh, get a grip. Your are starting to sound like your Mother. I have no desire to go commemorate an execution.”

“ Stop it. You are being sacrilegious.”

“ Well, the Roman’s thought it was just another in a long line of executions…..and that’s the truth.” He stuck out his tongue at her.