A 26 Sentence Story

Desperately seeking inspiration for writing, I decided I better pull out one of my writing resources to get going. I've been wanting to write for days, but have only been able to purge self-loathing drivel in my journal. Like so many times, often we are sent what we need by fate (or coincidence) when we need it. Such was the case when the Book Bub recommendations popped into my email in-box yesterday. 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts by Ryan Andrew Kinder was the free offering of the day. At the time, I wasn't sure how or when I'd use it, but a free writing resource is something I never turn away. So I downloaded it to my iPad and told the others in my writing circle that it was available, with the caveat that I hadn't even given it a look yet.

Have to give credit where credit is due!

This morning I woke up determined to write. I read some articles online, reviewed a curriculum manual for a new program I'm planning to implement at work, and waited for the right topic, the right piece to hit me. It never came. I picked up an Anne Lamott book I've been reading, and surprisingly couldn't derive what I needed from it today. So I pulled out my iPad and opened Kinder's book. I flipped through the book, reviewing all the sections and perusing many of the prompts, and I posted to my group that there were 1,000, some awesome, some not. Then I put it away and did some laundry.

There was no way I was going to let Saturday go by without getting a piece of writing out. So many of the quotes by famous authors remind us that we can't wait for the right mood to hit us, we need to make time and write! It doesn't have to be good, it's just that writers write. Today I needed to write. I remembered one of the sections that appealed to me when I was looking through Kinder's book this morning. Section 4: Constrained Writing. All the prompts in this section are controlled and many of them limited the number of words or sentences you can use. Others require you to eliminate certain letters or words. Often writers don't want to be forced into narrow holes like this, but today I was determined to write and needed to be forced through that hole to get there. It worked! It inspired the brief excerpt of a story I've been wanting to tell for a long time. Maybe later it will lead to something else, but for now it's a constrained writing piece.

Prompt #123: 
The alphabet game! Write a story about anything. It must be 26 sentences long. Each sentence starts with the next letter in the alphabet.

“Are you serious? But why?”

“Can we talk about this another time?”

“Don’t you ever talk to her?” Each question I fired insensitively was met with an impatient silence. “Fine, I'm sorry.” Giving in was temporary, and I would soon try again. How is it possible a kid his age hadn’t talked to his mom in more than five years? It was a question to which I wanted answers, and one way or another I needed to find out what the story was. Just be patient, I thought to myself. Keep pressing him you'll push him away.

“Let’s go to the movies tomorrow," he said. "My parents are driving me nuts and I need to get out of the house.” 

“No, there’s a football game tomorrow night and you know I have to cheer.” 

“Oh,” he fell off with pathetic disappointment. 

“Please tell me about your mom,” I gently pressed.

“Quit asking, will you?," he snapped at her. "Really, I can’t explain it in a way that makes sense! She gave up custody when I was twelve, and I’ve lived with my dad ever since.” That day he broke the silence for the first time in his life, to me.

“Uh… I’m sorry.” Vilifying his mom in my head, I was already beginning to pass judgment. What kind of mother doesn’t fight for her kid? Ex-girlfriend is what I was about to become, so I quit before it was too late. “You wanna pick me up after the game tomorrow?”

Zero response meant maybe it was already too late, but deep inside I knew he was smiling on the other end of the phone.

I'm not really happy with my treatment of the X or the Z, but  the more I thought about it, the more convoluted other options started to sound.