Fiction Workshop #1
Writing prompts from class
I recently became aware of a Fiction Workshop class for adults here in town and jumped on it almost without thinking—I haven’t taken any writing classes since high school, and my limited college experience. That was all two decades ago (holy shit…) so I decided to have some fun with the idea:
For the first class, we mostly set expectations and learned about each other but we did do a little writing. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn my Substack brain off and forgot it was a FICTION class so my first writing prompt started out as non-fiction before taking a wild left turn into fiction once I realized my mistake. The result was something I don’t really care to share.
In the second class, we discussed two very bleak stories: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, and Under the Wave by Lauren Groff. I loved them both.
Our other assignment for day two was to bring a poem that resonated with us. I’m not a poetry guy and neither was the one other male in the class but he did have an arm full of Stephen King tattoos so I asked “Do we have to armwrestle for ‘Your hair is winter fire, January embers, My heart burns there too’ or something?” We laughed.
I have, however, been wanting to get into poetry more. I had recently asked my sister if she had any good poetry books and it turned out she had one that our grandma gave her years ago. She let me borrow it so I pulled that off the shelf, read a couple, and this was the one I picked:
Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make—
Ere life is flown—
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.
- A Bag of Tools, R.L. Sharpe
Simply, we all have what we have and what we build with it is up to us and noone else. Might as well build something good, yeah?
Another assignment from week one was to start keeping an “object journal.” This is a small notebook to carry with you and write down various things that catch your eye when you are out and about.
Our task was to write something inspired by the poem we chose—maybe even include some of the lines—and incorporate an element from our object journal. I copped out a bit and used the entire thing to give the story it’s form. I’ll let you guess what, or rather who, is the element from my object journal.
Poem Prompt 1
Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
----------------
The stanza burrows up out of Jake's subconcious like an excited child from a raft of blankets. Look at me! Did you know I was hiding here?
He smiles—his work from home job momentarily forgotten—and then he laughs a dry chuckle that is filled with both the whimsy of childhood and the jade hue of what comes after. What would Grandma have thought if, reading Jake her favorite poem, had seen the man he was now looking at across the street? Would she have laughed too? Grimaced? Shook her head and kept on reading?
----------------
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
----------------
Yes, and in this case the tool was a leafblower and the shapeless mass was the man's protruding gut, hanging baldly over the waist of of his shorts. There was sweat under there, Jake knew without even needing to get up close to find out. The book of rules may have said something about not blasting yourself in the face with a leafblower before you get to the real blowing but clearly this man had. Was it the heat that compelled him, or a sense free curiosity to know how it felt? Had he opened his mouth to let his cheeks flap like those of a dog hanging out a car window? Jake didn't know but regardless, he was certain the man had done so. Jake wasn't sure how else a shock of white hair would stand up so wild and high on a blistering June day.
----------------
And each must make—
Ere life is flown—
A stumbling block
Or a steppingstone.
---------------
Jake looked away from the man and back at the flat white glare of his doorstop of a laptop.
He sighed.
Welp. Seems like some feelings snuck out in the end there.
After this, the teacher gave us all another poem called The Pond by Louise Gluck. I won’t include the whole thing but you can check it out HERE if you want. It’s only 19 lines and she passed around a D20 (that’s a twenty-sided die, for all you non-nerds) for us to roll. The number we rolled would be the line from the poem that we needed to use in a story. If you rolled a 20, you got to choose.
I rolled 11 (I was hoping for 19 because The Dark Tower, may it do ya) which meant that my line was:
With the dead who wait
Ummmmm 100% yes! Had I rolled a 20, I would have picked that line! Anyway, here’s the expectedly bleak story:
Poem Promt 2
Shell and I had never sailed the ocean before. Always inland, we had been.
I lost my job six months ago. Shell's job was good enough while the severance package ran it's generous course but sooner or later, we'd need something more. So why not ditch them both, we thought, and take our dream sail? Start with a fresh lobster in Maine and sail until the margaritas sprung out of rocks?
It was a wonderful idea, even if it ended like this; Shell below the waves, perhaps where she belongs, with the dead who wait upon their Spanish gold, droning their strangled songs.
That’s my brain for ya, I guess. I had been looking out the window at sailboats on west bay at the time, hence the overall theme. The “Spanish gold” phrase came to mind almost immediately upon learning which line I had to use. What I love about writing, though, and I swear this is not a lie, is stuff like our protagonist’s wife’s name being “Shell.” Well, really it’s Shelley, but they’ve been married for awhile and that’s what he calls her now. Imagine my delight when I realized how darkly poetic it was that she—our Shell—would end up at the bottom of the ocean. It’s these little coincidences of the sub-concious that make writing such an adventure. I wish I would have kept track of how many times this has happened to me. Maybe I’ll start with Shell.
Anyway, that’s it for today. Just wanted to share those before we start diving into my novella, The Wheel, probably this weekend!
To all of you in the U.S., have a great 4th of July tomorrow, stay safe, and maybe put the fireworks away before midnight, kay?
Did you enjoy either story? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Thank you!
Never heard of R.L. Sharpe! Great inspiration.
This class sounds awesome!
Great. Thanks for sharing. Loved what you did with the line. Shell at the bottom, Spanish gold ties in the literal and the figurative. Yes people died for it, but it also symbolizes that which you never find, like they happiness these two sought.
Great stuff!
And I also liked the poem, the first one about building eternity.
Writing is great isn’t it?!