Tag Archives: reality

Nostalgia: Backward

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I saw the Daily Prompt weekly challenge for this week, to start with the last line of a story, or the final action, or something like that, and then give everything leading up to it, and I thought, what a cool prompt. I bet I could write something good. I’ll try it for a week.

Unfortunately, I have finally gotten the time to write and I still haven’t managed to come up with a good last line. I like the idea of this prompt very much, and I am certainly likely to write a story this way in the future, but I think I would have to have that lightbulb of the last line first. I can’t just pull a last line out of thin air. Thin brain. Something like that?

This is where people who just have a notebook full of good lines have an advantage. I don’t have one. (Then you’re not a writer! Go home!)

You go home, internet. You’re drunk.

But the name of the prompt, “Backward,” is reminding me of how I’ve been thinking about earlier times in my life so much these days.

I was even feeling a longing for my teenage years. I don’t want to go into detail here, but, when I’m missing being a teenager, something is clearly wrong. (I did not have a good time.)

Mostly, I miss the version of me that had time to think about the things I really wanted in the future. Too bad I wasn’t smart enough to try to take steps to get there at the time. Maybe I would be closer now.

***I’m not considering this an entry to their challenge, but I figured someone else might have a stab at it, so here is the link below:

Daily Prompt Weekly Challenge, September 9: Backward.

Are Dreams Real?

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If you’re half awake while dreaming, and aware that you’re lying in bed, a dream can feel more like a memory. Sometimes it’s very obvious, once you fully wake up. But what if your dream only involved people and/or animals who are really in your life, and only mundane events that might really happen? You could ask the other people if they remember it, but even if they say no, it could have just been a moment that didn’t make it to their long-term memory. And you would never know…

 

Is it made real just by dreaming it? If perception is everything (or, a large part of things), and you perceive a dream as real–

The Writer

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She bends the world to her imagination.

She turns pictures into art. Turns them into stories. She makes clouds, waves, red maple leaves, gowns, emeralds, murals, and she makes spirits, faery rings, unicorns, firebirds. She holds them in her mind, streaking glimmers of color across her inner sight.

Ink and paper create her scrying pool. It is the only way for her eyes to see what her mind conceives. And once on paper, her ideas live.

She finds it easy to turn these things into words, but she can’t explain herself.

One day she meets someone.

She thinks he sees her. She wills him to see her. But he does not see as deeply as she first thought. She watches him walk away over and over again.

In her mind, maybe he sees her fully. Maybe their bodies meet. But those images remain there, not put to paper. Too vulnerable, too raw. They remain with the other thoughts she cannot bear to see inked. This, because if she does see it, she wants it to be real.

(First draft – freshly pressed. Comments – can/should this go anywhere?)