Last writing stream certainly brought out some, uh, creative stories!
We started off with a writing exercise where we got a random word, and used it as our topic (our word was “contact”). Then we get five more random words and had to use them at some point in the story. Because nothing quite gets the creative juices flowing like having to connect seemingly-unrelated ideas.
After writing three different opening sentences and the chat picking the one they liked best, this is what I wrote (bolded words are the random words).
I was attracted to her right away, I had to get her contact information. I was shopping at my local grocery store, and saw her in the health foods aisle. Among the dozens and dozens of untouched packages of pre-shredded cauliflower, she held one in her hands, considering it. The only other bag that had left the shelf in days was in my basket.
If she was even thinking about buying that stuff, then I knew she was my soul mate.
But before we got married and had five kids and ate cauliflower rice and baked cauliflower-crust pizzas every day, I had to find a way to talk to her.
I slowly slid to the side, inching closer to her, pretending like I was looking at all the different brands of Quinoa. Not making any sudden moves to scare her off was essential, but I needed to break the ice.
“That’s some high quality stuff you got there,” I said. I made sure to look away from her, face directly at the merchandise, and avoid any possibly predatory eye contact.
“Excuse me?” she said. Oh, she hadn’t heard me. I could fix that easily. I just needed to speak louder. I took a deep breath.
“THAT’S SOME HIGH QUALITY STUFF YOU GOT THERE!” I screamed at the bags of Quinoa. Much better. Now she had to have heard me. I was basically depositing the words directly from my mouth into her ears.
The woman didn’t say anything. Maybe she still somehow didn’t hear me? I turned to the side, daring to finally look.
She was gone. The bag of shredded cauliflower she’d been holding was back on the shelf, hastily placed upside-down and backwards.
Oh well. If she wasn’t going to buy it anyway, then our relationship would’ve never worked out. It’s better for our kids this way.
To the side, I heard the rustling of a bag of one hundred-percent corn chips. A woman had picked them up and was examining them. Oh. I just so happened to have a bag of my own in my basket.
It was time to make contact.
It ended up quite different than what I expected from the first sentence, or even what I expected from the topic of “contact.” But that just shows how once you start putting words down on the page, your brain can take off in ways you never expected.
After the exercise, we voted on a writing prompt. I managed to write about a dream I had last night about very concerned fathers-to-be Harry and Draco. Is dreaming of Harry Potter slash fanfiction a sign of something? Should I be concerned?
Prompt: In the year 2076 the most popular movies are actually recordings of incredible dreams, and the dreamers who are able to dream the most fantastic dreams are rich and elevated in status. You are one of those dreamers, but suddenly your dreams become consistently boring…
Here’s what we wrote:
“Your latest dream was a flop, Roy,” my agent said to me in my office. “Audiences hated it and it was panned by critics. What were you thinking? Literally!”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d placed all my hopes in my latest horror feature, “Falling From a Tall Building 3,” but it had bombed and my career as a dreamer was coming down with it.
For over a decade, audiences had flocked to see my dreams in theaters. I’d had box office smash after box office smash. Dreams of mine such as “Statue of Liberty Comes to Life and Throws Southern California to the Moon,” “Revenge Against the Boss Oh Also I Can Fly,” and “Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy Have a Giant Cavity Baby” were considered masterpieces of the dream genre. I’d gotten three Oscars for that last one.
But then something changed. My dreams turned… boring. I started churning out ones that everyone had already seen a million times. It started off with “Oops! I’m In a Class for the Final Exam But I Haven’t Attended All Semester!” I personally liked it a lot, but people said they’d already seen similar dreams a million times. It was cliché at that point.
After that one failure, my confidence was shook. “Giving a Presentation Naked in Front of Coworkers” didn’t help my case, and “Why Did You Ask Out That Woman? Reliving Horrible Decisions!” failed to even make back its budget. Which was saying a lot since it was just a dream recording.
“You need to get back on track, Roy,” my agent said. “Maybe take a vacation. I’ve heard that people have great dreams when they’re sleeping in hotel beds.”
“Tried it,” I groaned.
“How about eating lots of spicy food before bed? Pizza? Jelly beans? Those usually give some pretty messed up dreams. Maybe you can go for an art-house dream.”
“Tried it,” I said. “All I dreamed about was… I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, tell me!” my agent pleaded. He whipped out a notepad, desperate to take down any idea that may have some hope. “What was it about.”
I sighed. “I dreamed I was in the doctor’s room with Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, as they talked about their soon-to-be-born son… inside Harry’s pregnant belly.”
My agent slowly closed his notebook and sighed. “Yeah, I don’t think we can buy the dream-rights for that one. Or that we even should.”
“I just don’t know what else to do,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “I feel like… I feel like back when I was first starting out as a dreamer. Not knowing if I was going to make it, not knowing if people would like my dreams, going to bed stressed every night. It resulted in….”
I stopped. My agent and I realized the same thing at the same time.
“It resulted in the best dreams I ever made.”
My agent smiled and nodded. “That’s it! You got too complacent with your dreaming. You know what causes the best, craziest dreams that people love? Stress! How do artists create great work? From hardship and misery! And now you’ve got plenty of both. So go ahead and get to sleep, and remember, if you don’t dream a box office smash, you’re done for.”
I laid down right there in my office, struggling to fall asleep. All I could think of was how if I didn’t dream of something fantastic, then everyone would hate me and I’d lose my job forever. It took me an hour to finally fall asleep. When I woke up, my agent was standing over me with a portable dream-recorder, beaming from ear to ear.
The next week, my dream premiered in theaters. It was my greatest hit in years. People called it my magnum opus, a true return to form.
“I Die A Thousand Different Terrible Ways, Each One Worse Than The Last” even ended up winning the Oscar for Best Dream that year.
If you missed the stream, you can still watch it here on rerun for a few weeks until Twitch deletes it and see the story for yourself.
And if you want to join us and find some inspiration with exercises, troll me as I try to write, or share your own stuff for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-9:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Loss and Pain (A Harry Potter Fanfic)