[Err - I was tired last night and accidentally titled this Blast from the Past instead of Prompt Me - it has been corrected]

After a short break due to our Summer Anthology, the Prompts are BACK!

Thanks to our prompts guru Comicfan, we have two new prompts this week. I'm really intrigued by this first one - try it and really stretch your creative muscles. The second one on the Family Get-together can go in sooo many different directions. I hope you try one or both prompts - and please share with the community in the Writing Prompts forum!

Prompt 146 – Creative
Cue – The Sketch
In a few paragraphs give a description of character you are creating. However you are forbidden from actually giving straight facts on the character. In other words no, I’m Sandy Oliver, I’m five foot two, a virgin, terrified of telling my dad I might like girls. Instead find different ways to give the reader the same sense of things without just spitting it out. So that instead of what was there earlier you might have something like this –

I sat in the girl’s locker room taking off my school uniform and could just make out Olive on it. My school had all our last names on the back of our uniforms but the mud covered over the “r” in my own. It looked so small sitting next to Tina’s but then I guess mine would look small next to nearly any of theirs. Thinking of Tina made me blush as I imagined what it might be like to kiss her, and I was just happy my father wasn’t around to notice how I looked at her during practice. God, why couldn’t I be normal?

“Yo, Sandy? You going to shower before you head home or not?”
I blushed as Tina called from the showers.

“Be right there,” I called as I hurried to join the rest of the softball team cleaning up.

Prompt 147 – Creative
Cue – The Family Get-together
The family has been called together. It has been a long time since everyone has shown up at one these. You wanted to go, but now you are upset you did because you are finding out more than you ever wanted to know about your family! What have you discovered?

So - getting some ideas? Before you head off and write your prompt response, here is how Labrador responded to Prompt 145, which was to "Use the following words in a story: recipe book, clothing store, vintage car, pink box, and a tiger."

 

 

 

 

 

Move from Complacency

Only one room was left to pack, and I dreaded what I would find beyond the closed door. It had been a long time since I'd taken a step inside the clutter that made up my son's living space—not since the day we lost Bethany.

 

As I stood at the threshold with my hand still gripping the door knob with a grasp that left the knuckles white, I looked into the once familiar space beyond. He'd changed the decor. Gone was the chaos born of a youth's exuberance, and in its place was the organization of a single-minded young man. My little boy had grown up... and I had missed it.

 

I moved into the room slowly, almost in a daze, and looked around. It was all so different. Jeremy had always been neat, but he'd had a lot, and I mean A LOT, of stuff. It had cluttered up every available flat surface in the room. He'd been consumed with so many interests that his mother and I used to laugh at the bets we made with each other over which direction he would choose to focus on at the beginning of each week.

 

My fingers slid along the clean surface of his desk. The only thing on it was his computer monitor and key board. There wasn't even any dust. His book shelves still contained a plethora of titles, but as I scanned them, I saw they were not only organized according to subject but also set in alphabetical order. Only one book was out of place, and it was dog eared from use.

 

Pretty great start, eh? I thought so and here is the rest of her story...