WIM Week 2: The Prompt

After being on travel for the past thirteen days, I woke up jet-lagged to find Gamemaster Jeni dropping the WiM prompt like a badass MC.

I tapped the link and wasn’t disappointed. It was a drop-dead gorgeous rendition of tetanus.

Cuddling my iPad in bed, I stared at the photo until it came to life. I heard the waves crashing against the shore, the muffle of sand as the rotted wood banked against its dunes under the quiet of stars.

I saw a girl, sitting on that beach, reading a book in the dark, being startled by this boat. Who or what would she encounter? How would it change her life?

The only answer came in the alert chirpy voice of my 7-year-old from downstairs, asking if she and the dog could puh-lease have their breakfast now. WTH. Had the devils of jet lag forgotten to claim my child?! I glanced over at my snoring husband and sighed. Guess the girl and the boat would have to wait.

But they didn’t. As I toasted bagels and spread cream cheese, inspiration from my recent trample around Europe bled into my thoughts, and the seed of an idea was born. Before I could launch Ulysses (the writing app), the rest of the family had made their way down, and life promptly took over.

I didn’t get another crack at it until later in the afternoon, when I finally hit the Slack channel for some serious catching up with my favorite word wizards. Lo and behold, some of our overachieving writers had already finished their first drafts! Boy oh boy oh boy!!!

My enthusiastic little finger died to click all the links, but somehow Restraint prevailed. 

Nope, it said. Best to save the reads until after I’d written my own, to avoid being influenced by someone else’s genius ideas. Damn you, discipline! But the motivation worked. After dinner, I sat down and cranked that baby out in short order.

It’s far from perfect and probably a bit confusing, but it’s a start. Most importantly, it’s my true first draft – black on white, a foundation to improve on, a free-flowing vomit of thoughts which Restraint forbade me to edit.

In all its infant glory, I can’t wait to share it with you in next week’s WiM post! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!