Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s writing prompt. It’s a quick and easy one for me to put together as I’ve been away again helping my sister move house - phew!
For those who are new to The Writing Shed, the weekly writing prompt is the core of my activity here on Substack. Paid members can find an archive of courses I’ve created in The Index as well as access all past writing prompts, flash fiction, and essays.
So have fun, enjoy the process, and write heaps.
She hadn’t moved in that time preferring to stay with the characters as they worked their way through an angry argument that resulted in one of them being thrown across the room. Her heart was racing from the referred stress she experienced with Jennifer, the woman on the receiving end of the violence and she needed to stretch bringing herself back into her own life and her own world.
Standing was a painful process as her foot had gone to sleep and it was with some trepidation that she limped painfully into the kitchen of her small flat in search of nourishment and distraction. Soon it would be time to head out for the evening but she really didn’t want to get ready just yet.
The phone’s shrill ring disturbed the silence.
‘Jenny Gee speaking.’
‘Ah Jen … I thought you would still be there, how’s it all going?’ Her agent Alex spoke quickly to prevent her getting a word in edgewise knowing that he could leave the conversation without the important details if he let her get into chat first
‘Well Jennifer is in hospital and Michael is about to be arrested’. Her response was uncharacteristically brief and Alex could hear the tension in her voice.
‘Are we getting any closer to a conclusion? You have remembered that we need to see a final draft by the end of next month don’t you?’
‘Yes, I know, I remember and I won’t let you down, I promise .... but’ she faltered ‘…. somehow it feels all wrong and I don’t know why. I’m wondering if a break might be the thing I need to get me back on track’.
Alex’s heart lurched in his chest and he was instantly back in the memories associated with the last time that Jenny Gee had decided to take a break in the midst of a novel. Could he survive the stress a second time?
He thought quickly ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea remember the last time you took a break, we couldn’t find you and you almost didn’t come back again. To be honest I’m not sure I could go through all that again.’
In spite of herself Jenny laughed, ‘was it really that bad? I seem to remember that I had a wonderful time and I did finish the manuscript too in record time as well’
‘Mmmmm I know but you did cut it a bit fine, just turning up on the doorstep out of the blue on the day we needed to deliver it! It’s a good job you’re a great writer because I don’t know any other publisher that puts up with that sort of thing from an author’.
He smiled as he felt the tension break and he could almost see Jenny on the other end of the phone smiling too
‘Look, why don’t I pop over and take you out somewhere lovely for supper and we can talk about what Jennifer and Michael are up to and you never know we might come up with an ending between us’.
Jenny recognised his attempt to make her feel better and conceded defeat, it might be nice to go out and play for a while; this bloody novel was taking far too long and taking far too much out of her to get so wound up about it all.
The Prompt
This is an extract from a first draft of a novel I started working on a decade ago. It has sat in my virtual filing cabinet since I last opened, and then closed, it. I have even created a plan and have contributed a total of 5,034 words so far. This week the challenge is to imagine what happens next. I’m interested to see how you might imagine a world based on such a tiny sample of another person’s writing.
Please share your poetry or prose in the comments below, I love to see how differently each prompt is approached, and a wide variety of responses demonstrates possibilities to the rest of us we might not have thought of.
Remember, you never know where today’s prompt may take you in the future!
Reflect
I include a reflection opportunity with every writing prompt. Personally, it helps me to write them longhand in my bullet journal as the act of moving my hand across a page seems to create a deeper connection to my inner world. You might like to do the same to see how differently it feels, especially if you write predominantly with a device.
The extract above is from the very first draft, as I haven’t completed the work there has been no editing, no sense-making, no substantive edit and definitely no grammatical or spell checking.
When you read it, what were your first thoughts? As you reflect on those, and now you know it’s at the beginning of a writing journey, how might you change your perspective of your own writing process?
As a coach, mentor, and counsellor I work with many people on very different journeys. Some hope to write a best-selling book, while others simply want to be healthier and happier. Each person has a unique way of starting the inner work this requires. If you’re a writer who wants to manifest your writing hopes and dreams from the practical and pragmatic to the esoteric and spiritual, or who would like to clear any subconscious self-sabotage you may be experiencing, why not work with me? To find out more head over to my website by clicking the button below.
The Weekly Newsletter
Something to review …
How did you get on with last week’s Easter Egg challenge? Did you spot the literary references, and if so could you name them? I’ve added the full list below:
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end.” ― P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Inklings: an informal literary discussion group at the University of Oxford. The most well-known members were JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.
The Weekly Writing Competition
Classical Association Poetry Competition: Original & Translation
The Classical Association Poetry Competition: Original & Translation is now open to anyone worldwide. There are two types of poem that entrants can submit:
Original - a poem written in the English language, in which the poet draws inspiration from the ancient world. There is no specific theme or prompt.
Translation - a poem written in the English language based upon an original text written in an ancient language. Texts originally written in Latin or Ancient Greek are allowed, but other ancient languages are also encouraged.
You can find out more on the National Poetry website here: https://www.nationalpoetrylibrary.org.uk/write-publish/competitions/classical-association-poetry-competition-original-translation
With love, light, and laughter
Linda
x
(Image by Peter Olexa from Pixabay)
Jen paused, momentarily, to ponder the idea of a working dinner with Alex.
She was stuck. She needed to get away from that novel as quickly as she could and as far away as she could possibly get.
She sighed. Her eyes glazed over and she was suddenly on the beach during that last break she’d taken from writing. What could it hurt? Sun, sand, the liberating feel of floating weightless in warm, lapping water–suspended in a time and place where her mind wasn’t focused on deadlines or a novel that felt dead-ended.
“Jen?” Alex’s voice interrupted her memory.
She sighed again.
Two or three beats and then she heard, as though from faraway—
“Hello? You still there? Jen?”
In response, she disconnected the call.
“No!” She said aloud. “No, I am not here!”
Turning, she grabbed a bag and started to throw clothing into it–beachwear, sandals, a big floppy hat, and yes–she probably needed sunscreen.
She was leaving the questions behind.
Let her characters figure things out for themselves.
She was off to find inspiration.
Without deadlines. No. More. Deadlines.
The noise sounded like a train running underground. Then the floor began to heave under Jen’s feet. A couple of pictures on the wall were suddenly askew. Jen ran to stand in her doorway because she’d been told to stand in a doorway if there was an earthquake.
Bad advice.
The doorway collapsed, and then her flat and most of the building collapsed with it.
So, Jen got her wish to take a break.
No. More. Deadlines.
“Ok,” said Alex, taking a gulp of the cheap red that they’d moved onto after pretending to prefer the fancier stuff. The gulp was deliberate. This was a segway. They’d been very polite and professional. They’d dined well (which wasn't the same as good eating in her book, but he was paying) and they had sipped the astringent white elegantly enough. They’d talked about everything apart from the book. So as the desert dishes (more like art than food, she’d thought) were cleared, he said forget coffee and ordered a bottle of the gut-rot that was his guilty pleasure, and when it arrived told the waiter to "just fill ’em up". The veneer hadn’t so much slipped away as been deliberately wrenched off.
“Ok,” he said, drinking to make sure she got the change of tempo.
“About the book…”
Jenny opened her mouth to jump in, but he was still having none of it. “We don’t want it,” he said.
“?”
A look was all she could manage. They knew. She knew that they knew that this was how she worked. The original lastminute.com author – not a Douglas Adams who only loved deadlines for the whooshing sound as they flew past. She treated that whooshing noise as the fall of a guillotine. She had ALWAYS made sure she was out from under before it fell. She delivered ON TIME. Always. Very precisely on time, to be fair, and maybe that’s not what they really wanted, but then that was up to them to say so. She had a sneaking suspicion that the deadline they gave here was a good month ahead of the real one anyway…let’s face it, they knew her well enough around the industry by now. If they needed it to be six weeks or two months – that was their internal politics surely. Give her a date and she would meet it. Very precisely. To the minute.
She was meandering all over her internal shop with this notion of deadlines that she’d downed her first glass of the surprisingly pleasant red, and not a heard a word her agent had been saying.
“?” she didn’t say again. Alex was astute. Maybe he could pick this up.
“You’re not listening,” he said. “It’s got nothing to do with the deadlines. It’s the plot.” This time she couldn’t even raise a facial expression, she just looked at him blankly.
“OK.” She hated his okays. It made her feel like she was back in school, with Mr Whoever trying once again to explain basic physics to her. Or was it an old boyfriend who had done that. A two-letter word, not even a word, that meant “pay attention this next bit is critical…you have to understand this bit even if the rest remains black hole deep to you”. Or something. She loved a memory and a metaphor. She wondered if she should take her notebook out, or just write on the napkin. Ah, no. That was scrunched. She had a tendency to use napkins and handkerchiefs interchangeably. Deep breath.
“The thing is,” he said, “Oh look…I’ll see if I can get a stay of execution, but please…get Jennifer out of the hospital and put her in the police car, make Michael’s injuries as plausibly awful as you can, and then double it…because we both know that’s how it really was. Seriously, Jen…if you’re going to write this one, write it as it happened. We can decide in the edit whether it’s fact of fiction…”
Her hand, around an empty glass, was shaking uncontrollably. And she thought she heard him think "And quit with the tears woman, we both know you better than that." Turned out she didn’t, she hadn’t noticed them.