Writer’s Block
In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.
Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!
Write about what you know — that’s one of the fundamental nuggets of wisdom for writers. “But I don’t know anything worth writing about!” you protest. You don’t? Anything is worth writing about if the writer finds something engaging about the subject. Try these writing exercises based on firsthand observation:
1. Read the titles of books you own or those at the library or a bookstore. Create a story based on one or more titles or words therein.
2. Watch an unfamiliar TV show or movie with the volume turned down and invent a story based on the setting and/or the characters. (…)
Take thirty 3x5 index cards. On 10 of them, put a thumbnail description of a place. ”Pizza parlor with jukebox,” “treehouse in a suburban backyard,” “forest with creek and ravine,” “small 2-bedroom house in a low-income neighborhod,” etc. On 10 of them, put thumbnail descriptions of fictional…
Write about a group of kids traveling around aimlessly. Where do they come from? Where are they going? Do they know? What’s their source of money? Were they friends before they left their homes, or did they meet during their travels? What’s the dynamic between them?
(Prompt from here)
Kristen and Jeremy were laying up on the rooftop of his parent’s house at night when they saw the parallelogram of blinking yellow lights float by high in the sky.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered.
“Hmm?” Kristen asked. She’d closed her eyes, just for a minute, just to get some rest, when Jeremy had spoken. With a degree of exhaustion, she opened her eyes and glanced over at him.
He raised his hand and pointed. “Up there. Those five lights. The ones moving in the same direction.”
Kristen followed his direction. “What the hell?” she whispered, sitting up.
Jeremy laughed. “No kidding.”
They were moving slowly, almost leisurely, past the house. The lights, bright yellow and very difficult to miss, blinked on-off-on-off every other second.
A shiver went up Kristen’s spine and she pulled her coat closer around her shoulders. “I don’t hear anything coming from it, do you?” she asked him.
Jeremy shook his head. “It doesn’t seem to have a body, either.”
Kristen looked at him. He nodded up at the lights.
“If it had a body, it would be blocking out the other stars.”
Kristen pulled her knees into her chest. She was filled with the same kind of dread she’d felt a few nights prior to this, when they’d heard a medley of nocturnal animals calling out to one another around the house. She wasn’t used to being so - isolated. Everything about the farm made her feel exposed. This wasn’t an exception. “What do you think it is?”
Jeremy shrugged and scooted closer. “Probably nothing. Maybe it’s a hovercraft. Or a remote controlled robot.”
Kristen shook her head. “Isn’t it a little high up for that?”
Jeremy gave her a look. “Honey, have you seen what people can do these days?”
They watched in silence as the blinking yellow lights floated by soundlessly and disappeared over the tops of the trees.
