Progressive Story 3

As I approached, someone grabbed me from behind.  I was already nervous so I instantly screamed, but it was muffled... his hand was covering my mouth.  I couldn't turn my head to see what the perp looked like because he held me with his arm clamped around my forehead and against his armpit.  It smelled of Old Spice deodorant, and I could tell just by the feel of it that he was wearing a suit.  Who were these people?

"You can't kill me!"  I tried to yell into his hand, but it was no use.  Before I knew it, I was being dragged down the walk and around the corner.  This was a nice neighborhood, where was everyone?  Why wasn't somebody standing outside watering their grass and witnessing this so they could call the police?  Stupid urban people.

The man kicked open the cellar door with a shiny black shoe and threw me in.  I fell several feet and landed on a dirt floor.  The door slammed shut above my head before I could see what the man looked like and everything was dark around me.  I was surrounded by the overpowering scent of stale dead things (or what I imagined stale dead things might smell like) and the faint aroma of turpentine, or something like that.  Maybe gasoline.

And that's when a light came on in the distance.

Writing Prompt

I thought of a cool writing prompt.
What if one day you woke up and everyone in the whole world was just gone. No sign of what happened to them. And the world was just the same, everything in it's place, just the people missing. What would you do? How would you react to waking up to no family, friends, anyone? How would you survive, would you look for people, or just do what you always wanted to do?
Let me know what you think.

Progressive Story 2

After an hour of watching Lacey entertaining me I picked her up, gave her a bath and then tucked her into bed, reading her a bedtime story, twice.
Then I decided that I was going to snoop a little. I went into Bill's office and turned on his computer. He couldn't be stupid enough to leave anything on their joint email account, but I knew he had another email. I looked through his deleted browser history and found he had a Yahoo email. He must of had it on "remember me" because I didn't even have to log on.
There were tons of emails back on forth between Bill and the "Hussy" as I think of her in my mind. The were meeting tonight, of course. But the tone of her email made me shudder, something was wrong with this woman. I could picture her dressed all in black, with dyed black hair and red lips.
She told him that after tonight, his life as he knew it would be over, that tonight was his re-birth. And then they would have their life together.
What was Bill doing? Why would he even talk to someone like this? Was he really running off with this woman?
They were meeting at a old home up in the Avenues, only 15 min from here.
I wrote down the address and turned off the computer just before Jill got home. She had been helping at the Young Women's Banquet tonight. I wanted to say something to her, I felt like I was an accomplice by omission. I said goodbye as fast as I could without being rude, but the longer I was with her the harder it was not to just blurt out "Your husband is having an affair right now!"
I hurried out to my car and away from her in record time. Without even thinking of it, I was driving to the address in the Avenues. I needed to see what my brother was getting himself into. Thoughts of cults or murderers or even devil worshipers crossed my mind on the 15 min. drive across the valley. I hardly saw the other cars on the road, I was auto pilot, blindly following the stoplights and road signs. Then I was weaving through the tree lined winding roads. There were cute bungalow's and historic homes nestled together, the stately trees towering over everything. All the yards were well tended, flowers blooming everywhere, overflowing their beds. It was such a lovely place, not the kind of place that I would picture a cult setting up shop, but you never know.
I found the right house number and pulled to a stop in front. It looked like every other house on the block. It was a brick bungalow with a deep porch. I could see a couple chairs and potted flowers next to the door. The yard was well cared for, not a weed to be seen. The light was on in the large picture window that made up the front of the house, but the shades were drawn. I could see light in the back of the house, maybe coming from the kitchen. I wanted to just sneak around the back and see what I could see. But how would I explain that if my brother happened to see me.
Oh, hi brother. I thought you might be being sacrificed to some pagan god tonight, so I was just peeking in the windows to make sure you're alright?! Yeah, that would go over so well.
Taking a deep breath I got out of the car and started up the rosemary lined walk to the front door.

Writing... with a side of candied potatoes

Sometimes I try to write like I am following a recipe.  And why not?  It works very well for food.  But, as I have discovered, not so much for writing.  My point being, with writing, the more you realize there is no right way to do it, the better off you are.  Following a recipe is not creative or playful. Creation is about play, about discovering who you are.  How can another person tell you anything about that?

Okay.  I should say that all of these deep thoughts are inspired by The Artist’s Way, which I just got through reading. I have so many new insights as a result, that if I could, I would share them with the world.  

On a side note, which is probably a topic for another blog, sometimes I am afraid because, in the process of self-discovery, I realize that my imagination is often sparked by things of a dark nature.  Why is that?  I don’t want to pretend, so instead, I discover that I just might be bad.  But that’s what writing is all about, right?  Tell the truth, Stephen King always said.  

To play is to discover and you can’t discover without exploring.  Creative energy is God’s energy, and sometimes He lets us tap into a bit of it.  I believe that’s what play is.

There are no rules, and we must make mistakes as part of the process.  All work, all writing, no matter how bad, comes to good because it equals growth.  Growth of you, of your inner child who would like very much to come out and play, thank you, and of discovery.

I use my imagination more after reading that book, even when I’m not writing.  It’s like my senses have been turned up a notch and the world is mine.  The warm pavement under my bare feet, and the way it contrasts with the cool, wet grass.  The warm spring breeze.  Even cooking has become a process of creation and discovery.  Everything has been made to be a little more like play.  Sometimes I feel too full of all of these senses and all I can do to release them is to write.

“Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.”  

-Paul Tillich

Progressive Story 1

I have a fun challenge for you.  What if we start a progressive story… I just did a writing exercise from that box you gave me where I started with three random sentences and let it take me wherever it may.  And this is what I got.  What I thought would be fun is if you add to it, however much you want, and we keep it going for a while.  If you want to try any idea generators, there are tons online if you do a google search and one I kind of liked is at shortstoryideas.herb.me.uk/

Ok, so here it is:

I love the way she said balloon.  She said it as if she were blowing bubbles.  

You see, I’m babysitting for my big brother.  He’s five years older than me, but we’ve always been really close.  Though we’ve always been close, that’s not to say I’ve ever babysat his two year old Lacie before, and I was slightly terrified at the prospect.  They’ve never left Lacie.  (Overprotective parents.)  And all I can think is, they must be pretty desperate tonight.

Or he must be.

Nevertheless, my fears seem to have been unfounded, at least as far as it concerns Lacie.  She’s a chatterbox--talking is what she does.  Most of what she says makes no sense at all, but she doesn’t seem to mind how little I understand.  I only understood balloon because she made a wide gesture with her hands as she pronounced the word, lips forming a huge O.

I’m just glad she’s content to stand here and talk while I sit on the couch thinking about...  well, not about balloons.  I’m grateful I don’t have to put on a show, as I feared.  Or tell jokes, or dance, or otherwise entertain.  It’s the other way around--hmmm. I never would have guessed.

It’s a good thing too, because as I said, my thoughts are elsewhere.  My thoughts are on the last words my brother spoke to me on the phone earlier today.  These were the words:  “I cheated on my wife.  And it wasn’t the first time.”

Now, all I can think of as Lacie stands before me making funny faces, oinking, pulling on her piggy tails, turning upside down with her head on the floor and sticking both fingers up her nose, is poor Lacie.  How can my brother do that to her?  And he didn’t sound sorry at all.  In fact, he sounded a lot like he was going to go prowling the town tonight, looking for some woman, never mind that his wife was with him.

It was the tear in her dress that first set him off, he said.  He’d been out somewhere (obviously not with his wife since they’ve never left Lacie before), and he saw a woman walking by with a tear in her dress.  I guess that tear was in a place that caused his imagination to run a little wild.  He got her phone number and they’ve been corresponding ever since.  Same woman.

But this is what’s really weird.  He has her wear the same dress each time he sees her, with a different new tear in it every time.  If that’s not bizarre, then I don’t know what is.  And he admitted all of this as if it was just great stuff.  Like I said, we’ve always been close, and he’s never even remotely acted like this before.

Something is wrong… and I’m determined to find out what it is.