(Thank you everyone who called and e-mailed me, I’m humbled. I really am. I’ll update on my mental state soon. The news isn’t all bad.)
On to this week’s PROMPTuesday. So as I was thinking of what to do this time, my wise and creative friend, Kristine, reminded me of the “first sentence” writing prompts, and I thought she was on to something.
So, I’m taking her recommendation — with a twist.
Thanks to the Story Spinner, I generated a random prompt that’ll give you a starting phrase, the setting, and two items to include in your story.
Here they are:
First sentence for your story: “Dear Diary,”
Setting: In a limousine
Two words you must include while writing:
–Missile
–Hearth
As always, please give a nod to the “rules”:
- You must write your entry in 10 minutes. This encourages top-of-mind, primal thinking before the ego and judgmental brain kicks in. Just set a timer, make your kid count to 600 slowly, whatever. It’s an honor system. And I trust you.
- Keep to 250 words or less.
- Please have fun. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Together, let’s rediscover the simple joy in the writing process.
And by the way, forget Mr. Linky. I’m casting him out of my circle. Instead, just post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
Good luck! And have fun!
Here’s my submission:
Dear Diary:
Today I saved the world. Ha! I’ve always wanted to say that. But now, it’s true. It was inadvertent, as you might guess. Some guy approached me in the grocery store about a prophecy. Seems I’m seventh in a long line of Russian farmers who fight evil. I don’t know. I do remember hearing something about the Bolsheviks from my grandma, but…
Where was I? Yes! Saving the world! How great is that. Well, blah blah blah. There was a missile, I used some telepathy and potatoes I didn’t even know I had to smoke out the bad guy and averted disaster. Now I’m in a limo on my way to a celebration in my honor. Pretty sure there’ll be vodka there. I can’t wait to tell the kids. It’s been a long day and really, I just want to get home, see my family, put my “World Saver” trophy on the hearth and get to bed. What now though? Will these people keep in touch? Will I be asked to fight evil again? So many questions. More later, Diary.
Best I can do. Don’t pick on me. I’m depressed, remember?
I hope it’s o.k. that I’m leaving a comment here in response to your last post!
I just wanted to say – I totally get you – I hear you and I SO understand. I don’t call myself “Restless Housewife” for nothing! I was just thinking the same thing about how I’m afraid that all my posts are about me being frustrated or annoyed…I just think it’s really cool that you put it out there and write about it for everyone to see. It helps us all to know that someone else is going through similar sh*t you are. I just want to thank you for being honest and REAL.
um, under the “four words you must use”, there are only two listed.
If I make it through my dental appointment in one piece, I may actually give this a whirl.
As for your previous post, you’ve written out so clearly what many of us go through. Sometimes the struggle to break out of that depression takes longer than we think we can bare, but then we suddenly see the light coming in between the cracks in the blinds. I wish you smiles and a lighter heart, my friend.
I took a shot at this one. Here’s the link.
And as for your last post? I sent you an e-mail just now.
Dear Diary,
I’m still trying to take off some of this weight, slogging along on the treadmill every other day. It’s miserable. My knees hurt. My hips ache. It’s boooooring. And only seven pounds off in the last month! But I do it. Yet clearly my efforts are for naught. This morning, as I lowered myself in to the limousine, my belly actually touched the bottom of the steering wheel. Touched it. As in MADE CONTACT. It frustrated the hell outta me and as I sat there, feeling the steering wheel press into my blubber, all I could do was think about Ding Dongs. I wanted a Ding Dong so bad that I coulda sworn I had a fire raging in the hearth of my stomach. I knew a pack of Ding Dongs was the only thing that would make me feel better after all these weeks of no sugar. So I said screw this! and drove like a guided missile straight to 7-11, even though I knew I would be late for my pick up and even though it was a challenge making the turns (what with my stomach impeding the steering capacity) and even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I ended up eating sipping champagne and eating Ding Dongs in the back of the limo and thought, so this is how the other half lives.
It’s nicer in the back seat, diary.
Trust me.
Blog This Mom!’s entry is in. Thanks for another fun one Deb.
Nice job Deb! Some days I pull my head out of the oven just to write. Then I feel better. Plus my oven is electric so all I ever get out of that is burnt split ends.
I hope you’re feeling better too.
I’m in awe of what everyone wrote today. I’ll check back later to see if there are more entries.
XOXOXO
Heh. Between the Bolsheviks and Ding Dongs, these are totally cracking me up.
You should have seen this one coming.
I did mine!
CHEESE ALERT!
Here is my submission!
Dear Diary,
Today I had the most amazing Valentine’s Day. My husband, Daniel, and I went downtown to relive the day that he proposed. After dinner and the horse carriage ride we were walking in front of the Alamo when we heard sirens. Everyone panicked and ran in different directions. In the sky we saw a missile heading straight towards the Alamo. Daniel ran into the Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Wax Museum and grabbed a gun from John Wayne. To our surprise it was a real gun. We loaded the bullets from the bullet belt on Mr. Wayne. We ran back outside and Daniel fired at the missile! It hit and exploded in the air! Everyone in the crowd cheered! The officials congratulated Daniel on his amazing shot. Now we are sitting in a limousine that they hired to take us home. We are ready to make love in front of the hearth glad to still be alive!
More later Diary, my husband is waiting for me.
“Dear diary,” she wrote, while reclined by the hearth, her lesser half snoring away in the bedroom, flacid love missile gathering dust. “Today I found a new use for my galoshes.”
Dear Diary – Another effing limosine and another effing premier. Who conned me into thinking this was going to be glamorous and fun? The accumulated days I’ve spent in the dentist’s chair for these perfectly pearly whites are days hours I’m just never getting back. The time spent having hair ripped from my body and coiffed on my head. I just know this boob-tape is giving me a rash. To top it off my feet are killing me and we haven’t even arrived yet. Damn. I really shouldn’t be wearing such pointy-toed shoes so soon after my bunion surgery. Why do I subject myself to this? So I can wear those little strappy sandals with the diamonds on the red carpet for five minutes in MARCH? So not worth it. I’d rather be tending hearth and home back on the farm in Iowa. I miss my horses. I miss my mom’s tuna casserole. I even miss my dad’s tobacco spitting. I miss EATING. And look at this guy at the other end of the seat. Unbelievable the guys they pair me up with for these things. The international heartthrob cavernous nostrils and nothing to say. Dumb as a box of rocks and gay as paint. I hope the movie flops. I hope the theatre burns down so I can turn around and go home. I hope a stray missile lands on the limo. I knew I should have been a French teacher.
Uh. “WITH cavernous nostrils.”
it’s friday, yes. but i still wanted to play:
http://katydidnot.blogspot.com/2008/06/it-made-me-want-to-pluck-stupid-glasses.html
http://paulrwade.blogspot.com
“Dear Diary?” he asked. “What? As a title?”
She fumbled with the chromed ashtray lid on her armrest. The Packard was older but well kept – the ashtray lid evidently an exception.
“Chester, I asked you to loosen this lid. Use oil or something on the hinge of it. Today.”
Chester raised a finger to his hat – and nodded slightly.
Unable to budge it, she rolled down the window to the sound of engines humming at the intersection of 49th and 5th outside Rockefeller Center. The rain shot down onto the windows in firm, window-rattling missiles. Her long, ruby fingernails tapped the cigarette holder into the dreary twilight.
“Yes. Dear Diary. I’ve quite made up my mind.”
“But, Darling, last week . . . surely you . . .”
“I won’t have it any other way,” she said, looking down at her skirt for ash and smoothing the green silk. “Chester, cut over on 44th, please. Lunch at the Algonquin today. I wish to sit by the hearth with the firelight behind me. I feel like a wretched, wrinkled, rumpled, dampened mess.”
Chester lifted his right forefinger off the wheel in deferent recognition.
She turned to Robert and lifted her eyebrows. “Need I remind you, dear husband, that you are addressing a Pulitzer Prize–winning, Tony Award–winning author of 17 plays, 8 of which have gone to broadway, 3 of which have become hits, and one of which has been made into a movie for which I also received an Oscar. A shared Oscar, albeit, but I hardly think that . . .”
“Dear Diary it is, then.” He said, slumping down into the seat and watching the rain run down his window in small diverting creeks, the tightness growing in his stomach. Her original title, My Dearest Love Robert, had touched him in a way he hadn’t felt for years – since before the awards and glamour. Since before the limousines and the park-side move.
Somehow he knew it wouldn’t last.