Writing Prompts Vol. A
About Writing Prompts: Several years ago, I bought a book filled with interesting writing prompts. I replied to the first five immediately, but never picked it up again. These replies are presented below.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the book is literally nothing but a collection of invitations to write, I can find no language saying that the prompts themselves can be reprinted, even in part, for illustrative purposes. They are inspirations to creativity locked down by copyright.
Therefore, in order to show what inspired each response, I’ve created a vaguely Shakespearean permutation of each writing prompt, featuring almost none of the original words. In the case of “Thanksgiving” this transposition is especially weird, but probably worth it.
Will there be a “Volume B”? I don’t know. The rest of the book is still blank, but I’m always amenable to writing more like this. What say you?
1: Describe, if you will, that which might transpire between two ticks of the clock.
Fuck. All I needed was double through this donkey and coast into the finals. With the dead money from the rock in seat six, this fucking pot would have made me the table lead and just two seats off the bubble. But no. Spade-seven-spade-seven, and I’ve got trips to this dumb shit’s bullshit flush draw. Six-four of spades calls an all-in from the small blind. Then BAM - that stupid fuck rivers a spade and sends me to the rail. From a thousand dollar cash to a shit sandwich in the turn of a fucking card.
2: How wouldst thou coax an indoor potted vegetable from the brink of death?
My dearest Douglas:
I’ve only known you for a short time. But the fire that you kindle in my soul is matched only by the actual fire that now threatens to consume us both. When first we touched, I felt something special between us. A spark. I mean, a literal spark. Triggered perhaps by my long white beard and / or some suspicious wiring somewhere among your hundreds of beautiful colored lights.
As I lie here, immobilized by the shock, I can see your lovely flaming branches reflected in the toes of my jolly black boots. And all I can do is beg you to cease this ill-considered conflagration, if only that I might survive and tell our story of love to the world.
A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
3: Describe, if thou wilt, a disappointing or regrettable element in your last late-November holiday meal.
It was an entire stick of butter.
4: Prithee, imagine a series of journal entries, expressed via social media, in the not-too-distant future.
Oct 21: Dude. I went out to the country and self-drove for a while. Can’t believe people used to do that all the time. I felt like some kind of criminal.
Oct 23: No toast this morning. Whole kitchen was in the middle of an update.
Oct 25: Anyone here remember what a “file size” was?
Oct 31: Caaaandy! Who wants to trade?
Nov 4: OMG if another old person says hello to me in a public place I’m going to fucking scream.
5: Thou art a sailor in the heavens. Speak, then, of a solar sojourn beyond reproach.
Tyler Reed is an asshat. The sooner that piece of shit dies in the vacuum of space, the better. Stupid fucker was hogging the electrode clamps again this morning, when he knows I have TCX and can’t shower for more than five minutes.
Anyway, so I guess in my perfect fantasy day, fucking Tyler wakes up early because he can’t sleep, and groggily makes his way to the mess pod, where he has to watch Gary and Sharon make their annoying little chirps at each other while he kicks himself for breaking up with her. Then she gives him the look like “humans were never my thing anyway” and locks her suction clamps onto Gary’s injector struts.
While choking through an unsatisfying boiled egg which is too rotten to taste good, yet not rotten enough to throw away, Tyler is hit square in the face by one of those low-hanging beams in the aft engine room access hall. Then, while his ears are still ringing, he stubs his toe on Simon’s tool box.
Simon sees this and gets so pissed that he smashes Tyler full in the mouth with a crescent wrench, so that broken teeth and little bits of egg fly out of Tyler’s mouth and float down the corridor.
Tyler makes his way to the medical bay, where he’s forced to sit in the waiting room next to one of those low-tide smelling sea hags from Dymax. And, what the hell, the only open chair in the lounge has a sharp bit of plastic sticking out of the seat cushion - just sharp enough to be annoying but not so irritating that he is willing to stand up.
The doctor asks him a bunch of personal questions that have nothing to do with his injuries, and Tyler has trouble answering clearly because by now his mouth is swollen and filling with blood. But he answers clearly enough that the doctor decides that Tyler is a total asshat, and reveals herself to be, secretly, a face-eating alien monster in a doctor costume.
Then she eats Tyler’s face.
Anyway, that’d be my perfect day.