Writing prompts: Light at the End of the Tunnel, and Random Acts of Kindness

Each time our writing group meets, we share our own work and give feedback to one another. Then at the end of the meeting we do a ten-minute freewriting exercise based on a word or phrase as a prompt. It's always fun to see where the prompt takes us and how different our responses can be.

Now and then I share a couple of these freewrites here on the blog; below are two I wrote recently. I hope you enjoy them!

And if you're interested in reading some of the ones I've posted in the past, here are the links:

An outing with Mommy; choosing baby names
Empty pockets; park bench
Cats and phones
Hardware store; train station


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The prompt was "Light at the end of the tunnel." 

Susie's parents were as different as night and day.

 If her father said the cup was half full, her mother would say yes, but it had coffee in it, and she wanted tea.

If her father brought home roses for Valentine's Day, her mother would say they were pretty, but roses lasted such a short time; carnations were really more practical. 

If her father said, "It's been a long, cold winter, but I think we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," her mother would say, "That's an oncoming train, dear, and we're going to collide with it."

Susie knew the expression "Opposites attract," but she wondered if it always went both ways. She could understand her mother being attracted to her father -- he was cheerful and handsome and lively. But what did he see in her mother, for whom every silver lining had a cloud?
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She put her hand on her father's. "Dad, they're about to close the casket."

They got up and walked to the casket. Her mother lay in stiff, cold repose, her lips firmly pressed together.

Her father touched the cold, lifeless face. "My sweet grumpy-pants," he said.

He turned, teary-eyed, to Susie. "I'm the balloon, and she was always holding on to my string, keeping me close to the earth. Close to her. Now I think I might just float away without her."

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The prompt was "Random act of kindness."

It was "Random Acts of Kindness Day" at Kristy's high school. As she rode the bus, she tried to think of some kind deeds she could do for other people. Which, when she thought about it, meant they really wouldn't be random at all. Maybe they should call it "Carefully Premeditated Acts of Kindness Day."

When she got off the bus and headed up the school steps, Kristy saw Mitzi Moorehead standing outside the door with a huge tray of fresh baked cookies. People were grabbing a cookie as they passed by.

Right ahead of Kristy was a very dweeby guy named Randolph Smithers. "Not you, loser," said Mitzi Moorehead to Randolph.

"Hey," said Kristy. "This is supposed to be Random Acts of Kindness Day and you're telling somebody they can't have a cookie and calling them a loser."

Mitzi shrugged. "You can have a cookie if you want one. Just he can't." Randolph just stood there red-faced, looking humiliated.

Kristy wanted to slap Mitzi right in the face. Instead she lifted her hand sharply underneath Mitzi's tray, and the cookies went flying in the air. Mitzi screamed. A couple of football guys grabbed several of the cookies off the steps -- "Five-second rule," one of them said -- and walked away eating them.

Kristy's heart was pounding. She couldn't believe what she had done. Yet somehow she felt she had aced Random Acts of Kindness Day.

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Writing prompts: an outing with Mommy, and choosing baby names

As I've already said before on this blog, when my writers' group meets every second Monday evening, we often do a freewriting exercise with a short phrase or word to prompt us. We set a timer for ten minutes and just write, going wherever that prompt takes us. Reading our freewrites aloud afterward is the best part, because we inevitably end up marveling at how different our approaches to the same prompt can be. 

In this post I've reproduced a couple of the pieces I've done recently. (I only edited two, uh, choice words -- this is a family blog, after all...) They're not too profound, but they're fun; I hope you enjoy them!

(And if you'd like to read some of my past efforts, you can do so at the following links:
"Empty pockets; park bench" 
"Cats and phones"
"Hardware store; train station" )

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The prompt was "It was over in seconds."

I think my mother is lying to me.

She told me we're taking a ride in the car to see a nice lady who might give me a Dora the Explorer sticker. She said there's a place to play with toys and look at books and we can go up in an elevator. "Won't that be fun??!!" she said with an extra cheerful voice.

I'm starting to get very suspicious.

"Here's the elevator, sweetie!" she says. "Look, I'm going to press the number four."

She presses it and the big doors swoop shut. My tummy turns over as we start moving. What is this place? What terrible thing does my mommy have in store for me?

We stop at a desk and talk to a grumpy looking lady behind a glass. Then we go to a room where there is just one dollhouse but no dolls, and a couple of colouring books with ripped pages.

Another lady calls my name. "Kaitlyn?" My mother takes me into a little room and the lady says, "So you're here for a little shot, are you, Kaitlyn?"

WHAT? I think. I realize I have been tricked. I knew it all along. I look at the door, but I can't get to it because my mother is holding me tightly on her lap.

The lady grabs my arm and wipes it with a little wet pad. "This'll be over in just a second," she said.

I have heard those words before:
-  as my mother made me swallow yucky medicine
- as my mother ripped a bandage off my knee

Every instance of these words has had to do with my mother.

The lady sticks in the needle.

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The prompt was "phobia."

I'm riding the bus home one night, and the couple across from me is discussing baby names. The woman is using her phone to come up with names online.

"How about Ivy?" the woman says.

"Nah. She'll get called Poison Ivy," says the man.

"Violet?" the woman says.

The man says, "That sounds like somebody's grandmother. I still think Jennifer would be nice."

"But there are a million Jennifers out there," says the woman. "I want something unique -- special."

The man grunts.

The woman says, "How about this?"

The man looks at the screen. "Phobia? Who the heck names a baby Phobia?"

"That's PHOEBE, not Phobia. You know, Phoebe like on Friends."

"What's Friends?" the man says.

"That TV show. One of the women on that show was named Phoebe."
 
"Was that the one played by Jennifer Aniston?" he asks.

"No, Lisa Kudrow. Lisa Kudrow played Phoebe."

"How about Lisa?" the guy says.

"I hate Lisa," she says. "I used to know a Lisa and I hated her. She was a b---h."

"Do you have a Lisa phobia?" he asks.

I had to reach up and ring the bell for my stop at that point. When I got off, she was no longer speaking to him.

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Writing about empty pockets and park benches

As I've mentioned before, my writers' group usually takes time at each of our biweekly meetings to do a freewriting exercise for ten minutes, using a simple prompt for inspiration.  (I've posted some of the results of these exercises before: here, here, and here.)

I find that rather than using these prompts to reflect on my own life -- though I do that sometimes -- I more often use them to explore fiction ideas.  Here are a couple of recent examples (unedited) of what I came up with. Hope you enjoy them!

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For this piece, the prompt was "empty pockets."

Every day when dad got home from work, he would empty his pockets. He put his keys, his wallet, and any loose change on the table near the front door. Sometimes I would go and count his change and maybe he would give me a dime or even a quarter to put in my piggy bank.

One day he came home and put his keys and wallet and coins on the table, and also a card with some little holes in it.

"What's this for, Dad?" I picked up the card and held it up to my face so I could see his shirt through the tiny holes.

"That's my time card," he said.

"Why did you bring your time card home?" It was my mom, who was standing in the hallway.

"Because I don't need it anymore," Dad said. "I won't be going back. They let a bunch of men go today, and I'm one of them."

My mom put both hands up to her mouth. I knew something was wrong but I didn't understand my dad's words. "What's let go, Dad? Who let you go where?"

My dad never hid the truth. I knew that when I was six years old and I still do. "I don't have a job anymore, Lucy. I'm going to need to get a new job so I can make money to pay for food and clothes for us. Where's the newspaper, Margery? I need to start looking at the help wanted ads."

My parents went into the kitchen and I could hear the newspaper rattling and my parents' voices -- my dad's quiet and calm, my mom's high-pitched and quick. I carried the time card around all that evening, amazed at how looking through it changed everything I looked at.

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For this piece, the prompt was "something left on a park bench."

Dave left the office and walked down the 11 flights of stairs to ground level and outside. Like he did every day, he walked a block to the park and quickly looked to see if his favourite bench -- the one near the maple tree -- was empty. Good, it was. It was always stressful when he saw "his" bench occupied and had to decide which other bench to sit on.

But when he reached it, he saw that it wasn't empty. A Nexus 5 android phone with a glittery purple case was lying there.

Dave looked around. Only a girl would use a phone like that, and he didn't see any girl in the park: just an old lady feeding the squirrels some bread. She shouldn't do that, Dave thought irritably. Making wild creatures dependent on the generosity of humans disrupted the cycle of nature.

Dave sat down and picked up the phone. He touched the screen and the name Angie popped up.

Either "Angie" was one of those stupid airhead girls who didn't secure their phones and used 123456 as their password, OR an emergency or traumatic event had caused her to flee, dropping her phone.

OR BOTH.

Suddenly it rang. The ringtone was the theme from "Angry Birds." A more annoyingly catchy ditty had never been composed, thought Dave.

He pressed the phone icon and lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello, this isn't Angie," he said.

"Hello Angie, is that you?" said a girl's voice.

Apparently Angie was an airhead, and so were those with whom she communicated, thought Dave.

The writing life: cats and phones, work and fun

I haven't been blogging much lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing.  I've actually been doing a lot of writing for a course revision project at work, and that's been interesting, though not quite as satisfying as personal, creative writing.  Life has been a bit stressful in the last while, too, and I've had a hard time focusing on larger pieces of composition.  However, I've spent more time working on my poetry and have found that both therapeutic and challenging.  I've composed three new poems in the past three months and have spent quite a bit of time revising them and, in the process, trying to find the poetic style that really suits me.  I also attended a poetry-writing workshop by local writer Helen Humphreys a couple of weeks ago; that session provided some useful tips and a good dose of inspiration.

At the biweekly meetings of the writers' group I'm in, we try to spend part of each meeting doing a writing exercise:  we take a phrase or word as a prompt and write spontaneously on it for ten minutes.  I've posted a couple of these attempts before -- here and here -- and thought I'd post a couple more today, just for fun.

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For this piece, our prompt was just four words -- frown, green, light, and cat -- which we had to include in whatever we wrote.

So I'm standing at the corner, waiting for the light to turn green, when this guy comes up beside me and says, "You seen an orange tabby cat around here?"

I look around me at the skyscrapers and office buildings and the chaos of cars and buses and taxis streaming past and the mobs of pedestrians choking the intersection.

"Uh -- nope, haven't seen one," I said, wondering why the darn light didn't change and let me escape this nut bar.

"Her name's Snowball," the guy said.

Thank God, the light changed and I started forward, hoping to lose Mister "Named-My-Orange-Cat-Snowball" in the crowd.

No such luck.  He kept up to my pace.  I glanced his way, hoping the frown on my face would deter him.  But he kept walking along beside me.  "She usually comes when I call her," he says.

No way, I thought -- but yep, he started calling out, "SNOWBALL!  SNOWBALL!"

Screw this, I thought, and stopped abruptly, letting the guy go on walking ahead of me.  I pulled open the nearest door and entered what proved to be the ATM part of the CIBC bank.  And there in the corner was an orange tabby cat.

"Snowball?" I said tentatively.

A guy waiting for the ATM made a hunnhh sound through his nose. "That's the stupidest name for an orange cat that I ever heard in my life."

"Who the heck asked you?" I said.

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For this second piece, the prompt was "Message on the answering machine."

When I checked my answering machine I heard a man's voice say "It's Dale.  Call me!  I've run out and I don't know if I can get through the night." {click}

I stand there wracking my brain, but I am 100% sure I don't know any guy named Dale.  It must be a wrong number.  Tough bananas, I think.  Dial more carefully next time, Dale. 

But the call haunts me.  What if Dale needs life-saving medication?

I press *69.  "The last number to call your phone was 613*555*1234."  I jot it down on the memo pad and then pick up the phone.  I'll just say, "Uh, Dale, I think you meant to call somebody else." 

But then I stop.  What am I doing?  Maybe Dale is a criminal -- a drug user -- and I'm phoning him because he dialed the wrong number??? 

I go back and forth for some time.  Then finally I call.  A guy answers.  "Uh--Dale?" I say.  "You accidentally called me and said you ran out and couldn't make it through the night."

The guy starts to laugh.  "Sorry, miss," he says.  "I was calling my mother.  She makes her world famous perogies for my restaurant and we've been really busy tonight and we're all out."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I say.

"No worries.  I wondered why she didn't call me back," he says.  Then he goes on, "Ever been to the East Street Grill?"

"I've heard of it -- never been."

"Come on down for supper tonight," he says.. "I'll give you a meal on the house -- for being so thoughtful.  Just don't order the perogies."

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If you ever think you'd like to write something but don't know what to write, just try a ten-minute writing exercise like this.  You never know where it will lead -- and even if it leads nowhere, it's a lot of fun to do.

Following the prompts to the hardware store, the train station, and wherever else they lead

For the last few years I've been part of a writers' group that meets biweekly.  There are five women in the group, and we each try to bring 3-4 pages of writing which we can read aloud and receive constructive feedback on.  I can say without hesitation that this group has made me a better and more productive writer than I would ever have been just working away on my own.

Lately we've been trying to incorporate more writing exercises into our meetings:  we take a prompt (like a word or phrase), set a timer for ten minutes, and just write whatever that prompt brings to mind.  It's interesting, and often  amusing, to see how the same prompt can take all of us in such different directions.  

Sometimes when I do these exercises, I feel that after ten minutes I've only been meandering and barely have a handle on what I'm trying to write about; other times, even though I only manage 200 words or so, the piece somehow feels complete.  Either way, it's nice to have these pieces in my notebook as possible fodder for something longer that I might write another time.

I thought that today, just for interest's sake, I'd share two short pieces that I wrote in recent writers' group exercises.  Note:  they're both unedited, and they're both fictional.

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Prompt:  "In the hardware store"

I was in the plumbing aisle, looking at faucet fixtures, when he spoke to me.

"Are those taps on sale?"

I looked at him -- big sweatshirted belly sticking out from his unzipped ski jacket, Tim Hortons toque, scraggly red beard -- and then back at the display of, oh, 2-3 dozen bathroom faucets, any one of which may or may not have been on sale.  "Uh, sorry, I'm not sure."

"I need to replace my mom's faucet," he said.

"Oh yeah?" I said.

"It's been dripping nonstop," he said.

"Might just be a washer," I said.  "Might not have to replace the whole thing."

"Well, the handle falls off too," he said.

"There you go, then," I said.  "Might as well go for a whole new one while you're at it."  I took a box with a Moen 3-hole 4-inch off the shelf and examined the contents.

"That's a nice one," he said.  "Does it got the spray?"

"I think only the kitchen ones have the spray," I said.  "These are for bathrooms."

"Oh, so I need a kitchen one?" he said.

"Is the broken one in the kitchen?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Then -- yeah."

"Are any of the kitchen ones on sale?" he asked.

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Prompt:  "Fleeting glimpse"

In Union Station, while she was waiting for the 5:10 train from Toronto to London, Martha saw her brother Brian.  She could have sworn it was him:  a tall, dark-haired man with a beard, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs leather jacket, heading up the stairs toward the taxi stands.  Brian had won that jacket in a fundraising raffle -- they said Darryl Sittler had donated it, but that could've been just talk.  But Brian loved that jacket -- he was such a Leafs fan.  Martha would tease him that it was fortunate July and August were too hot to wear it -- it would give him a chance to get it cleaned.

She looked at the big clock on the wall:  it was 5:00.  She should be heading downstairs to catch her train, but instead she sprinted up the stairway that Brian -- she was so sure it was him -- had gone.  She looked around -- no sign of the blue and white jacket among the  rushing crowds.  She pushed open one of the big doors and looked up and down the sidewalk where the cabs and limos and buses were pulling in and out.  Way, way down to her right she saw a glimpse of blue near a bus.  Stepping around luggage and people, she hurried down the sidewalk and stepped up on the bus, looking at the impassive faces of the passengers.  The man in blue was halfway back.  He didn't have a beard at all and his face was rounded, not angular like Brian's.

"ExCUSE me," a woman said.

Martha stepped off the bus, her eyes full of tears.  She knew Brian was still in the psych hospital -- the schizophrenia had taken its toll on him -- but just for a moment, she'd let herself hope.

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