Day 18 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 18 Prompts:

A clown appears at the back of the garden during a birthday party but nobody else sees him... —WDC

You’re leaving your favorite restaurant after eating breakfast when a stranger taps you on the shoulder. But this tap leads to a conversation—and adventure—that leaves you with one item that you never …—WD

Why would an antiques dealer leave town?—CWP

Day 17 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 17 Prompts:

Put an athlete, artist and a fitness instructor in a museum. Add in a broken window and a crooked painting. One of the three panics. Write out the scene.—CWP

What do you see on the other side of the door when you look through a peephole?—WDC

“In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” This quote from French author André Maurois underscores the importance of knowing who you are as a fiction writer. As in love, readers can’t genuinely fall for an author’s work unless the writing is sincere, open, and truthful. Clear your head. Forget about your significant other, your editor, and your audience. Place your protagonist and antagonist in a location familiar to you, and write six hundred words about their interaction. The characters are people unto themselves, but your mind creates the attitude, style, and tone of the world in which they live. In fiction, the writer is nowhere, and everywhere, at all times. This is the authorial being that readers come to love.—P&W

Day 16 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 16 Prompts:

You are a world-renowned mystery writer living a life of seclusion. A random email informs you of a great story, the next bestseller. Unfortunately, you find the details to be a little too close to home. Write a scene where you confront this mysterious informant, who seems to know a little too much about your personal life.—WD

Think of a deceased historical figure and make a list of his or her qualities and attributes. Then try to conjure a modern version of this person in a five-hundred-word story. For instance, a character based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau might be on a walking tour of a city; a character inspired by Marie Curie could be working in a lab. Make this figure your own by weaving in imagined details and context.—P&W

What if you`re going to write a story about greed with a CEO as the main character and a chess board as the key object? Set your story in a hospital.—CWP

Day 9: My Friend, Mark

Today’s Prompt: You receive a mysterious email and the subject line reads “Everything you know is a lie.” You open the email and read further: “Act calm as not to alert anyone, but everyone around you is not who they say they are. You need to quietly get out of there and meet me at the spot where you had your first kiss. You know the place. My name is Mark.”

— Courtesy: WritersDigest.Com

Word Count: 1,770

I want to tell you about my friend, Mark. But let’s get something straight from the onset. ‘First Kiss’ isn’t exactly what it sounds like and Mark who is the reason I’m telling this story to begin with, is not the guy’s real name. And I am not in the secret service or anything so lay aside every sentiment you may have for folks in that department. Let’s get back to Mark cause this story is about him. Him not me, forget everything you ever heard those wannabe shrinks say. Those folks couldn’t wriggle free of a wet toilet tissue trammel to begin with.

            …What? You wanna know how I ended up eating roaches for dinner? That’s what I’m getting at. Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said these past minutes?

            ‘First Kiss’ was what we called our rite of induction. We belonged to this cult, you see?

            …No it aint the kind of cult where you had to off people just to make an appearance. It was totally legit stuff.

            …How come I’m stuck here if it was totally legit? Are you for real? Who’s telling this story, anyway? Are you an undercover shrink or something? You even stink like one.

            …You’re not? Let’s get something straight, I’ll tell my story my way or it’s no way.

            Like I said, it was totally legit. We committed no crimes. Check your records see if you’ll find a crime by The Mark Gang. The only clause is we were all boys. Four boys, five, if you counted Mark.

            Let’s get to the highpoints of the story. There were school folks who believed Mark was an alien.

            …No. Not an illegal immigrant kind of thing. We never knew who his parents were, though.

            I’m talking about an extraterrestrial, the Stephen Spielberg kind. He probably flew in from one of the Kepler cluster of planets all these young charismatic set of astronauts keep probing. He looked the type, too?

            …Did we find any evidence to buttress the fact? Plenty.

            First, one of the kids in our cult Etok (/hey toke/), I believe it was had this issue with Mark about his gender and he called him out, too.

            “How come I never seen you go on a date?” Etok said. It was the truth Mark rarely ever chatted up a girl and he forbade us to bring girls to meetings even a simple group gathering.

            …What did we discuss in the meetings? Why would I tell you? Those were group secrets and we swore to never tell. Would you tell me if I asked what you guys discussed in your locker rooms or what you and your wife do…

            …Okay. I’ll get on with it. But quit the silly questions cause there are special moments you couldn’t draw out of me with a chainfall.

            And Mark tells this guy, “I got nothing against the female type. I’m just being cautious.”

            “Cautious? About what?” Etok shot back. Now that I’ve got time to think about it I think Etok was trying to get Mark to like the female type because he had this sister he was…

            …Yeah, right. The story. It’s always the story.

            …How come all of a sudden, I changed my mind and wanna come right out into the open?

            Isn’t it obvious? At my age, I got nothing more to look forward to. What do I gatto lose? But it’s the same story I’ve been telling all my life. The question you ought to be asking, officer is why the hell didn’t they believe me?

            …Why’d I pick you? I guess, it’s cause I like you. I like the way you take care in passing my meal to me through that little opening, taking care it don’t tip over and spill all over the tray. I’ll tell you something, if it wasn’t for the bars between us, I’d give you a bear hug.

            …Okay. Okay, guess you’re right no need getting mushy. I’d probably end up messing up your uniform, anyway.

            …Yeah, back to Mark. The architect of my misery.

            So Etok tells Mark, “And it’s not just that. How come you never change while we hang around? How come we always gatto leave before you do?” Etok was right on that count, too. Mark had to be alone in the bathroom to change or take a leak.

            “Quit your sniveling,” Mark said. You could see the rage flare up in his eyes but he kept his voice in check.

            “Why? Am I touching a raw nerve? Is that it?” Etok didn’t know when to quit.

The air around Mark boiled. It happened so fast; one moment it was there and the next, poof! Gone with the wind. I thought I imagined it but when I and the other members of the cult collated data, it appeared they’d spotted it too.

            When I think about it, I think we must have been under a spell to have kept hanging around Mark after that experience. And to top it all, we set up a little challenge. It was actually, Etok’s idea. He died, you know? Not Mark, Etok. A week after Mark took him up on his offer; they dragged him out from under a healthy Dogonyaro tree. There’d been no storm, no rain but the tree had come down while Etok passed by. How do you explain such a load of crap to a rational mind?

            …Was Mark responsible? I’m not saying he was but… things like that don’t just happen.

            …What was the challenge about? Now that’s the kind of question you ought to be asking. Mark had agreed to meet a blind date at one of our boy’s home, inside his bedroom. You know how that kind of thing goes. Well, the girl came. I took one look at her and I can’t say I didn’t wish I had Mark’s luck.

            Mark was in the bedroom waiting and the girl went in to him. It wasn’t quite 60 seconds and a guttural scream cut through the silence in the house. We hurried into the room, of course. Everything looked as it should be in a bedroom; the girl half-naked and Mark in his boxers. The girl sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall, completely lost like she didn’t know where she was. The incident almost got us expelled from school. I remember when the school shrink brought the girl around and she narrated her journey through hell cause that’s what it was. She recalled coming into the house, the walk to the bedroom; seeing Mark on the bed in his boxers, taking off her clothes. Ask her to explain what happened beyond that and she goes vague.

            …Right, the email. I had to tell you about the sender so you don’t get things all muddled up. I don’t wanna go over this again so you know the kind of guy we’re dealing with.

            The years spun out and all the boys in that cult split. Some left the country and it amazed me to a great degree when I heard those investigators say they caught up with them and questioned them and they all denied ever knowing a boy named Mark. You see, I worked at technological outfit when I got that email from Mark. I had all but forgotten about him. The last time I saw or heard from him was Graduation Day. That was it. After that we cut off communication. It’s amazing how he found me cause I never left a forwarding address.

            …What’d the email say? Mark had stated, ‘Everyone around you is not who they say they are.’ He asked me to meet him where I had my ‘First Kiss’ you know what that means by now where it is that’s what I’ve not mentioned. It’s a valley on the edge of the high school we both attended. We’d found an alternate route in there that doesn’t lead through the school gates.

            …What’d he say when I met him? He told me he’d been on my trail for years, told me he knew everything about me and that he was sent from… guess what?

            …No. not the secret service. Haven’t you been listening? From planet Koldovia.

            …Where’s that? Ask the boys at NASA. I can’t help you in that department.

            He said he’d been tracking me cause his galaxy had an interest in me. The evil political party, of course. He’d been sent to protect me and The Mark Cult was all a front.

            …How does that involve the people at my workplace? Patience, my friend. I’ll get to that, shortly. He showed me a device. It looked strangely familiar at first. Then I remembered. We had invented new technology at the office. It was an automatic controlling device, which could act as a home appliance remote control and automobile remote control. You could get around almost anything electronics at the click of a button. Sounds like fun, han?

            …How did Mark come by it? I asked him the same question and he said, “It’s alien technology, our own technology—from Koldovia. The guys at your office are about to introduce alien technology into your world and start a colony. It’s going to be an underground work and then Earth’s gonna be under their control.”

            …Officer, do I look homicidal? I mean, not in this uniform. So what I objected to the technology from the start? do you suppose I could kill to prove a point?

            Your guys said on the day the explosion at the office occurred that it was reported I left work early but I was out visiting an old friend, Mark. Mark said those guys were all aliens—extraterrestrials. Mark said he could make them all disappear at the click of a button and I thought why bother the Government when you can offer your country a service free of charge? And I told Mark, “Make it happen.”

            He clicked the red button on the device…

            …What happened? Nothing. I went home after that and your guys picked me up the next morning on charges of mass murder. They said I had the office all wired up with explosives that they found the triggering device in my house with my fingerprints on it. Last time I checked aliens don’t leave fingerprints.

            ….So what they found the triggering device in my house. I don’t remember. Mark could have given it to me for safe keeping. But I didn’t kill anybody. Mark did. But you bet your life they were all ETs because Mark never lies.

Eneh Akpan

June 9th, 2014

Day 8: King's Law

Today’s Prompt: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude,” said Martin Luther King Jr. imagine a character who needs to forgive someone. Who does he or she need to forgive? What was the nature of the injury? What were its implications? Does forgiveness come easily to your character or is retaliation a more natural impulse? Does your character try and fail to forgive initially? See how your character’s desire to forgive creates obstacles and ultimately, fuels your plot.

— Courtesy: PW.Org

Word Count: 1,152

            “He ought to have known better. It’s supposed to be his job.”

No answer.

            “Damn, I should have killed him on the spot. I should, too.”

            “It would have increased the fatality by one. That’s bad arithmetic.”

            “It’s good equation, though. It is too, considering who’s involved. Leaving him alive creates a chemical imbalance.”

He rolled off the bed and walked around the room in an arc heaving heavy sighs. He turned around abruptly, retraced his steps and sat on the edge of the bed.

            “You can’t resolve this issue with a mathematical formula.”

            “My point,” he said. “Is I didn’t fulfill my obligations to him.” He stabbed the pendant lying in a tangle beside the bedside lamp.

            “Let it rest now.” She reached out and touched his hand. “Come to bed.”

He took her hand in his but kept his back turned to her.

            “You know what, everyday I remember that cussed day, every night the memory of it weighs down on me, and I feel like I played the role of the actor who forgot his lines at the defining moment of the play. The jerk who ended the play before it truly ended.”

She remained quiet. She’d heard those lines rehashed over and over again these past months she might as well live in an echo chamber.

            “And they say, I’m supposed to let it go.” He was off the bed again. “Just turn off the emotion, kill the memory. He was a part of my…” He reconsidered. “Our lives. Do you know how it hurts every time I check in his bedroom and he’s not there? Do you know how that takes it out on my feelings? I miss the non-stop racket that Home Theater of his produced. I miss 2Pac, Twista the whole lot of ‘em noisemakers, I’ll give the world to hear a skit performed by that noisy rapper… what’d he call the fella when I approached him about his taste of music?”

            “Lil’ John?”

            “Gotta be him. Lil’ John that should have been long gone. I miss the rich stew of complicated confusion which flowed from his room and rocked the foundations of this house.”

            “He’s gone,” she said. “Someday, you’re gonna have to face it on life’s terms. Why not today?”

            “The manic son of a bitch who thrust this misery on us is out there on the streets free as air. And all I have… all I have is a memory.” He pounded his fist into the wall.

            “Torturing yourself ain’t bringing him back. Quiet down a bit.” She extended her hand. “Come to bed.”

He loosened up a little bit and climbed into bed beside her. She reached under the sheets and held his hand. They both lay there each on his or her side and stared through the ceiling—they weren’t really looking at it. Their minds drifted off to some other place—a not-so-distant-past—to the time when a teenager, their little boy kicked football all over their yard and made a real mess of the neighbors flowers.

            The young man who had shared his dreams with them, the same with whom they’d both shared their hopes and joys. He’d been the strength of their marriage, a kind of breathing license. And though, he was gone, their union was not weakened by his absence but each half of the couple knew they’d both lost a chunk of their real selves. An essence they might never recover.

            “You know, sometimes, I wake up in the nighttime and I hear him as clear as the noise his home theater made while he was here, laughing and kicking that over-sized ball of his all over the house. The laughter wafts into the room like breeze through the drapes. Sometimes, I wake up and rush to the window but it’s mostly to erase the misconception; to prove to myself it’s all a dream. I’m not going crazy, you think?” He snuffled.

            “I hear him too,” she said in a whisper.

            “You?” He was propped up on his elbow, studying her. He reached out and plucked off the lone tear breaching the edge of her eyelid. She was crying too.

            “I never hear the bus plunge through the fence, tires screeching, coming for him,” he said.

            “Me too. Those are the best memories I have of him. I know I wasn’t home when it happened but this memory I’d love to keep. Forever.” She sat up on the bed and wiped his tears with the sleeve of her pajamas.

            “If we could have him back. For one day. It would settle every issue.”

            “We could, you know?”

He gazed at her but the point was lost on him. “I don’t get it,” he said, his voice gruff as he struggled with emotion overflow.

            “Forgiveness. Then every time we remember him. Every time, we hear him play football in the yard (if we would be hearing from him anymore after forgiveness has done its work) it would be as it really ought to be. No memory of death; of a DUI driver behind the wheels of a bus beating a path through the fence of the house rushing in for our son, knocking him into the ground like a hard tackle, dragging him several meters across the lawn then spitting him out like mangled flesh. Left for dead, because the driver was probably, too blitzed to assess the critical situation in time. No memory of bitterness and no time for it either. Who wants bitterness after you’ve experienced release? Not me. Forgiveness can achieve that level of freedom.”

He fixed his gaze on her, through her. And after staring for roughly, the length of eternity, he lay back and dropped his head on his pillow. She almost gave up hope that this night might be a rehash of every other night’s drama, when his voice drifted to her in undertones.

            “Did you say something?”

            “I said I’ll think about it.”

It was the reassurance she needed. It was enough. Not long after she dozed off.

He doused the bedside lamp. Then he fell asleep not because he wanted to but his eyelids defied motor control and slammed shut and of course, consciousness needed his break.

In the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of a ball bouncing off the wall. He crept out of bed and went to the window. His son was there as clear as day, playing football. He glanced up at him and waved, he waved back and hurried outside. When he got to the spot where his son had stood kicking the round leather stuff against the wall, he was gone. The ball, however, had been left behind.

            “Goodbye, son,” he said. He picked up the ball and walked back inside but not before saying the magic word,

            “I forgive. By all that is just and true, I forgive.”

222222222222222

I am aware that not one of the characters in this story bears a proper name. It’s absolutely intentional.

Eneh Akpan

June 8th, 2014

Day 7: Hard Drive

Today’s Prompt: “Checking Hard Drive… File Corrupt.” With a deadline looming, my heart stopped.

— Courtesy: Writing.Com

Word Count: 1,723

‘CHECKING HARD DRIVE…’

Koko stared at the screen of her inbuilt computer, the sense of urgency charged the air. The street was alive with people but Koko knew better to be wary cause this was 2057 where people had ceased to be just people. Computers ruled the age and people had become Files. Night had covered the world with deceptive ease while she buried herself in work.

‘CHECKING HARD DRIVE…’

            “Shit, this is going to be a long night,” she said aloud to no one in particular. “Can’t you just figure out who is real and which ones are ghosts of their former selves?” she asked the artificial intelligence installed in her Jeep. Just when she decided to spin her wheels, she probably had nothing to fear, her computer shattered her hasty conclusion with a ‘BONG!’

In 2057, that sound had become the next thing to the Final Trumpet Sound. Sitting in her Jeep, alone in the dark of night, the computerized female voice inserted terror in Koko.

‘CHECKING HARD DRIVE’ traded places with ‘virus detected’ and got traded for ‘file corrupt.’

Blue dots filled the computer screen. That signified one thing: she was in danger. She was stuck for alternative routes. Plus, beating the deadline seemed somewhere in the realm of impossible. The blue dots converged cued by an invisible, diabolic director. Then they began to move in on her in slow measured tempo acting out their cemetery choreography.

            Koko’s heart stopped. Only for the breadth of a second. In this tainted oasis, she couldn’t afford the luxury of static. The beasts detected human presence in the atmosphere and streamed toward the scent, gnarling like prototype mad dogs. Mad dogs who traded barks for bites.

‘VIRUS DETECTED.’ The computerized female voice declared, ‘ENTIRE COMMUNITY INFECTED.’

            “Like hell, I don’t already know that.” She killed the engine and waited in the charged up silence.

Once, while discussing this kind of situation at the office, long before the plague blew itself out of proportion, someone had made a bogus announcement.

            “Zombies can’t detect humans if they can keep their heads and stand still,” Zach (she just happened to remember his name) said.

            “Does that interpret as a zombie can’t bite a sleeping person unless they snore or twitch in their sleep?” some guy probably, Afia said. Everyone laughed it off but Koko wanted to hear more, see if the talk amounted to anything.

            “My neighbor tried it.” Zach wasn’t going to get put off so easily. “He told me they just walked around him like he didn’t even exist. He said one of those things pulled up short for a couple of seconds to sniff the air around him but moved on and didn’t bother him at all.”

            “Where’s your neighbor now,” Luke asked.

            “He got bit.”

            “Aw, shucks a zombified mutha can’t teach shit on how to stay clean.” That was Ray.

            “But that was just last week, he told me the story a week before that.”

            “Quit it, buddy. You’re beginning to sound like a wicked stepmother caught in the act,” Afia said.

            “Once is luck, twice the exception and third time makes the rule. I say, those sorry ass zombified fellas were probably, overfed,” Ray said.

            “Nobody ever heard of sated zombies. Somebody help me out here.”

No help had come for Zach that day and for Koko, it became clear the gist would prove nowhere near expedient. But here she was stuck in the midst of several hundred ugly-looking zombies parked in the middle of nowhere with no hope of rescue. She sat there waiting in the darkness while several hundred zombies tried to sniff her out of the night air.

            “If zombies can’t detect static humans,” Tammy recalled someone saying. “Is that why they try to sniff us out, instead? Heard they survive by their sense of smell and that the scent of human blood is what draws them out.”

Zach, it appeared, had not given much thought to this theory before narrating his story. He left the question hanging, kicking and dying probably, like the Philippines and Koreans like their dogs. Tammy watched the scene playing outside through her windshield until she heard the thunder behind her. The zombies had bashed in the glass on her back window and on the heels of that the tinkle of glass sprayed all over the backseat of her Jeep. Now bare hands slammed into her windshield trying to duplicate the rear window damage. She twisted her head and caught a glimpse of several zombies trying to squeeze themselves all at once, into the hole they smashed into her back window. Her mental safety mechanism flushed adrenaline to her brain. Koko broke her paralysis.

            “Like hell zombies can’t detect static humans. Up yours, Zach.” She turned on the ignition, revved the engine. The zombies didn’t seem to notice. She leaned on the horn. It shattered the sinister silence of the sunset. Yet, the beasts kept up their attack.

            “Guess, I’m gon’ have to run you slow foots over,” she said. Koko released the horn and leaned her weight on the pedal, flooring it. The Jeep roared to life and leaped into the air shrugging off a bunch of undeads like a maid shaking dust off an old rug. Smell of burning rubber filled the air and then the Jeep was off painting zombies all over the asphalt.

‘IMMEDIATE VICINITY CONTAMINATED.’ The computerized female voice said in a shrill. ‘CODE: RED. CODE: RED. SECURED PERIMETER BREACHED.’

            “What now?” Koko said and then she saw through her rearview. All the zombies including the ones that clove to the Jeep’s roof fell off when the vehicle picked up speed. Except one. One of the several that clung to the back window had made it halfway through the shattered glass. It inched its way forward clawing at the leather on the backseat soon it would take a seat for a spin. “Oh, Lawd.”

‘VIRUS INFECTION IMMINENT,’ her vehicle’s artificial intelligence squealed. ‘VIRUS INFECTION IMMINENT. CONTAMINATION IMMINENT. ABANDON VEHICLE. WARNING. WARNING. DANGER. DANGER. ABANDON VEHICLE.’

“The heck I’m abandoning this vehicle.” Koko threw a glance over her shoulder and caught sight of the foul being reaching for her. She stole a whiff of its body odor. “Oh, what the… don’t you shitheads have enough courtesy to wash?” she stepped on the brake hard. The flesh-eater flumped into the backseat. No sooner had its back touched the leather than it sprang up grabbing for Koko again. Behind her, not far off in the distance, the rest of the zombie community gave chase. “Abandon vehicle, then what? Sprint from here to the Refuge City? The hell I want to do that for.” ‘Refuge Cities’ were selected ‘quarantined’ areas where non-contaminated folks lived. The gates closed by 1900hrs and for Koko, with a deadline looming, this was a fight to win all fights.

            “If I can’t get rid of one zombie how do I outrun a few hundred?” She stepped on the gas and the zombie was again thrust into the leather of the backseat. She turned and gave it the eye. “We can do this all night long, Mr. Zombie or you can hit the road. Either way, nobody’s taking one bite out of Mama’s girl. Not tonight, not ever. You hear me, you freaking animal?”

She was going to hit the brakes again and throw the zombie off balance when dead fingers brushed the skin of her neck, groping for purchase. She grabbed at it with her left hand and tried to jerk it off. Another set of fingers came round the left flank of the headrest and seized her throat. She yanked her head forward but the fingers were strong and won’t give. Her head was pulled back, slammed into and compressed against the headrest. Gently at first and then as the pain in her head grew she realized her assailant intended to pull her head through the headrest into the backseat. The complicated process hurt her windpipe. She sank into deep darkness and the Jeep rolled off the road until it got trapped on a low brick fence. She was losing the fight, giving in gradually to the tireless zombie power when she felt the monster’s fetid breath on her neck. It was coming in for the world in-famous zombie bite. Koko lashed out with her remaining strength and clawed out one of the vile creature’s eyes it didn’t seem to notice. She lashed out a second time and the thing caught her hand. It released the pressure on her neck a little. It was the only license she needed.

She successfully retrieved her fingers from the zombie and was catching her breath in gasps and gags when the monster lashed out at her and chewed a chunk of her headrest.

            “That may have been my ear you big dumb fool.” The other zombies were gaining on her she saw through the busted back window, to her utter dismay. Koko grabbed at the head restraint on the passenger seat, tugged the steel legs out of its sockets. She shoved as hard as her strength permitted her and the enemy fell back for a second.

            “I’m done playing with you. This ends now.”

‘Always go for the head, that’s their weakest point.’ She recalled someone saying about killing zombies.

When the zombie lurched at her more furious than ever, Koko was waiting and armed. She drove the steel points of the head restraint into the monster’s head. It sank in hard and fast, cracking skull and puncturing the remaining good eye. One steel leg, the one that went through the good eye came out on the other side of its head.

It fell back into the backseat for the final time. A dead undead.

            “Be a good boy now and have your beauty sleep,” she said.

Koko had just enough time to step out of the vehicle and drag out the excess weight. She got back inside the confines of her Jeep just in time to hear the first zombie slam its palms into her trunk lid.

‘VIRUS DELETED. FILE FIXED. NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED.’ The computerized female voice said.

            “As it should be,” she said and gunned the motor pulling away from the ruined brick wall. She stepped on the gas and made the zombies take her dust.

Eneh Akpan

June 7th, 2014

Day 15 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 15 Prompts:

There's a beautiful scene in Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief during which Max, who is hiding from the Nazis in the basement of a German family's house, asks Liesel, their daughter, to tell him what her eyes see when she goes outside. What he gets is an almost magical description: the view of the world through a child's eyes, beautifully unaffected by the dark cloud of World War II looming on the horizon. This week, try to describe something through the eyes of a child. It could be a day, a landscape, an object, a person — anything with a bit of hidden magic only a child can tap into.—P&W

Use this metaphor to spark a poem or story: a chest of childhood—CWP

Write a story in which the phrase 'I don't know' occurs at least thrice, each time having a different implication or hidden meaning. —WDC

Day 14 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 14 Prompts:

A garden scarecrow quietly observes its surroundings—WDC

Motels are frequently depicted in novels, TV, and film. This week, write a scene that takes place in a motel. Perhaps it's a seedy, roadside fleabag; a clean, well-maintained establishment with a dark history; or simply a familiar setting for a dramatic turning point in your narrative. You can weave it into a short story or use it as a starting point for a new piece. It can be inspired by your own experience or entirely imagined.—P&W

I once dreamed about...—CWP

Day 13 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 13 Prompts:

The computer screeched and the screen turned blue when he hit the submit button. —WDC

Parades are usually exciting occasions for children and a source of aggravation for commuters. This week, write a story or scene centered around a parade. Try to show contrasting reactions to the event. Draw from your own memories of parades at different times in your life.

Write from the point of view of the knife inside a thief`s pocket.—CWP

Day 12 Prompts

IntShoWriMo 2014 Daily Prompts

Day 12 Prompts:

Write from the point of view of a virus about to infect an important document.—CWP

Write about a world where 1+1 does not equal 2.—WDC

You wake up one morning to find that you are your three year old self, with your parents again, with all of the memories and experiences of your current life. Write this scene and express the emotion and frustration your character undergoes as you internally try to sort this out.—WD