Cover art based on photo by DzidekLasek on Pixabay
Terror grabbed my lungs in its sweaty fist and squeezed. No stick curved like that thing in the sand.
A bite from a venomous viper wasn't on my bucket list. Panting, I moved only my eyes.
Black diamonds undulated and dry grass crackled.
Maybe I scared him too.
I have once again written in response to the weekly prompt offered by @jayna.
This time the little bonus to the story is about writer's block. We all get it from time to time. It hit me this week. I didn't write this story until last night. I'd tried--and failed--several times during the week to come up with something for this prompt. After we got a poisonous snake in our greenhouse, I tried to use it for inspiration but continued to fail.
I had given up yesterday, deciding I just wouldn't manage to do anything this week. I was frustrated, but somewhat okay with it, because I've been sick with a bad migraine and had to go to the chiropractor for treatment, which gives nasty backlash effects. So I was telling myself it was okay to fail.
Then last night, after I'd gone to bed for the night, inspiration struck when I was three-quarters of the way asleep. This story just popped into my head. I got my tablet down and scribbled. I did a little bit of midnight editing and ended up with a 48 word story.
This morning I shared my draft with my peer review group and a strange thing happened--the only change was to swap the order on the first and second sentence. The second sentence made a stronger opener and the swap prevented the image of the first from replacing the image of the not-a-stick.
So we need to accept as writers that sometimes we just can't manage a particular prompt in a short time frame. Sometimes we need some down time to recover from other things or perhaps our brain is just stuck in another story--a problem I was also dealing with all week. My brain is in another story I'm working on and didn't want to refocus. Brand and Spark are demanding I think about them.
But then when I accepted it was okay to fail, inspiration struck. I listened to it and got the words down, as you can see. Don't ignore inspiration, even if your first impulse is "This sucks."
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.rjeanbell.com/2018/07/29/escape-a-micro-story/
Reading the story I felt it so intimate... Like me being there my self feeling the snake presence.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It really is an amazing piece of writing. Love it. hugs
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Really nice story, @bex-dk. I'm glad you let inspiration guide you! I remember seeing that you had a snake in your greenhouse. What a great inspiration for a story.
I also really stumbled this week. I wanted to write a piece about an event in history (one of my little passions), and came up with several possibilities. I chose what I thought was the best idea of all, but the words just didn't work. It took several rounds of trial and error and I was finally successful at completing a draft I was satisfied with late last night. I let it rest and did a few tweaks this morning.
I think it's especially difficult to capture terror. I hadn't thought about that when I chose this prompt, but danger and fear are really challenging because they are so personal, and words can fall so flat.
You did a great job of capturing that startled and terrible moment of coming face-to-face with a venomous snake. But I especially like the twist at the end, that perhaps the snake is terrified too.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The thing with terror and fear is that showing them can be wordy and we have so few to work with. It needs a character arc in which that dominates, so you don't need the words for other things. I suspect if you allowed yourself more words, you'd more quickly be happy with a story. But the challenge is good for us. We need to push ourselves if we want to improve.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The last line is the perfect line of inspiration for everyone.♥️ Following you now
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit