Two Writing Prompts

Writing prompts/Writer’s Challenge from the online lit mag The Write Place at the Write Time

Prompt 1: An anniversary can be a time of celebrations or a time of solemn reflection.  Write a story in no more than five hundred words that describes your protagonist‘s feelings about the event being remembered and how it affected their life.  Use words “flashback”, anniversary, “recognition”, and “future”.

Prompt 2: Summer is always a special time, and is often characterized as a period of transition in a young person’s life.  Imagine a powerful coming-of-age experience for your protagonist, and in five hundred words or less, describe how this particular summer changed their life forever–for better or for worse.

  (Writing Prompt 2) “The Swimlot” for Mike

They’re almost there, pedaling as fast as they can into an unknown idea.  July is ending and the small town         buzzes with campers, RVs, coolers, boats.  The highway is the shortest way, they cut across in a flash of chrome and into the woods behind Frankie’s Pizza.

“I know its down here, Amos, I know it’s here somewhere,” Mike shouts back.  They’re eleven without permission.  This is about to be the peak of their childhood, knowing too well that it was time to grow up.  But there was something special between these two–the love of adventure.  They’d spent the summer climbing the city’s crumbling ore dock, fishing, biking to the lake to jump into the waves during storms, exploring ravines in the rain, and at night they’d draw and dream and watch The Goonies, thinking about how they could chase tornadoes together.

Up ahead they see the trees thin and then suddenly it’s just water.  The field immediately stops, held back by a four foot high cement wall that runs the expanse of the woods.  At the bottom of the wall there is a thin, wooden ledge to stand on, the water lapping it in the silence.

They don’t have to say anything.  They’re sure they discovered this.  This was it.  This is what they’d been searching for–a wild place to call their own.  They look at each other, reflecting back the same glint in their eyes, the explosive joy heaving their chests.  They say nothing, but give a knowing nod to each other.

“Let’s hold hands, on the count of three!”  Mike says. They don’t bother taking off their chucks or clothes, there’s no time.  It must happen now.

The water is a cold aqua, with sun beams striking through into the deep.

She holds her best friend’s hand.

He counts “one….two….THREE!”

That second, that split second in mid-air, before their futures were riddled with scars both inside and out,  they were free.  Untouchable.  Beautiful.

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