I don’t recall the prompt. It was a local writing class, maybe 90 minutes long. The instructor gave us 10 minutes and a list of writing prompts.
“Take your pick!. But choose the one that has the hardest story behind it.”
I chose a phrase that reminded me of something that happened while down the Cape (Cape Cod for you non-Easterners) at my Uncle’s house with my parents, uncle, aunt, my 5 siblings, and 2 cousins.
Was it “home sweet home,” “chaos is just another word for love,” or “family ties?”
I don’t remember but I wrote “The Cast Iron Frying Pan Incident” as a result.
That became an upcoming memoir Ordinary Damage.
Writing prompts can turn into gold. Let’s try a few.
When you were forced to change
Family Ties (always one of my Top 3)
A Big Regret
Taking Time
Changing Your Mind
Best Friends
The Biggest Hurdle
A Walk in the Woods
A Walk on the Beach
Running Out of Time
Pick one and write for 15 minutes.
What came up? Is there a story or just a fun anecdote? Is there conflict? Did you change? Did you learn something? Did you want to stop writing about it when it became too painful? Well, that’s always your decision but it sounds like a great story to me.
Remember this is about you. Your other characters are important but you don’t know what they’re thinking or why they do what they do. You only know why you did what you did.
So, tell me your story!
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