I will post a writing prompt here each day by adding to this original post. If you want use this as a way to get use to writing everyday. If you write something go ahead and post it here, just let us know which prompt you are responding to. If you have ideas for a writing prompt send me an email.
Prompt #1 (courtesy of Writer's Digest) You're working in your cubicle and a loose ceiling tile tumbles to the floor next to you. You look up, and taped to the old dusty ceiling is a photograph of someone who looks a whole lot like you...
Prompt # 2 Write your autobiography in one sentence.
Prompt #3 You wake up in the middle of the night groggy and irritable, as your eyes finally clear you see a familiar figure at the end of your bed. As the shock registers in your brain you deny to yourself that it could really be your recently dead relative. You pluck up the courage to get a closer look, when the relative lifts a hand with something in it and says "There is something you need to know about our family..."
----------
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow
0 / 50,000
oct. 16, 2009 - 10 31
You're working in your cubicle and a loose ceiling tile tumbles to the floor next to you. You look up, and taped to the old dusty ceiling is a photograph of someone who looks a whole lot like you...
'Not again...' you think.
You lean forward in your chair, the nice one you brought from home and have to steal back from chair thieving co-workers every other day, and massage your temples. Opening Outlook, you send an email to Facilities explaining the fallen tile. Ever alert for lawsuits, they send out the portly, overly enthusiastic Gus to replace the square of ceiling right away.
"Hey Boss. This thing didn't hit ya, did it?" Gus had this annoying habit of calling everyone "Boss". You shake your head and try real hard to look busy. "Well, lookie here! Friend of yours? Ha Ha! " He's the overly happy kind of person who laughs at his own jokes. You reluctantly look up, held in his pudgy fingers is an old, vintage photograph, brown coloration and yellowing with age. Sepia tone? Silver oxide? Whatever.
In the picture is a man who looks way more like you than you care to admit, wearing safari gear and carrying an almost comically huge rifle. His foot is up on a large, apparently dead, beast of some kind, a dark skinned man wearing animal skins to his left, a smiling buxom blond to his right. You stand up on trembling legs and snatch the photo from his hand. With far more anger than necessary you fling the photo into your desk drawer and slam it shut.
You move your status to 'break' and ctrl+alt+delete yourself out of your session as you grab your jacket and head out the back door. It is with trembling hands that you take out your package of filterless Lucky Strikes and tarnished Zippo lighter.
Ever since you where a boy, photo's, painting's and even the occasional archaeological artifact would turn up right under your nose, all baring your face or likeness, all in the past and all in the midst of some exotic location. Doing your best to remain normal, you've been able to hide them all, from everyone, and on a good day this includes yourself. As you pace and fret you hear a voice behind you say,
"Ye need ta stop runnin' from yer fate, Lazarus."
82,637 / 50,000
oct. 18, 2009 - 12 56
One sentence autobiography.
A curious traveler trots onward with a strong sense of self, posing more questions than answering.
----------Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow
11,234 / 50,000
oct. 19, 2009 - 04 53
Hello!
Thank you for posting these thought exercises - very helpful for new folks looking to jump start the brain :) Autobiography in a sentence?
Stolen aspiration: Awkward girl takes chances, fun ensues.
Reality: Hyperactive mind drifts in and out of the present, collecting experiences like Christmas ornaments.
54,033 / 50,000
oct. 21, 2009 - 15 19
Prompt 1:
Strange things usually happen to me on Fridays; it being a Monday I was caught off guard. I had just finished my third coffee break, and was eagerly awaiting an early lunch invitation from my cubicle friends on my left and straight ahead.
"Oww" I gently cursed as the light tile feel.
"Why don't you wear a helmet George and maybe call maintenance!" Sam usually just laughed at me and made a chicken little joke at my expense, but I suppose the meeting with the Boss this morning had left him less then jovial.
"Sam, do you really want me to get maintenance down here, you remember what happened the last time don't you."
"What ever, I have work to do." This was Sam's response, he apparently also remembered getting chewed out by maintenance for the hundreds of small pencil marks and holes that peppered our corner of the cubicle farm ceiling.
Looking down at the indestructible piece of light weight white material laying on the ground, I thought maybe today I would be handy, I can fix things I thought to myself.
Standing on my desk I began to try and maneuver the tile back into place for good. Small pieces of tile began to fall as I forced it into place, and if I hadn't needed to feel around with my hands for what was blocking the tile from going into place I would have missed the silver framed photograph.
Dusting it off and deciding this was infinitely more exciting then actual work, I sad down and with a damp napkin almost fell out of my seat cleaning it off. There I was. I mean I think that was me. I was a bit more muscular then I was at the moment, the hair cut was ridiculously stylish and myself in the picture was not wearing a discount suit from mens warehouse.
She was also not my wife, well I did not have a wife, but the photo sure made it look like I should, in fact I am sure that I should find this knock out and ask her to marry me this very instant.
With that I was rudely interrupted from my bizarre day dream.
"What the hell are you doing back here?" He was Phil Longer, my boss and generally a good fellow.
"Well you see...."
"I mean what are you doing with a picture of my Sister half naked on that beach, and where are you both at? Into my office now!!!"
My head reeled, and the yelling match about keeping my hands off of his Sister for the next half hour did not clear it. All I knew was that I had to meet her, and the sooner the better.
Prompt 2:
Unconfined, creative, abstract, forgetful, caring, and enjoying the view; how about a warm cup of conversation.