Day 187 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about a character’s pet.

Erin: “What you up to bud,” I crouched down to see the little spider he had found. “You want daddy to kill that for you,” I began to offer and saw his little eyes go big.

“No,” he placed his hand on my chest as a barrier. “He’s my pet,” he cooed as the spider crawled between his fingers.

“Yeah? What does he eat?”

“Idonknow,” he mumbled still enamored by his pal.

“If you don’t know these things, then how are you going to take care of him,” I challenged.

“Well I know all about how to take care of a dog dad, but you won’t let me have one of them,” he pushed out his lips.

“With time son,” I laughed walking off to give them some privacy.

Shannon: When I first met the scrappy mutt my brother picked out at the shelter I wasn’t impressed. I was afraid the dog might attack my cat, so I kept my distance in my attempt to keep their paths from crossing more than necessary. What I didn’t anticipate was how much Oliver didn’t mind being ignored.

He’d follow me everywhere with big eyes just waiting for me to eventually look at him. I tried to shoo him away and lead him to my brother, but he always stuck with me like it wasn’t my choice. He was going to give me unconditional love and I had no choice but to accept it, so I did. Turns out it’s hard not to reciprocate that kind of love.

Give your character an animal sidekick.

Day 185 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about your character’s experience with fireworks.

Erin: I had only ever seen fireworks on a screen. So, the first time my parents brought me I screamed and cried at the noise. Everyone laughed at me hopelessly trying to cover my ears. They couldn’t understand what it was like to be so guarded for so long from something so magnificent.

Shannon: For some reason watching firework shows on the Forth of July feels more like my own personal New Year’s Eve celebration. It always the time that I reflex on my life. As I’m watching I think about the previous year, and where I was before and where I am now. I think about how watching them felt a year ago, and question whether my feelings about it have changed at all. Somehow they always do.

What has your character gotten from displays of colorful crashes?

Day 183 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about creating one amazing thing from many ordinary things.

Erin: “Flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugars, eggs, vanilla extract, chocolate chips.”

“Yeah so,” I argued when I was confident her list was complete.

“They are all fine things alone, but put them together and you have a warm gooey chocolate chip cookie. That’s what I think your traits do. They add up to a heavenly concoction.”

I just blushed and shook my head at her naivety.

Shannon: I’ve always had a fascination with things that get left behind. That’s why I make a lot of recycled art. I’ll take something old and worn down, like bookshelf and make it new and exciting again. I’ll take the garbage bottle caps and toilet paper rolls and make them into containers to hold the odds and ends I find that don’t yet have a place to be reused.

I recently started collecting color pencil shavings from my electric sharpener, and glued them to a canvas. When I was done I was amazed at how beautifully the colors displayed themselves when they mixed back together. I think a lot about how all the forgotten beauty that gets thrown out everyday, and it makes me sad.

Blank + Blank = What?

Day 183 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write a creature experiencing new terrain.

Erin: I thought my eight tentacles on land would make me strong. Many more legs than most land creatures. However, all I could do was crawl, and think about the next time I would encounter water. I was strongest in the water, and that fact made me feel all the weaker.

Shannon: All I knew was this place was too dry. There was too much sand and not enough water and my amphibian skin was drying out. Whoever put me here wanted me dead.

This is not where your character belongs.

Day 179 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Start with the line “Jenny is no Jennifer.”

Erin: Jenny is no Jennifer. When my sister came back she insisted we start to call her the shortened version of her name. As I learned to stop slipping up with my words I realized her new friends had not only changed her name, but also her.

Shannon: “Jenny is no Jennifer.” Kaitlyn scoffed her opinion to the rest of the group as I watched her drag her pen over the candidate’s name.

I looked around to the rest of the group waiting for someone to disagree, but the room was silent.

“I’m sorry, maybe I missed something, but I have her listed in my top three. What’s wrong wit her?”

Again the group was silent as Kaitlyn let out a pity-filled sigh that she had to explain it out loud. She flashed me a fake smile before explaining as vaguely as possible. “She doesn’t have the look.” In other words she was bigger than the rest of the actresses auditioning. Not any less pretty or captivating, just a different size.

I felt my face heat up in anger at how easily they threw her away because of their bias. “I highly suggest you all reconsider. Otherwise, we need more candidates because I’m not settling for anything less than what we’ve seen from her.” The vote had to be unanimous, and I wasn’t afraid to challenge Kaitlyn’s rein.

Who are your Jen’s?

Day 177 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Make a list of 5 unusual girl names.

Erin: Hero, Fleur, Waverly, Oriana, Winnie

Shannon: Ember, Pril, Drama, Phoria, Amnesty

Time to broaden the names of our females.

Day 176 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about finding a way back home.

Shannon: When I was first asked to work on the documentary in my hometown, I did everything I could to try to get a different assignment. There was a reason I’d only traveled home for the holidays and very important special occasions. However, if I didn’t this one it would take years to get a second chance to prove myself. I didn’t have that kind of time.

I’d be spending the next few months taking up a room in my parent’s bed and breakfast until I could find a better option. The rest of my time would be spent interviewing my old neighbors. The ones who had never left, never forgot the crime that happened here years ago, and would probably have a few questions about where I ended up too. I’d kept my past at a distance for so long, I just hoped I could survive one more summer in a place where I never felt I belonged.

Erin: I lived right next to the water tower as a child. So if I could get close enough to home I could find the rest of my way home. To this day it has ruined my sense of direction. Now my phones GPS is my water tower, but at least I always find my way back home.

What brings your character back?

Day 175 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write a romance between two childhood friends.

Erin: “Do you ever regret that we waisted so much of our lives apart,” he asked seeming upset.

“What?”
“We were the lucky ones. We were given our soul mates from a young age and waisted it.”

“That’s not how it is,” I accidentally started laughing.

“How is it then sweetheart?” His frown turned to a scowl.

“I was not in love with bugger eating, mud fighting pull, pull my hair loser. I’m in love with this man who is completely different.”
“You like when I pull your hair now,” he winked and finally started smiling again.

I just rolled my eyes and walked into another room.

Shannon: We’re getting too big to keep hanging out in this tree house,” I grumbled as I tried to get my legs in comfortable position.

“Awe, but this is our place. Maybe we should expand,” Zach flared his arms, knocking me in the shoulder.

I shook my head with smile, “Oh sure, I’ll speak with the tree tomorrow about growing some more sturdy branches, and we’ll knock that wall right out. We’ll have it all done right in time for us to start high school. You know around the time when we’ll never use it again,” I joked.

“Exactly. That’s all I’m asking for,” he responded as if he were serious. I loved how we were so familiar with each other we never had to explain ourselves. Everything was effortless.

“Do you think high school is going to be completely different,” I asked unable to keep ignoring it for the rest of the summer, because I didn’t want to think about how everything was going to change.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, he’d been avoiding bringing it up too. “My brother told me they like to pick on the freshman, but other than that we’re just leveling up from middle school. We’ll get used to it after a while.”

“Do you think we’ll still be friends?” I got to the question I was actually concerned about.

He looked up sternly, “We’ll always be friends,” he explained with complete certainty.

“You can’t know that,” I shook my head. “We could move away from each other, you could find better friends, you could get a girlfriend and forget about me,” I listed off the possibilities.

“No I won’t,” he stated, again without wavering.

“Yeah but you probably will,” I narrowed my eyes at his irrational response.

“Well there is only one girl I want,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “So…” he shrugged, nervous now as he stopped looking at me, “I promise that’s not going to happen.”

I tried to hold myself back from smiling too obviously. “Good,” I revealed and his head immediately perked up again.

Give your character a chance at puppy love.

Day 174 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about a long life.

Shannon: Every year picking strawberries from the garden got a little harder. Bending wasn’t easy on my back or my knees, and the arthritis in my hands made every pluck painful. Still, I loved fresh strawberries, so I let that drive me.

After I filled up a few containers I headed inside to share them with my husband. As we sat and ate them on the porch I thought about all the memorable strawberry seasons I’d been through. I reminisced as far back as the first time I’d ever learned how to pick them with my own grandparents. My grandpa would always eat half of them before they could even make it to the basket. Then my grandma would scold him, telling him to save some for the rest of the family. He’d try to make me laugh by sneaking a taste whenever my grandma had her back turned, and I’d giggle my little heart out, completely amused.

I’d make the same jokes as him with my own kids, and then later on with my grandkids too. It’s always a beautiful sight to see a child’s face light up. I’ve been here for so many years, and I have been so grateful for every one of them.

Erin: The thing about someone who had lived a life as long as hers is that they had tattooed the earth. There were trees with her initials lovingly carved in them. Beaches were stamped with her footprints. She’d drawn tier tracks in the mud. She even sprayed was and took chips from landmarks. Art was created with her own two hands. The earth was a little better, a little worse, and most importantly different from her many years.

Write a short story about your character’s long life.

Day 173 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write about a character meeting their future self.

Erin: “You must have some words of wisdom to share. Something you wish you wouldn’t have done,” I begged myself to break the time traveling laws.

“Honestly the only advice I would have given myself would be to stop seeking it out. Stop worrying what the answer to that question is. That fear left me with no regrets, no hard times, and that is what I regret the most,” wrinkled me sighed.

“But if I don’t worry we won’t know what happens to you,” I argued.

“We already know what happens when you do, and I’m not worried. Isn’t that saying something?”

Shannon: “Ok, ok you can stop. I believe you. So you’re really are me? How old are you,” I questioned. Though I couldn’t recognize my facial features in her, I felt an immediate comfort in her presence before she even spoke.

“I’m 87,” she flashed her teeth.

I smiled, “We live that long, really? I always had this feeling that I’d die young.”

“You still could,” she corrected me. “Nothing is set in stone.”

“Then why did you come? Did you need to warn me about something,” I felt a little jolt of panic.

“Well I was given the opportunity, and I won’t spoil anything because that wouldn’t be any fun. It could even screw things up, but I do have some advice. It won’t change your future, but it’s something I wish I knew when I was your age. Do you think you’re ready to hear it,” she questioned.

I nodded, even though you can never be ready for advice that changes your world.

“You need to let go of the control you think you have over your life. I know you’re working really hard to make everything perfect, and you want to make every second of your time here fulfilling,” she raised her hands to display the world then looked back at me, “But sweetheart that’s not up to you. Putting all this pressure on yourself and blaming yourself for everything you haven’t done isn’t getting you anywhere. You think you know what you want tomorrow to look like, but you never really know until you get there.” She tapped my forehead gently. “Don’t let your high expectations ruin a perfectly wonderful tomorrow. Everyday is beautiful in its own right. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded, thinking about all the days I had wasted, “I understand.”

Time for your character to met an older version of them self.