Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Writing Prompts - First Sentence 1

(I've been looking for some writing prompts I can use to fill time on the train between work and teaching, and ended up purchasing this ebook from Amazon.com. It's broken into 18 chapters or so, and claims to have 1,001 writing prompts. I figured it'd be a worthwhile exercise to build my scene writing skills, so here's the first - I hope you all enjoy it. This story comes from a section where the first sentence is provided for you - the first sentence is in bold below.)


When her cell phone rang she groaned, because she couldn’t believe that he was calling her again. She stared at the phone, torn between answering it and ignoring it completely, while the strains of her ringtone – “You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito – filled the apartment.  With a sigh, she thumbed the “accept” button and put the phone to her ear.

“Yeah, Joe, what is it? No, you didn’t leave your toothbrush here. I can be so certain because it was the last thing I put into the box before I left it on the porch. Of course I remember, because I knew that would be the thing you would ask about. I’m not being unreasonable. Well, what did you expect? Right, understanding for the man who slept with my sister. Uh huh. Right. Yeah, I’m sure you had absolutely no say in the matter. No, stop – you know what? I’m done with this. I’m hanging up. Don’t call me again.”

She ended the call and, in a fit of anger, threw the device across the room. It bounced off the carpet a couple times before landing on the other wall, leaning at an obtuse angle against the white-painted molding. It took a Herculean effort to not look up at the empty rectangles and ovals, the negative space in the smoke-laden paint signifying the destruction of happy memories. Seven years of happiness, ruined within a week. Sure they had fought sometimes, and lately they’d been going through a dry spell, but how could he do that to her? With the one person he knew would hurt her the most?

She sighed and poured herself another glass of wine, absent-mindedly swirling it in the glass as she wallowed. It was bad enough that she had put up with his smoking for so long. Now she was going to have to paint the walls to get rid of the evidence of a life gone wrong. Figures that even after he was gone, the bastard was still making work for her.

She took a few deep breaths, then a healthy sip of wine. As she swallowed she heard her phone again, the vibration of the ringer amplified by its position against the wall. She glared at the phone, and decided that she was done pandering. She was done dealing with the asshole that had never showed her consideration. She sipped her wine and watched the phone until it stopped flashing, falling quiet. She was done with that part of her life.

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