I would love to read a chapter of this to further understand. Not seeking to provide an opinion unless requested. This is mere curiosity from a stranger.
Terribly curious as to why you think it does not work.
I just opened Bsky after many weeks. I immediately came to this page to see what the prompt was.
Though not always an active participant, I enjoyed quiet participation.
Thank you for the inspiration. It kept me going while sitting down for long hours to write was not possible. All the best.
I put my first novel on the shelf after 48,000 words. It taught me that I love to write. I will revisit these characters and their incomplete lives eventually, they are dear to me.
Now I have a new set of people to meet in my mind with a new story.
We were exhausted. It had been a long hike. The fire was warm, and we all took sips from a bottle of mediocre bourbon. I had not done that since I college. I can’t remember why I began sharing about my marriage or what I said that made Judy cry, but that moment I knew we were becoming sisters.
But it is perhaps in loving that one may—or may not—find love.
J Cross
Spring has begun in Southwest Georgia, USA. Don't blink.
Writing begets writing—sometimes.
“I don’t know. I just lost my mind. I was sad. I wasn’t thinking,” she said, pacing the room, pulling at her braids manically.
“You realize I have to call the cops, right?” She began inching her way to the door.
“No, you can’t! It wanted to eat me!” she screamed.
“It? It? ‘It’ was your husband.”
She knew what Jonah had done, and he was lying about it. Troy’s drowning had not been an accident, and in her hand was the proof that had washed to the shore, changing everything.
She desperately pulled the drawer open and stuck the broken bracelet beneath his school drawings.
“It is beautiful, sweetheart, thank you. I will take it to my treasure drawer right away.”
She closed the door behind her and threw her weight against it. Her lip quivered, followed by a silent sob—gut-wrenching agony.
Her hand was clutching the bracelet.
“Jonah, are you sure you did not go to the lake yesterday?” she asked, trying to keep her composure.
“No, Mommy, I was here all day. Look! I made this for you today,” said Jonah, handing his mother a drawing of a flower.
Morning at the Clyde. Fall, 2024.
I have been reflecting. Is there a purpose to my writing? It began as a perfectly selfish exercise of personal amusement and recreation. Now: I write to avail emotions to my reader, to expand their capacity for empathy, in the journey towards achieving emotional neutrality with one another.
…but Charles was different. As water in a mold, he always took the shape of whatever he was facing at the time. The lines on his face, though mostly fitting to his stoic expression, could be attributed to a life of smiles, or anger, or sadness, or tenacious courage. Fred felt adrift with him.
“How many times is this now, Mr. Goo-tee-eh-rays?” he asked, looking at the business permit on the wall with the most despicable pronunciation of a Spanish last name—pathetic for a Texan.
“This is the third time in a week, but I am not pressing charges,” Mr. Gutiérrez replied, evading eye contact.
He looked at her and wondered if those lines on her face would be different if she had ever been truly loved, if she had not traded her innocence for the crumbs she was fed by a lousy man; but when the heart is starving, even a small amount can create the illusion that the hunger has been satisfied.
Igualmente!
Beautiful words.
Silence cannot obliterate
the echoes of conscience;
it merely veils their reverberations,
leaving the mind ensnared in the
quiet persistence of unspoken truths,
where the absence of sound magnifies
the dissonance lingering within
the soul’s still chambers.
#BraveWrite #vss365 #prompt #silence
I am glad that self-doubt only appeared at the 35,880 word mark, because I would not have made it there otherwise; but now that it is here, it is welcome to leave.
“Try something new, something creative to let out your frustration,” she said calmly, still working on her embroidery, stained with blood.
“Like what? You think painting goddamn flowers will keep me from wanting to bury more of those pieces of shit?”
“It helps me.”
“So, did they like it?”
“Did they like it? Ha! They fuckin’ loved it!” he said, unbuttoning his shirt and scratching the hair on his chest. “They ate the hell out of it—like a pack of ravenous, vicious teens thinking Taylor Swift had baked the damn cake.”
Unusual for me. I guess all those evenings of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? linger in the back of me wee mind.
“Where did you say you got this?” Luke asked, astounded by the painting. A man in the foreground was carrying a torch.
“At Miss Sally’s; she was having a yard sale for her son’s Scout trip,” he replied.
“That is my childhood home in the painting, back in England. It burned down 30 years ago.”
“Our names were etched here, on this very pew, by tears and fingernails—like water on driftwood—relieving the trauma of the day our Charlotte was murdered. But the defense was strong, and he walked free,” he said, running his hand along the woodgrain of the pew from which he had heard the verdict.
From my work in progress. Fitting for today, as New Year's Eve is such an important part of the story. Cheers to a year in which I will be able to say: I wrote a novel. All the best.
I like this very much. I hope it is an upgrade in resolution. Happy new year!
My New Year's resolution is 1440p.
“I just need a few more days. I got some money coming in,” he begged.
“I am not a patient man, and I have been rather patient with you—excruciatingly so. But I am afraid that is expiring, at midnight to be precise. You have seven hours,” he said, polishing his weapon. “Go on. Tick, tock.”
