Help, i've got the sickest form of writers block. I am stuck with my character needing to hock a loogie, but can't use that old sock of a phrase. I tried to work on another section of the chapter, and cannot for whatever reason, move on. My brain is numb, so I bring my query to you, my dear fellow sick n twisted Reactorites, when reading about spittle and phlegm, what comes to mind?
auto-expectoration
He sucked snot down into his mouth and spat.
He horked up a lung-wad and aimed for a lawyer.
He vibrated his throat, letting the mucus slid into his mouth to mix with the saliva before pushing it out.
It depends on whether he's sucking it out of his sinuses and sliding it up his throat or if he's choking up some lung butter.
^ "lung butter" ... ha, nice :)
It was like a freshly boiled garden slug.
The dynamic collection of expungable particles soared as a comet toward the horizon.
Lol you guys are amazing! It would be more of a sinus slug rather than lung butter. Is it too gross to say he tasted it at the back of his throat before spitting it onto the ground?
There isn't much that's "too gross" around here :)
I view 'gross' like bank account withdrawals. You can make a few big ones or several tiny, as long as you are putting 'quality' back in. If you only take out it looks like an overdraft notice. No one wants to read those.
Describe the taste if you do that though, if you gross out at least do it well.
break snot and spit.
yay! thanks you guys you rule - lol I'm still pretty new here so I'm still figuring out where boundaries lie in the forums. Glad to know I'm among friends :)
Does this ring true or is it too purple?
"He snorted back a gob of snot from his clogged sinuses, tasting the mass of salty slime at back of his throat before spitting at the ground between his boots."
dont know why this is so hard for me haha maybe because I don't spit so much.
@Dwayne, great analogy! i'm gonna remember that one.
Thanks.
It reads okay. I'd ditch 'back a gob of,' 'at the ground' and switch 'the mass of salty slime at' with 'salt at the'. Readers won't think it was pure energy, that the anything besides ground between his boots, and know that snot comes in slimey globs; so they are just filler unless you use it later (like he notices something from how it hits or what not). If it is just there to show the character is the kind of guy who spits they don't really bring much to the sentence.
So instead of
He snorted back a gob of snot from his clogged sinuses, tasting the mass of salty slime at back of his throat before spitting at the ground between his boots.
you'd have
He snorted snot from his clogged sinuses, tasting salt at the back of his throat before spitting between his boots.
Make sure you come back to the clogged sinuses, even if only to let the reader know they are now clear. A stuffy nose should be noticeable.
awesome thanks Dwayne, you're the best!
Yes, good to finally have someone who realizes that.
*facepalm* Now he's never gonna stop.
Did you think I was going to stop before?
Well, in my defence, I'm new here ...
Valid point, Dwayne. Entirely valid point...
Don't worry Andrea. Our on site interactions are sort of like a friendly knife fight; it doesn't make sense to attack each other like that without really hating each other, but it happens.
She watched the boys spitting off the side of the building. They patted each other on the back and smiled and laughed as each ball of saliva floated in the air, disintegrating along their journey to the sun warmed New York concrete. It was time. The boys stopped congratulating themselves as they heard the organic phlegm machine begin to work its magic. It whirred and sputtered and ground. Finally, it was ready and she expelled her creation into the summer wind—thoo-uhg! A quarter-size yellow/whitish ball of perfection was introduced to the world. It wobbled in the air and seemed to embrace its birth. Once conscious, it looked for the right place to make its presence known to the world below. It descended veering right and left, farther from the building then closer, it had its mark, and splat.
The little girl in her Sunday church dress felt the top of her head. Her fingers touching the glob of human gel. She looked at it unsure what it was at first. She looked up to the top of the building just in time to see five faces disappear. The light-bulb went on in her mind. And she cried.
I don't know. I was bored and this is what happened.
Oh Dwayne, that is all part of the fun of the fun, isn't it? At least for me...
For some. It doesn't bother me, but I can take it or leave it.
It's been far too long since I've had a good knife fight, so I have to at least try to manufacture virtual knife fights here whenever possible. I'm not allowed to have real fights anymore.
All improvements in life have a cost.
A few times in my life, during some nasty colds, I have actually hocked up condensed boogars that were about 150% the size of my thumb nail, and I have somewhat thick fingers. Say, an inch by half an inch or so. It was so nasty I RAN to the sink and spat it out. It was like three chewed up pieces of gum, only much more rubbery and just plain gross. The feeling in my mouth as I ran to the sink was the worse. I had a picture in my phone but alas, no longer.
Maybe go with that?
