Promptly Created

By Elaine Cassell, Fran Fredricks, Cathy Kern and 4 more

 

Writers Anonymous resides in the Fox Valley area of Illinois, west of Chicago. Founded in 1998, we've met weekly at book stores, cafés, libraries, homes, and in 2020, via Skype. We do free writing based on prompts. We're given a prompt that we can take in any direction we want. We write for 4-5 minutes on each prompt. Writing can be a lonely, isolated activity, but we do it together. We enjoy each other's company that one evening a week and put aside our concerns. And sometimes the writings spin off into other writing projects, like this book for instance. This quirky little book has short stories, poetry, essays, a word exercise -- even a tiny stage play! We hope you enjoy the works in our book!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Moriarity
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223632856

Book preview

Dedication

To Our Founders:

Bonnie Pechous

&

Kitty Jarman (Shy Poet)

Introduction

Our writers group, Writers Anonymous, resides in the Fox Valley area of Illinois, west of Chicago. Founded in 1998, we’ve met weekly at book stores, cafés, libraries, homes, and more recently via Skype. Sometimes the writers number three, and other times we’ve swelled to 15 attendees. We do free writing based on prompts. We’re given a prompt that we can take in any direction we want.  We write for 4-5 minutes on each prompt.  Everyone has to read what they wrote, though we get 1 pass per evening. Everything is off the top of our heads, no editing, and no critiquing when we take turns reading aloud, sharing what we’ve scribbled down.

Writing can be a lonely, isolated activity, but we do it together, writing in company. We can enjoy each other’s company that one evening a week and put aside our concerns. Writers Anonymous is yoga for the brain, a creative etch-a-sketch, writing practice, therapy and friendship. That is what we love about it – our time together keeps our creative mind limber.  It's also fascinating to see how different writers take the same prompt in completely different directions. And sometimes the writings spin off into other writing projects, like this book for instance. We hope you enjoy the works in our book.

A description of Writers Anonymous one evening at Town House Cafe

5/1/2001

Prompt: What do I spy

Fran Fredricks

I’M CHILLY FOR THE first time today, but surrounded by warm souls who share a love of paper and pen and most importantly words. And there we are with our own writing implements scratching madly away while candle light flickers on the tables, and a sort of folky tune and a woman’s voice drones in the background, and a timer silently ticks away forcing, at least me, to gather my thoughts quickly until the final period.

Prompt: Falling, pushed

8/7/2001

Fran Fredricks

Uh-oh. Something bad is going to happen. I feel sick. Either I’m gonna throw up or faint. That thought entered her mind sparing only an instant of thought, no time to turn to the girls next to her for help. And KABOOM! She fell jaw forward, head flopping on the wooden pew in front of her. The eyeglasses knocked off her face as she fell and slipped below the row of seats. In the stifling heat of the church she didn’t hear the other children continue in their audible repetition, refrains of the rosary. Prayers that couldn’t save the passed-out girl, lying prone on the tiled floor. The two girls who had been kneeling on either side of her moments before, tried to lift their companion off the ground. But glimpsing the rolled-up eyes, the whites pure and glowing, they dropped her again. The question is, which girl screamed, a shriek that echoed from altar to pipe organ balcony, bouncing off stained-glass windows, creating an unnatural pause in a church full of Hail Marys?

Blood Lines

Date Unknown

Prompt: She was a little princess

Diane Lincoln

Hey, check out the hole in the side of that tree, Kathy said as we tried to kick the clouds from the backyard swings. Kathy was my best friend. We spent a great deal of time together beginning two years before, when I was only 5 years old. Going off to kindergarten had been hard for me. All the girls there were friends with Jill, the mean girl who was a year older and lived in the apartment downstairs. I don’t know what I would have done without Kathy.

Yeah, I know. I saw the tree. I told her. It had a little hole in it until my Uncle Frankie blew it up with a cherry bomb.  I will never forget the look on Uncle Frankie’s face, how his eyes lit up when he spotted that small crack in the trunk of the maple tree. He nestled the cherry bomb with precision, making sure that the wick was within reach and the cherry-part would remain secure when it blew up. Then, he lit it, turned his skinny body away, took a couple of huge steps toward me in the safety zone, and covered his ears. His smile was timeless as the kaboom echoed through the neighborhood. I watched until the smoke obscured his image.

Cautiously, but loud enough to be heard over the squeaking swing, Kathy commented, He’s a little crazy, you know.

I reassured her, Yeah, I know.  Of course I knew my uncle was crazy. I’d seen him do many questionable things and I knew that there was more than one crazy person in my family. It was nice to have a friend like Kathy who told me the truth. Everyone else, especially my mom, who was Uncle Frankie’s sister, kept making excuses for him.

I wish he didn’t get so angry, I told Kathy, as we continued to try to kick the clouds.

Me too. But he never gets angry at us, just at the world. Again, Kathy spoke my thoughts.

I asked, Do you remember the time he was annoyed over that paper towel commercial?

I remember that he was nice to me that day, she said.

On that day, just a few months earlier, Uncle Frankie had seen a TV commercial about some paper towels that claimed to have over 200 sheets. He was upset because my mom bought this new brand purely on the basis of that ad. He and she had a discussion about advertisers, how they lie, and shouldn’t be trusted. Uncle Frankie complained to my mom, The whole modern world can’t be trusted. Nobody cares. Everybody just wants to make a buck.  

He took one of the new paper towel rolls, opened it, and immediately saw that it had a smaller diameter than our old brand. He compared the two rolls and showed them to my mom. You see, this new roll is smaller because the squares are smaller. What did I tell you?  Liars! he proclaimed as he stomped out the back door with the roll.

Mom’s response called after him, But there are still over 200 of them, so they didn’t lie. What’s the big deal?

That’s when Kathy and I got involved. Flying out of the kitchen, onto the porch, where Kathy and I were playing Barbies, he almost ran into her.

Hey, I said, be careful. You almost knocked Kathy down the stairs. It was only a little