What I teach my creative writing students

This is what came out of an in-class exercise I conducted the other day; we're in the "creative nonfiction" unit. Here's "I Took a Breath:"

"I took a breath this morning—something I normally do, something which I generally enjoy—but the air smelled like a mix of eggs and bacon, both left out too long. It isn’t the first time this has happened, either. See, my wife and I live above the “model apartment” in our complex, the apartment that the management keeps professionally cleaned and decorated (they even replaced the plastic doorbell button that comes standard on all Clover Creek Apartments with a shiny, brass one); it’s the apartment that the management showed us when we toured the complex, and I guess the model apartment did its job, because now we live right above it.

"The problem is, since nobody lives in the model apartment, the plumbing dries out—nobody runs water through the pipes. Without water in the traps to hold back the sewer gas, methane (and who knows what else) leeches up through the plumbing, up through the ceiling, and into our pad. Like I said—bacon and eggs.

"And, sure, my wife and I both feel nauseated, taking a shower in a bathroom where steam from the bath mixes with methane and floats around the room like a breakfast-themed nerve agent, but I’ve got to wonder—if I were hungry enough, would the smell actually be appetizing? I mean, it does smell like two of my favorite early-morning repasts, albeit with some rot thrown in.

"The moment in my life when I was the hungriest was probably when I was a Boy Scout being inducted into the Order of the Arrow. (The Order of the Arrow is an honorary society inside the Boy Scouts for serious scouters, those who like to do additional service projects and dress up like Native Americans, conceivably at the same time.) The induction is supposed to be secret, a surprise for those taking on the challenge: First, participants are sworn to silence.

"Check, I thought, standing by a campfire. I can do that.

"Next, participants hang a “burden” around their neck, a branch attached to a length of string. I picked a big one. I can take it, I thought. (It turned out to be a chunk of tree root, not a branch at all, not that it mattered when I’d bend over and the root would smack me in the nose.)

"But then participants promise to abstain from food, all while performing “hard labor.” (I built tent frames. I had a two-by-four fall on my head. I broke my vow of silence, and—the way I was shouting—nobody was about to reprimand me.) So, yeah, after building tent frames and hiking around on flat prairies during a lightning storm (Idiots, I thought) and learning the secret handshake, I was starving."

I hope to add to it, since I'm intrigued by the idea of writing essays. I'll probably say something about the resemblance of the Order of the Arrow initiation to a Freemasonry induction ceremony or something. Something.