More Visual Prompts

This time look at who the character in the picture would be. What are they wearing? how would someone like that react to their world? Would they be intelligent, street smart, ditzy? Would they have an accent? Where would someone like that live? Who would they associate with? Create a character as deep as a person you might see on the street. Once you know them, their story will come.

It May Seem Harsh (but its for your own good)

It's over before you blink, but you can't help but think--in a splurge of sketches
etching on your frontal lobe--of how they drove you crazy, and how you liked it,
mostly. These people become like--what eyes see, opening, underwater: bubbling, bare outlines. If you stare too long, they'll let you drown down there.

Your mind makes no sense of time sometimes. It jumps back between
The last divorce decree, to meeting them for the first time and thinking that was some godly sign, but you'd rather not remember that,
or the fights
or the times you stayed up talking until midnight.

The harder you think the deeper it goes and before anyone knows, you're thinking about the couple you could have been, birthing the twins you would have named Albert and Jen. You ponder wallpaper for the fenced in white house that holds gas-guzzling vans in tented dark. You think of taking your fabricated family out for a picnic in the park.

You can dream all day about the way they lay beside you in bed, breathing quiet life into open air or how they used to say: I love you, leaning into you with good mornings at seven o' clock, but what's the point of that? The souvenirs of thought they slipped inside you while you slept, it all comes back--but they never do.

You take yourself aside to pray it won't be you that this happens to. But blink once and it's on again with different smiles and arms holding you just the way you want them to. You'll tell yourself it's different, this ones not like the last. List the reasons why they let you go, but leave out why your feelings come like thunder, silenced then settled into rain. The cocktails your tongue trips over, floods your blood to forget them, but you'd rather not think about that,
or your depression
or what Dr. Dan said at your last therapy session.

You let yourself learn the same lessons and always too late. Then, go back to blaming your choices on misguided fate. You're left with this fading fast feeling. Its in a first kiss or a flickering moment of bliss before a goodbye; whether you embrace it with a burly hug or deny it with a tender shove, it still goes on, without consent, the continuing cycle of love.

Paul,

This is my attempt to stop being your best kept secret and start being a human being. Its not a threat, I'm not saying this "scare" you. I am just going to tell the truth--to every person you don't want me to tell it to.

I will start by telling your Chemistry class we weren't holding hands on a dare and that you gave me the bruise, bridging across my neck, that I hid with red scarves. Maybe, on the bus, I'll tell the driver about our late drives in your moms Buick. Remember, when you told me about your parents divorce and it even made you cry, and you had to pull over to wipe your eyes--remember?

Ill write addresses down, to our secret spots, and I will give them to your teachers. The lake house the Lander's lived in before they moved and the shed in my parent's backyard where you took me for my first time--ring a bell? You never rang mine.

I'll tell the freshman girls you go after how it feels to be warmed by you, all over, five minutes after foreplay. I'll give away all your lines, so by the time you tell it to them--they are halfway through slapping you.

I'd have trouble deciding who to tell next, but maybe ill let my dad see the bottom of my trash cluttered with colored wrappers and thin, used, latex things. He might not be so happy to see that, Paul and i'm not really sure what he'd do. But, he is still on parole so I am sure he will think it through and maybe he will go easy on you.

Your mom might faint when I tell her how many girls you've taken to Dr. Dillinger (I'll show her my file if she doesn't believe me). She might be disappointed that I cant count that number on two hands.

Whose next? Oh, now this will be fun--my very last one to tell. Now, I know your girlfriend has practice in the gym at three sharp on Thursdays. Why don't I meet her in the locker room and tell her about the freckle on your inner thigh and how your mouth tastes in the mornings?

See Paul, I want my shirts back and my CDs that you blare. I want everything you took from me, because I don't think it's fair, that I am left with all these lies and all these secrets to keep. I am what's left in the space of a bank vault that no one is allowed to see. But whatever is locked in a safe--Paul, it's always worth more then you think.

You might want to start begging for mercy because that side girl you tried to keep away but still strung along might not be as sad as you thought she was. Secrets are bad, Paul. But, I know a few--and I am not afraid to unleash them all over you. You might not think so, but I think it's true--shh, lets wait to see if the others agree with me too.

Brain Bomb Prompts

These prompts are designed to set off sparks of ideas. Here are a few prompts to get started.

1. I wouldn't let him walk away
2. If I had a favorite...
3. A list of affairs over the last few years
4. She couldn't sign it.
5. Ill always be jealous...
6. Tequila is my best friend at night, but a bitch in the morning
7. I just stopped answering the phone
8. They never say how hard it is to go home again
9. Small town, big dreams
10. Never trust a man with blonde hair

Writing Prompt Places

Here are five writing prompt websites that will save time that would be spent jumping to page ten of google, searching for one good prompt.

1. http://visualwritingprompts.wordpress.com/
They focus on visual prompts and questions.
2. http://voices.yahoo.com/20-first-lines-20-creative-writing-prompts-spark-10162735.html
This article helps establish the first line of the piece
3. http://www.creative-writing-solutions.com/creative-writing-prompts.html
Some of these prompts give opportunity to finish prompt like " my father said to always..."
4. http://writeanything.wordpress.com/fiction-friday/
This page gives detailed situational prompts.