I’ve decided to start writing my blog again. Only this time, I’m not going to just write about food, I’m going to write about my writing. I found this blog called Writers Digest at http://www.writersdigest.com. Every week the editor poses a scenario (called a “prompt”), and then people write a story based on that prompt. For example, the editor will say write a story about receiving a Dear John letter from your favorite piece of furniture. The catch is the story has to be less than 500 words. Try writing a story about a piece of your furniture breaking up with you. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially if it has to be less than 500 words.
Eventually I will have to actually write something and not just keep writing about my writing. Writing about writing gives one the sense of actually writing something, when, in fact, it is just a way to get around writing something creative, like a piece of fiction or poetry.
So, what I intend to do, at least initially, is write my stories based on these “prompts” and then post them on my blog, lucky you (the reader). It is my hope that I will eventually write and post my stories based on my own thoughts, rather than on “prompts.”
Here is the prompt that I based my first story on:
You return home from work to find a Dear John letter on your kitchen table. Oddly enough, it’s from one of your favorite pieces of furniture. What does the letter say?
Here is my story based on that prompt:
On this particularly hot summer evening, John Peters manages to leave the bank operations center at a decent hour. He glances at his watch. It’s just after 6:00 pm. He’s usually there until 7:00 or 8:00. Ever since his divorce he really doesn’t have much else to do besides work. He knows his boss expects him to work long hours on seemingly useless projects because he is a salary employee.
During his commute he thinks about how he’s not looking forward to being at home, another lonely night, just him and his bowl of ramen noodle soup.
John finally arrives home, unlocks his front door, and throws his sport jacket on the love seat. For a few moments he thinks about the many chores he has neglected, which include cleaning his cluttered living room. Laundry and dirty dishes are scattered everywhere. He flips on the television and turns it to the channel that has all the cooking shows. He has no idea why he watches cooking shows. He has never even attempted to make one of the recipes. He thinks to himself that it’s better than watching the channel that has all of those shows about homicide detectives and serial killers.
He heads toward the kitchen and notices a neatly folded piece of paper on the kitchen table. He knows that it wasn’t there when he left for work this morning. He slowly unfolds the paper and sees a letter that reads:
Dear John,
It’s been a long time since we sat together and just chatted. Remember when you were going through your divorce? You would sit on me and cry until you fell asleep. Now you ignore me, like I don’t even exist. All you do is come home, throw your jacket on me and head straight for that other piece of furniture. You’ve left me for the sofa, haven’t you John? I’m not blind. I can see what’s going on here. You say she is only a couch but I can tell by the look in your eyes when you sit on her that she is really a sofa. The next thing you know you’ll be treating her like a Davenport.
I’m leaving. The pain of your infidelity is more than I can bear.
So long,
Your love seat
John is confused. How in the world can a piece of furniture write a letter? He walks back into the living room and sees his jacket lying on the floor where the love seat usually sits. His head starts to swim. How can this be? As he takes a step back, he stumbles, and falls into the sofa. The pillows in the sofa wrap themselves around him.
A couple of hours later John wakes up and finds himself lying on his love seat, one leg hanging over the arm and the other flopped on the floor. He thinks to himself that he must have been dreaming. He gets up, walks into the kitchen and notices a neatly folded piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table.
And that is my first story. Feel free to leave comments