Category: Writing Prompts

I don’t feel like writing today. So why am I writing and drawing the blood out of the stone that is this week’s blog post? Because I’ve heard that a third of a writer’s life is procrastinating, a third is writing when you don’t feel like writing and a third actually writing. When last week’s post had me firmly in the third category, today has me smack in the middle of the first two.

What to write when you don’t feel like writing? A listicle! Well, to be more nuanced than that, ten questions I would ask if I were playing a game of I Spy. I’ve never played a game of I Spy in my life as I wasn’t often the kind of child that needed to be kept occupied during, say, a car ride, but that could also have had to do with the fact that I enjoyed looking out the window undisturbed the most.

For the purposes of this exercise, our setting will be the usual road trip where you’re trying to keep occupied at a rest stop until you’ve gathered up enough energy to get back on the road. You can be a kid of any age here, even if you’re a “big” kid. You are sitting on a shaded bench next to your road trip companion, with the sun reaching and baking only your ankles, and the cool drink you got has already made a pool of condensation on the table you’re leaning back on. You’re people watching, but instead start scenery watching when you become aware of how much you’re procrastinating the drive.

If you have made it this far, I commend you. I don’t even want to keep going today…

I spy, with my little eye…

1. Would it fit on your hand?
2. Would an animal eat it willingly?
3. Could you run to it and back in less than five minutes?
4. Is it a color that is one of the primary colors?
5. Would a five-year-old child have a name for it yet?
6. Would you find it in another country under a different name?
7. Is it likely to still be on the same spot when we make our way back through this rest stop?
8. Is it something you could also have in your home?
9. Is it something that could be damaged by the elements?
10. Is it something that could still be used in a future dystopian society?

Back for part two of this prompt: writing about something you misplaced using only the passive voice.

I have to admit that this was a bit of a challenge – I’m not used to using the passive voice and pride myself on never using it. I was taught that the passive voice is weak, as its name suggests, and it makes your writing look weak and uses up too many words.

Like a lot of things we learn from professional writers and teachers, there is no hard and fast rule to the passive voice, and I’ve found that sometimes I’m not too turned off by it when I come across it (case in point, this sentence). There could be an instance where a character is or is narrating a passive scene or are themselves a passive background character, so using the passive voice here wouldn’t be the end of the world. I had just as much of a challenge last week while writing only in the active voice; I had to catch myself and double check whether a sentence was sneaking in the passive voice, and edit accordingly.

Besides being a challenge, I found this as an opportunity to read less like an editor sometimes and just read like a reader. It sometimes takes me more than one reading to step into these roles, but I need to remind myself that just as I’d like for someone to be kind to my work, I need to be kind to someone else’s, and to not be such a hardass about the passive voice. After all, there are some people who are very offended when they read a sentence that starts with “and” or “but,” and I don’t think twice about doing that!

There’s a foot for every shoe. Or, rather, there’s a ring for every finger…

I am dropped and now I am bounced across a train that is taken by her on every work day – except when the gym is paid a visit. I am bounced on the train floor and the sound is questioned by passengers not lost in the music or books carried to pass the commuting time. I am rolled under seats, between legs and around bags, until I am stopped behind a seat leg.

She has been seen by me through three graduations, at least five moves and a few boys and, most recently, guys.

I was given to her at 15 as a gift and I was so treasured for having the birthstone of April, the month her father was born. She was teased for my fitting perfectly on her left thumb but on none of her other fingers.

Her emotional milestones were watched from my perch on her finger, and I was removed at security during her many travels. She was accompanied by me on so many travels, so many train rides, so many commutes by car, foot and train.

And now I am dropped. And I will be forgotten and abandoned, because while I will be thought about for a day or two, as with the other rings lost over the years, I will be forgotten and thought about fondly down the line sparingly. Her brain, memories and feelings will be filled up with more important things, just like the same finger that was occupied by me will be occupied by another ring some day.

Rings have been her staple for years. Before I came along, her fingers were populated by cheap jewelry, the kind that her skin was stained green with after a few weeks. Before her finger was habited by me, her wrists were full of bracelets, but bracelets never kept her attention or fondness for a long time.

People she was misunderstood by, people she was disliked by or people she was admired by would marvel at how her fingers were adorned. Wondered how long her morning was extended if her fingers needed to be dressed too. These comments were often seen as an imposition by her, a testament to how little she was known by these people.

When the train is covered in darkness at the end of the day, I am grabbed by a gloved hand and shoved into a pocket. Covered again in darkness and jostled, I am assaulted by fear at where my story will take me. No doubt there is another finger waiting to be adorned and dressed by my shiny and silver offering. As much as she will be missed, it is my purpose to adorn, not to care. There is another job to be had, another person to accompany for as long as I am wanted and needed.

I am carried inside this pocket for a while, before ending up in a clear bag with writing on it. I am left on a shelf for a few weeks before being given as a gift to another woman. And so my story is begun anew.

I know I will be missed. The sadness was evident on her face as I was dropped. So was the indecision: walking away or saving? She was accompanied by me for long enough – she could be released. She is evaded by readiness and preparedness as she is left behind, but her choices are limited. It was time. Time for a new story to be started for her too.

Back with the writing prompts this week.

I’ve deviated from my content plan for the past few weeks, and I’m kind of proud of myself for that. I have a hard time being spontaneous on a normal day and I’m quite fond of routine, so when I catch myself veering off course without ruminating on it, it’s like a gift to myself. Spontaneity is so alien to me by now that I don’t even notice when I’m being rigid.

I am evaded by spontaneity

Being evaded by spontaneity isn’t just my attempt at being poetic, but a way to introduce what I’m tackling this week: writing about something you misplaced using only the active voice (see what I did there). 

This is part one of two of this exercise, and during next week’s installment, you’ll find out what happened to what I misplaced and find out that I know exactly where it is. It’s just not with me anymore.

Happy reading! What have you misplaced that you know exactly where it is?

Rush hour. Going home for nothing in particular other than because I finished the work day.

It’s the middle of summer and there’s a heatwave. It’s not a heatwave by my East Coast standards, but it’s a heatwave when very few places here believe in AC.

The train pulls up and it’s full already. My current stop is only the second on the line. I hop on and barely make it down the aisle before other riders block my way. I grab onto the back of the closest seat in front of me and square my feet up. Six more stops.

At the first stop, still underground, no one gets up and those of us standing have to find a space to shove into when more passengers come on. I squeeze a bit further down the aisle and find a new backrest to hold onto. Five more stops.

All available windows are open, but the heat and humidity find a way to make all passengers sweat. I’m wearing black jeans and a sleeveless top, but the ebook on my phone and music in my ears can only keep me distracted so long from the heat I feel everywhere on my body. I should have put my hair up.

At the second stop, more people hop on and off the train and the mass pushes me farther down the aisle, but at least I’m now directly in front of a cracked window. Four more stops and I can at least be out in the breeze.

We are above ground again as the train arrives at the third stop. No one moves out but more people come inside the train. We pull space out of thin air to accommodate ourselves.

The fourth stop rolls around and people start shifting, grabbing their bags and scoping out a way to leave the train with as little scuffle as possible. When the train finally stops, the frenzy begins, and yet I still can’t find an empty seat. It’s fine – just two more stops to go.

With the breeze from being aboveground also comes the warm, overbearing sunlight. Sunlight always feels better when you’re sitting on cool grass on a blanket that never gets damp, with drinks and snacks and nowhere to be until you feel like moving. With two stops away from your destination on the height of a summer heatwave, ten minutes feel eternal.

The fifth stop rolls around and enough people get off the train to allow me to square up my feet again and gain some space. With my stop in mind and so close I can see it, I relax a bit and try to reread the same page I’ve been stuck on since the second stop.

I feel an itch.

It’s an itch I can’t reach in my current predicament, but I have just enough purchase and dexterity to put my phone in my bag, hold steady with that hand and reach inside my pocket with my other hand to scratch the itch over my clothes through the thin fabric.

After I scratch the itch and start pulling my hand back out from my pocket, my ring catches on a belt loop, comes off my finger and bounces on the floor and under a few seats in front of me.

My stop rolls around at that moment and I have to get off the train. The image of getting on my hands and knees and under people’s legs flashes across my mind. The train stops and people shift around me, signaling me to drop or get off the train. I move with them and bid a silent farewell to the ring that has been on that same finger for 10 years.

On the walk home, I hope the ring has a good life, that whoever finds it wears it, sells it or gives it away. But I hope no one throws it in the trash as just a cheap piece of jewelry. As I contemplate that a piece of me is gone, while I’m so far away from home, I don’t feel too bothered by the heat anymore.

Over the weekend, I wrote the most words I’ve written yet for my new project. I was thirteen words shy of four thousand. Four. Thousand. That puts me at slightly over thirteen thousand words in total. Thirteen. Thousand. Words. Thinking back to before I started the blog and got back to writing more regularly, writing more than eight hundred words was like drawing blood out of the stone, and any time I wrote anything substantial for my old project, I would end up deleting it the next day.

Upon reflection, I had to admit to myself that my old project isn’t ready for me – or maybe I’m not ready for it. I thought back to the other projects I wrote before that one, all about motherhood in some capacity. What did I know about motherhood at twenty or twenty-one? I’m no closer to knowing anything about it at twenty-seven, so why did I think I knew anything then? I have some complex thoughts about motherhood, and it’s best I work those out before trying to write about it with any authority.

Trying to carry on with the inspiration from the weekend, I will stick to writing about what I do know: writing exercises (that are not about motherhood).

A skill I’ve developed over the past four years is writing marketing copy, and it’s a skill I develop every day. In this week’s writing exercise, I try to combine that skill with storytelling. Will I succeed in causing some sort of feeling for the reader? Read on to find out…

This box of cereal won’t change your life.

Really, what box of cereal changes your life? It’s an understated food mostly associated with kids and morning plot lines in TV shows and movies. Some people don’t have time for breakfast, and their life really can’t be changed by a box of cereal. So really, this cereal won’t change your life.

This box of cereal is made of organic ingredients and there is a version that’s vegan, but it’s hard not to find a vegan option of pantry staples lately. It’s not like it’s hard to make a cereal vegan, really: we just subbed maple syrup for honey. It took away from the bottom line, sure, but that’s why you have to read the label – we’re putting the onus on our customer and made the differentiating feature so small, you have to work to find it, and if you spend money for us along the way, happy days. In that sense as well, this cereal won’t change your life.

This cereal is for those who have grown out of Trix, Froot Loops and Fruity Pebbles on the weekday but still keep a box for the odd weekend when they watch cartoons. This cereal is for those people who want to put minimal effort into starting their day, those who want a small win but a win nonetheless when it comes to getting their life together. For however fleeting a moment, this cereal will help you feel like you have your life together and set you off into your day with a pep in your step, but then by lunchtime you will be calling for an adultier adult when you have a grilled cheese with canned tomato soup. Also in this sense, this cereal won’t change your life.

When creating this cereal, we almost felt bad for those cereals we left behind as kids after we realized that they’re empty calories and only give you the illusion of starting your day the right way. On reflection, sugary balls of corn didn’t even taste that great, but throw in some color and a talking animal, and us kids were all over it. We have no talking animals promoting this cereal, but only because we knew our target audience was too smart for that. For you to believe this cereal will be the best start to your day and will pair perfectly with your morning caffeine, we felt we only needed to add a reminder that you need to take care of your insides now that you get a strain injury from sitting down at a desk all day. Because of this reality, our cereal tastes like all decently priced granola does and can be eaten with milk, yogurt or as a topping for a smoothie bowl. It tastes like any other granola, so in that aspect either, this cereal won’t change your life.

So at this point you’re wondering why bother buying this cereal if it won’t change your life. But do you really go out looking for something that will change your life when you go out looking for cereal? No, you don’t. You only go out looking for something that will keep you full until lunch so you don’t snack in between meals. You go out looking for a cereal that will taste better than something you make yourself (if you haven’t tried to make your own granola before, don’t; it takes hours to make a decent batch). You want a cereal that tastes like something you can’t make because it’s too difficult, a cereal you don’t want to go through the effort of making but is just there when you wake up. You want something that feels life-changing but is really just one more thing in your day.

Look no further than this cereal: It won’t change your life, but it does taste like what an adult eats.

Welcome new followers! Happy to have you here – I hope you find something you think a friend would like to see, too.

Well, it’s been… a week. It’s day 46 of self-isolation/quarantine/social distancing/a new normal, and it’s finally gotten to me. I’ve had a few not-so-good days of not dealing with the waiting game (how long until we can go back to normal? What would that look like? How long until I can travel again?). I saw a post somewhere this week that we may be feeling grief for the way things should have been had the crisis not come along, and that helped put a name to what I was feeling.

Something else that helped me get through these odd feelings was writing. I wrote a good chunk of a new work in progress over the weekend, and it was setting-dominant. Not surprising that writing about a different place that means a lot to me, imagining it and creating a version for storytelling, was a soothing form of escapism. Rather than making me feel even more restless than I already was, imagining and writing about a different place was actually helpful – it’s all about how you spin it.

So for this week’s post, I spin the current situation into a positive reading experience. This post is something of a step away from what I feel comfortable writing, but I liked the challenge. I hope this entertains you, and let me know how you’re keeping sane during whatever day of quarantine it is for you.

She lost track of what day it was. The sun had come up a number of times and he was still here, with his alarm going off some days and not others.

He turns this morning’s alarm off, moans and stretches. She does the same, stretching as long as she can go and turning to her side. She gets up first and bends down to stretch one more time while he says good morning. She turns to look at him and blinks without saying anything before walking to the kitchen.

Her breakfast isn’t ready yet but she hears him in the bathroom; he’s brushing his teeth. She walks over to the window for something to do instead of sitting where he can see her. They live in an apartment in a really high floor, and she spends hours looking out the window on a normal day, but coming to see what has changed every hour is more of an obsession now.

The streets have been empty for days – weeks, maybe – and her usual people-watching opportunities have been traded for watching the odd car, bus or bike now. People still walk the streets, but they all wear masks or hoods even when it’s a sunny day out. She sees dogs more often now, dogs she saw on walks barely once a week before. There’s a great dane who likes to bark at anyone walking across the street, so he gets walked early in the morning or late in the evening. There’s the pair of beagles that used to get walked together that now wag their tails at each other from across the street – their owners wave and swiftly walk away. Her favorite to watch was the fluffy saint Bernard – he used to get a walker every day when the streets were fuller, but now he gets walked by a tall and slender blond woman who gets yanked forward whenever he sees a pigeon.

The pigeons! She hated them but loved to watch them when they perched on the balcony just outside her window. She liked to make noise inside to get them to go away, and since there are so few people in the streets now, they seem to have taken license to fly about more, and they extended that same courtesy to those weird small birds that live in big cities, the kind who rummage through trash and travel in groups of at least 100.

He finally comes out into the kitchen and starts fixing her food.

“What do you feel like today, sweetheart?” He asks, like he’s not just going to give her the same thing as every morning. “Here you go.”

He sets the plate in her usual spot and she goes to eat. As the familiar flavor fills her mouth, he pats her head. She moves her head away and squints at him – he knows better than to bother her while she’s eating. He chuckles and goes off to turn on the coffeemaker and make his own breakfast. While his bread toasts, he goes to the dining room table to turn on his computer.

Another area lost to her while he’s been at home all day, every day: the dining room table. Not that she ate her meals there anyway, but she liked to sit with him while he had his dinner (the only meal he ate at home before). She liked to stare at him, thinking how much he annoyed her when he laughed at something on his phone, with food showing in his open mouth while he chewed and laughed. She also thought how much she loved him, how he knew exactly at what time to prepare her meals every day with minimal reminders from her – no one else could do it just like him. Now, the dining room table has been full of papers she pushes off, pens that she keeps stealing and he keeps replacing, Reese’s wrappers and sticky notes. There is barely any room for her, so she spends her time on the sofa while he works.

He brings his breakfast to the dining table and starts clicking away at the computer, the now-familiar hum of the machine grating at her ears. He talks to himself as he goes, often with his mouth full. He whispers something about campaigns, engagement, lay-offs… she tunes him out and soon is asleep.

These morning naps were great for her. She never got a full-night’s sleep and woke up several times a night to stretch, for a drink, the bathroom, so the morning naps were essential to her daily functioning. She usually laid down on the couch, dozing off to the familiar sounds of cars honking, people yelling and dogs barking. Since the world went quieter, she dozed off to the music he played while clicking away at the computer. Some days the beat is chaotic and disturbing, heavy with guitars, when he barely talks to her except when he yells at her for making too much noise to scare away the pigeons. Other days, the days when her morning naps last until noon, it’s softer music that he hums along to, and his hums are easy to fall asleep to until he interrupts himself by talking more about campaigns and sales.

There isn’t any music playing today, so she dozes off to the silence but doesn’t completely fall asleep. She dreams about pigeons again, except this time they’re as big as the saint Bernard and they’re walking next to each other and they’re the same size. At one point the pigeon is walking the saint Bernard while the slender, blond woman is running in circles around them before falling with a clang and–

She’s awake and searches for the source of the noise. It’s him, dropping the pan he used to fry his eggs in the sink. She yells at him and shoots daggers from her eyes.

“Sorry, my love.”

Awake and pissed off, she stretches and then walks to the window again. Nothing had really changed since this morning. The streets were still empty and the people walking by were still wearing masks. It’s a cloudy day, and there aren’t a lot of dogs out today either.

“Anything interesting out there, princess?” He walks up next to her and they both look out the window for a minute. He’s drinking his second cup of coffee of the day. “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee outside that I didn’t have to make myself.”

What I wouldn’t give for you to go outside in general.

He pats her head again and she lets him – the mussing feels good and she has an itch behind her ear anyway. She stays at the window for a little bit longer and as she’s pondering whether to go for a bath or another nap, noise starts up from the computer again but it isn’t music – it’s voices.

“Good morning, team,” he says and waves at the screen. The greetings come back from a handful of people. She’d gotten used to these daily occurrences too, but she didn’t like them. Since he’d been home, he not only ignored her most of the day, but he talked on the computer to people multiple times a day. It wasn’t as loud as the music, but she still fell asleep to the sound and tried to distinguish his voice from the hum.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” This sparks another conversation on the other end, and while the people on the line chat on the other end, he mostly nods, hums and sips his coffee. 

The conversation distracts her from her window watching so she goes up to the dining table to see when he’ll be finished. She pokes her head in front of the screen and immediately gets a lot of greetings.

“Oh my gosh, hi, Brandy!”

“Brandy, you’re looking gorgeous!”

She knows she looks gorgeous – she takes care of her skin every day during her baths. She keeps her head in front of the screen until he acknowledges her, and when he finally does, it’s to shoo her away.

“Sorry, guys, she’s having a morning. Where were we?”

She walks away from the dining table and goes back to the sofa, picking at some skin on her side. After a while, he says goodbye and shuts his computer closed. She looks around to him and realizes it’s lunchtime again – he sits with her at lunchtime, so she scoots to the far side of the sofa. On his way to the kitchen, he stops by her side and pats her on the head again. She lets him because she enjoys his touch.

“You’re such a good girl,” he says as he strokes her. “What would I do without you?”

Be incredibly lonely as you continue to never leave the apartment. How much longer will he have to be here? She wants him to leave so she can get excited when he comes through the door again.

“Good kitty,” he says with one final pat before heading to the kitchen for another lunch at home.

Although today in particular we may be looking for laughs or pranks, anything to distract us from the current world situation, this week’s post will provide a sideways distraction, of sorts. Unreliable narrators aren’t necessarily April Fool’s pranksters, but they are the closest thing in the literary world on a day like today – aside from court jesters or tricksters that belong in a different genre.

Happy reading! I truly hope this provides a distraction from any awful feelings or thoughts you may be having in the current climate.

“We will now be boarding rows 30 and on, as well as any other boarding groups we’ve already called.”

Finally! Marcy and Cody are right behind me, their carry-ons lugging behind them and their neck support pillows on their shoulders. I bought them those neck pillows at the airport, so we were sure they would fly and not get taken away by flight attendants before boarding. I would have loved one too, but budget for this trip is planned to the T, and today’s incidentals budget went on the pillows.

“Mr. Sonny Johnson?” The flight attendant glances at my boarding pass then at my face before scanning it in. The machine light goes red then green before she waves me through. I stand just behind the woman while Marcy and Cody give their boarding passes, their faces barely containing their excitement. They’re keeping a straight face, but that’s probably so they don’t come across a hokey or touristy.

Once they’re scanned, we walk down the jetway, stand in line again for a bit behind another family, one with a toddler who keeps glancing around and flailing. I check my watch – our departure time is ten minutes away and there are at least fifteen people standing in the jetway. Luckily we’re the last ones to board, and Marcy and Cody are so excited to go on this trip with me, they’ll be seated and strapped as soon as we find our seats.

We finally step onto the plane when another flight attendant puts her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, sir, we’re going to need to check your carry-on luggage. We don’t have any more space in the overhead bins.”

“We’re not paying for that,” Marcy says.

“It’s complimentary, ma’am,” the flight attendant says. “You can pick up your items at baggage claim at your destination.”

“Fine,” Marcy says and hands over her rolling bag before I give her mine. Cody only has a backpack and his fanny pack. My girl is always looking out for us and my boy is always ready to go. Care and practicality.

“Now we’ll have to pick up all our stuff at once!” I say as we walk our way back to the plane. “It’s probably better that way.”

“My shawl was in my carry-on,” Marcy says. “I’ll be freezing before we even take off.”

“You can have my sweater, honey.”

“Why did you even bring that? We’re going to Florida in April. There’s no need for a sweater there.”

Always thinking ahead.

We get to our seats but there are people already sitting down in our row. “Excuse me,” I say, “But I think you’re in our seats.”

“Sonny, leave it,” Marcy says. She probably doesn’t want to cause a scene or make the flight even later than it already is.

“We’re 32A, B and C,” I say. “Could we see your tickets?”

“Dad, leave it,” Cody says. “I’m on 34A and Mom is on 34E.”

“That’s not right at all,” I say. I checked the purchase almost ten times, and I made sure we all got the same seats.

“Just sit down,” Marcy whispers as she squeezes past me, then Cody does the same and she asks her seatmates for space to get in.

Well, that’s okay. We have two weeks together in Tallahassee, so five hours apart isn’t that big a deal. Beaches, parks and drives. And seeing Tessa too – it’ll be great.

Marcy and Cody were excited for the trip too, and their constant questions about money or time off work were fully about me and my well-being. We’ll figure it out, but as long as we’re together for two weeks. Since Tessa had gone to Florida State University, we hadn’t seen her except for holidays, and anything longer than Thanksgiving break, she’d go see friends or stay with her boyfriend. Liam? Or is it Rodney now?

Now we’re surprising her with a trip just before her spring break. She hasn’t said what she wants to do for the week that she’s off, but I didn’t say anything in case she stresses about trying to fit a family visit and a vacation into one week. We can even drive to Disneyland for a day. My $20 per person per day may just stretch that far.

Every half hour or so, I look back at Marcy and Cody. I can only see the top of her head, so Marcy could be reading. Cody has the aisle seat and he’s watching something on his phone, not using his neck pillow. Maybe he doesn’t feel like taking a nap yet.

**

I avoid Dad’s glances every time he turns around and keep checking on Mom. How they’re both coping without headphones is beyond me. Mom at least has a book, but the people around us are being loud and I haven’t seen her turn a page yet. Dad just stares ahead, watching the shows on the headrest TV. All of them keep glitching and the picture freezes often.

I tried telling Dad that Tessa doesn’t want us to come visit, that she’ll make it up to West Virginia eventually. But he insisted on surprising her and taking her to Disneyland, thinking we can show up and buy a ticket like it’s Six Flags. As soon as we land and find our hotel, I’m finding my way to Florida State, saying hi to Tessa quickly then tour around the campus. It’s a big enough campus for the two of us to never run into each other, but close enough should we ever need anything from each other. But then Dad would have an excuse to come down to see us.

Unless I tell him that I’m going to Florida State College in Jacksonville…

**

I’ve read the same sentence for the past hour, not knowing where I’m even at in the book. I grabbed one off the shelf last night as I packed my bag, fully convinced this trip would be cancelled at the last minute. I think I started reading this around Christmas, when I picked it up at random in Target.

Sonny has not stopped talking about this trip since January that Tessa said she wouldn’t be coming home for spring break, taking it as an opportunity to go see her rather than listening for signs that she did not want to see us. Or Sonny, really – it takes a saint to not be overwhelmed by Sonny a day or two after meeting him. It’s not the slow-burning entrapment of annoying personalities, or the secret Type A that lurks until something flips their switch. With Sonny, you got to a day where his mere breathing bothers you, the feeling of his presence a heavy fog. When he walks into a room, you immediately stop talking for fear that anything you say would send him into a dumb joke spiral he goes down to avoid reading the discomfort in the room.

So I continue to stare at the same page, hoping the drum of the engine and the flight will be numbing enough to let me read more pages, then hopefully finish it and start it again over the two weeks and again on the flight home if necessary. Anything to not talk to Sonny and kill time until we’re back in West Virginia and I can leave. I don’t even want a divorce – I just want to leave. I can’t think far enough down to divorce proceedings, splitting the stuff or fighting over who gets which car. Cody turns 18 at the end of the year then is off to college too, but I cannot wait that long. If I hear one more dumb joke, I will scream.

It seems I double-booked myself for this week’s post, so I’ll do something I haven’t done yet: taking a previous prompt response and going further. I was surprised how easy “Grape Juice” came, so I tried extrapolating. I’m not too confident about this piece, but it’s a first draft, and I’m surprised, again, at how easy it came along.

This week I also had guest post published with The Wacky Writer on admitting I’m not good at writing description of a place and why that’s not such a bad thing. You’ll notice I didn’t do much describing on this week’s post either and focused on dialogue to move along the story – that’s what I enjoy about writing, moving along the story.

Happy reading, and please do pay The Wacky Writer a visit.

From that first sleepover on a school night, Milo and Kenny ate lunch together every day. When Milo brought a can of La Croix in his lunch box one day and let Kenny try it, Kenny had made a face like when Milo had asparagus.

“It kinda tastes like when I burped grape juice at your house that time.”

Milo had laughed and taken a sip of the drink himself. “You can’t say that! This flavor is my favorite!”

“Want to try mine?” Kenny handed him a green can with golden letters. The can was cool and the bubbles tickled Milo’s nose as he took a sip.

“That’s gingerale! But why does it taste funny?”

“Funny? That’s what gingerale tastes like.”

“That’s not like the one we have at home. You can have some today if I can find it in the garage.”

Kenny smiled and said, “I’m bringing Hungry Hungry Hippos.”

“You don’t want to play Sword Escape? I can’t pass the dungeon level.”

“But you said you’d never played Hungry Hungry Hippos!”

“It just sounds like a game for little kids.”

Every day since that first sleepover, Kenny came over Milo’s house. He didn’t come over on some weekends, except for that one time Mom had gone to pick up Kenny from his house to take them to the zoo. Kenny had brought his address and his mom’s phone number written on his notebook the day before. Mom had called Kenny’s mom to ask if Kenny could come to the zoo.

When they’d gone to pick him up, Milo was looking for houses and yards, but he only saw buildings with lots of doors and windows on them, with stairs in the middle. The very top of the buildings were pointy like Milo’s and his neighbors’ houses, and when Mom was parking, Kenny came out one of the doors, jumped up and down and waved. He looked funny bouncing behind the banister.

“Stay here, honey. I need to talk to Kenny’s mom before we go.”

“Can I go too?”

“No, you stay here.” Mom left then, and the doors of the car clicked. Milo couldn’t see much from the backseat, but the top of Mom’s head showed on top of the railing and a lady’s face outside the open door Kenny had come out from. After a minute, the door closed and Mom turned and walked to the stairs in the middle of the building. That’s how you get up there.

Milo was worried Kenny couldn’t come out after all because he hadn’t seen him behind the railing, so when he came down the stairs next to Mom, Milo smiled and scooted to the next seat so Kenny could climb in.

“Hi!” Kenny said and grabbed onto the door to climb inside the car.

“Hi, Kenny!” When both boys were sitting and had their feet dangling off the seat, Milo said, “Mom, can I come over Kenny’s next week?”

Kenny started bouncing on his seat and clapping his hands. “You can finally see my room!”

“Seatbelts, both of you, please,” Mom said and turned on the car. “Kenny would need to ask his Mom first, and you have really slacked off your piano lately, Milo. You need at least two days next week, and both of you need to do homework. Mrs. Myers has already called me to say your homework is always only half way done for math, and you haven’t spent much time outside.”

“We can be outside when you’re over my house,” Kenny said. “There’s some grass on the back and we can play catch.”

“We’ll see,” Mom said. “Now, seatbelts, or we’re not going anywhere and they’ll be out of popcorn and ice cream at the zoo by the time we get there.”

It took two weeks after the zoo visit for Milo to be allowed to visit Kenny’s house. Mom said they couldn’t have a sleepover that time, but that they could have dinner before he got picked up.

Kenny’s room was smaller than Milo’s, and his bed wasn’t as comfortable. He had posters on the walls, of video games and basketball players, and he had a laundry hamper in the corner of the room. His computer had a bigger screen than Milo’s, but it was black and not gray and Milo’s had a white apple on the back. Kenny’s desk was brown and had chips on the corners, and the chair looked like the ones in Milo’s backyard.

‘So what do you want to do?” Kenny asked.

“I dunno. What do you usually do when you’re here?”

“Change my clothes before going to your house.”

“What other games do you have besides Hungry Hungry Hippos?”

“All the other ones have missing pieces or they’re boring, like Uno,” Kenny said and sat on the floor. “We could play catch?”

“I don’t know. Mom told me not to go outside.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She said we could play catch at my house next time.”

Kenny didn’t say anything and plucked a thread from the carpet. He pulled and pulled and there was a rip.

“Oops,” he said. “Crap. My mom will kill me.”

“Put the laundry hamper on top of it,” Milo said. “Then just carry the laundry down and don’t let her come into your room.”

“We carry laundry to the car,” Kenny said. “Then we drive to the laundromat.”

“What’s a laundromat?”

“It’s a place with a lot of washers and dryers where we do laundry. We use quarters.”

Milo stayed quiet and watched Kenny pluck out more threads. There was brown floor peeking out and dust coming off every thread. 

“You know how in your house there’s only one of each? In a laundromat, there are rows of them on top of each other. My mom lets me ride around in the carts sometimes.”

“Why are there carts?” Milo asked.

“To get the laundry around,” Kenny said and looked up. He suddenly stopped plucking and he looked at Milo. “There’s a cart from Giant in the back! We could go ride it!”

Milo smiled and was almost off the bed, but he stopped. These were his favorite jeans that Mom let him wear to Kenny’s, and he didn’t want to get them dirty.

“C’mon!,” Kenny said. “It’ll be fun. Then we can have pizza bagels.”

“I’ve never had pizza bagels!” Milo stood up and followed Kenny. They went out the front door and down the stairs Mom had come up the day of the zoo. Then they ran to the back and saw the grocery cart.

“Get in,” Kenny said. “I’ll push you down the hill.”

Milo climbed in and twisted so he was sitting cross-legged in the basket. Kenny was at the handle, pushing, but the cart didn’t move much. Milo was bouncing inside the basket once Kenny got it going, but it was fun. They made it to the small hill facing the parking lot where Mom parked and Kenny let go. Milo rolled down and let out a scream. Kenny couldn’t have heard him, but Milo’s scream was cut off when the cart suddenly stopped and tipped forward. He felt a pain on his knees and hands, and when he tried turning around he couldn’t for the cart on top of him.

Kenny was next to him, trying to lift the cart off him, but he couldn’t, and Milo started crying. He couldn’t hear what Kenny was saying, but then the cart was off him and Milo got up.

“I’m sorry, momma,” Kenny said. “We wanted to take turns down the hill.”

“What if I hadn’t pulled up just then, Kenny?” Kenny’s mom was yelling. “My shift ended early and I come home with dinner and you’re out here with your little friend.”

Both boys looked down and sniffed. Milo wanted to go home.

“Get inside,” Kenny’s mom said. “Wash up and set the table. We’re having fried chicken.”

On the way up the stairs, Kenny asked, “Have you ever had fried chicken?”

Milo shook his head and wiped at his eyes. His t-shirt was dirty and his jeans were dusty. His palms had scrapes, and when he walked up the stairs he saw the rip on his jeans and little tiny rocks on the cut. Milo wiped at it but it really hurt his knee.

“Ow!” He yelled and the tears started coming again. “My mom won’t let me come over again.”

“It’s okay, Milo, don’t cry,” Kenny said when they had walked through the front door. “We’ll wash our hands and I’ll wipe down your jeans. I get dirt off jeans all the time – I always roll down that hill.”

“Okay,” Milo said and wiped his nose and rubbed his hand on his t-shirt. At least fried chicken sounded good. Mom didn’t let him eat anything fried.

I’m back to my usual this week, with another post from a prompt born out of 642 Things to Write About by The San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.

That’s what the prompt is, “on honesty.” It’s one of those prompts that can be intimidating because you don’t know where to start, but it can also be exciting because it’s a writer’s blank canvas.

So here I humbly present my musings on honesty. Let me know what you agree and disagree with in the comments.

Honesty is one of those things that get more difficult as we grow up. Not because it’s harder to be honest as we grow up, or because we find more ways to be dishonest as time passes, but because honesty loses its simplicity over time.

When we are kids, we are told to tell the truth when a vase breaks while we play with a ball inside the house or how our faces got smeared with chocolate when our t-shirts are covered in crumbs. When we begin getting crushes, we can’t be honest with them and tell them how we feel because we don’t know what would happen if we do. We can’t tell that one girl we don’t want to be friends with her anymore because we don’t like how she talks to us in front of other girls because we’ll be the weird person who sits alone at lunch.

When we’re adults, we can’t always be honest with our partners about a choice they make for worry that it’ll make us sound selfish and hurt their feelings or make the choice more difficult. That silence is dangerously close to lying, and a lack of honesty here snowballs into resentment over there.

Honesty, it would seem, grows with us. It gets more complex as we get more complex, as our desires, goals and fears evolve and have layers on top of each other and interconnected branches and roots. Even with this complexity, we’re always expected to know when “honesty is the best policy” and deal with the consequences of our choices either way. What if we don’t know if or when honesty is the way to go, or if we don’t know what the consequences will be either way?

Perhaps the hardest kind of honesty is being honest with ourselves. It’s not impossible to lie to ourselves, to pretend we know better than to stop or start a behavior or thought pattern – until we dig ourselves into a hole and honesty just gets more complicated. There’s less accountability, more bending around the consequences. So how can we ensure that we’re always honest with ourselves?

So maybe honesty doesn’t need to be complicated, but being honest can sometimes be complex.

This week’s post was a last-minute change. Same prompt, but completely different product.

Although this piece reads more like the background story of a larger work, it’s a good place to start a new work-in-progress. Like my novel, Xander’s story has also been with me for a few years, and I’ve scribbled parts of it in my iPhone notes, on scraps of paper, journals, etc. I may or may not be starting a new project altogether, and I’m grateful to this blog for giving me the push to come out with it, and because I finally seem to be getting back into the writing mindset – this week’s piece came as naturally as last week’s post. I looked up and had something I was more or less happy with that didn’t feel like pulling teeth.

Happy reading! Stay tuned for more snippets of my works-in-progress, and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Trigger warning: Suicide, gun violence, self-blame.

Her dad was her secret obsession.

The kind of obsession that comes from realizing you didn’t know someone as well as you thought you did. When everything you thought you knew about someone is flipped on its head and you question even the smallest detail of the most inconsequential memory of the most mundane day. A yes suddenly means no, or maybe or nothing at all.

The obsession then breeds questioning, the endless quest of answerless circles to arrive at the why, or at the very least at the moment where the front was up. The only available answer is that you’re the one to blame, for not picking up on the discrepancies sooner. You’re the one to blame for trusting them in the first place, for being blind to the red flags.

Her dad was her biggest blind spot, or maybe the smallest – maybe that’s how he slipped past her. It was cliché to describe him as the man she’d known and loved the longest in her life, but it was true. They weren’t the same person, but they complimented each other because they weren’t, and yet they could have the nastiest arguments that lasted weeks. Her mom would say that he’d married her only so she could give him the true love of his life.

And he was the love of her life. The man that was so frustrating and impossible to deal with at times, and the one she could still not forgive for naming her Xander and not have it be short for Alexandra. The man was so impossible that, with a name like Henry with a wife called Nancy, he chose to name his only daughter Xander. He was impossible, and yet he was the man she was utterly unprepared to live without. So when he died, her world came down.

Xander hadn’t had any special name for him other than Dad or Father when she was upset at him not giving into her way immediately. She also didn’t call him before making a decision, big or small, college choice or different coffee order. But she did ask him once why boys didn’t seem to take her seriously, why she got stood up by yet another guy.

“Maybe I’m the problem,” she’d said.

“You’re not the problem, Xander,” he’d answered. “You’re the solution.”

So what was his problem? Why had he taken his own life at the lake? The same lake they’d gone to together since she was a child? The same lake where she’d asked him what college she should go to and where she’d talked him out of filing for divorce. Hadn’t she been his solution too?

Xander knew her dad inside out, and she’d prided herself in that even when her mom pulled rank. She could get through to him when her mom or others couldn’t. She knew how he hated when the hem of his dress pants came loose or how he’d indulge in a coke Slurpee from 7/11 when he had a hard day. The easiest way to get him fired up was to give him a wet willy, but the easiest way to put him out was to give him a white chocolate Kit Kat.

Why the lake? Obviously it wasn’t as special to him as it had been to her. It wasn’t just that he polluted their special place with his last thoughts and the squeeze of the trigger, but he’d forced others onto their hallowed spot. After that day, the paramedics, police, firefighters and coroner were privy to the place where they shared their deepest secrets and earnest conversations.

But he obviously hadn’t shared all his secrets. 

Worst of all, her mom had gone to their spot too, and that was the worst betrayal of all. After she had stopped going to their camping and fishing trips, Xander had put it in no unclear terms that she didn’t want her mom there, that it was Xander and Dad’s spot. Even when it stopped being wholesome and started being annoying, her mom knew it wasn’t her moments to share. So why would Dad make a choice that he knew would ruin Xander’s favorite place for the rest of her life?

Obsessed with answerless circles, Xander decided to leave behind her favorite place in the whole world in favor of a chance at some answers. She did have one though: it was her fault for not knowing soon enough to talk him out of it.