Last week on my course we had to write from a prompt, it was a revelation, what fun I suddenly realised that the reason for doing it might not be because you don't have ideas already but rather that it adds another element to your writing. Also, it is really enjoyable to do, great if you get stuck on one piece and need a distraction, with the advantage that once you have generated the start of a story you can return to it later and develop it further.
So the challenge was to turn on the radio and write 500 words about the first words you hear. In my case, there was a song playing and the words were
I am walking far from home.
This is my piece:
I was walking again and felt a long way from home, a long way and a long time. I still called it home even though I no longer lived there. I walked because walking is better than sitting in a shop doorway. Walking has its disadvantages too, it wears out the soles of your shoes and your feet get sore, they are never quite clean and never quite dry. At least if I’m walking I’m not tempted to drink, that’s the odd thing; the respectable working father was the drinker, the down and out homeless man is a sober as a judge. Now I think about it, I have known one or two Judges and they weren’t sober at all.
I didn’t know where I was walking to that day, for three days I’d slept in an old air raid shelter but staying anywhere longer is asking for trouble. Village churchyards are a good prospect, but not much hope of food and a long way from places that give you a meal. Cities scare me, you get kicked and pissed on so I stay on the edge. It was getting late when I stumbled on an old chapel, I could see that there was a village in the distance but the chapel itself had the air of being unused. I was just walking past the door in hope of finding a sheltered spot when the man came out. I thought for a minute that he recognised me, he looked at me as if he knew me. When he spoke I realised that it wasn’t that at all, that he had been having an internal debate about my trustworthiness.
“You can sleep inside, just for a couple of nights, if you like, it looks as though there is a storm coming,” he said, Then he added very apologetically “You must promise not to make a mess though, well it’s already a bit of a mess, so no worse. The Estate Agent is coming after the weekend to assess the building for sale”
He gestured for me to go inside. I followed him cautiously, I worry that there was a catch whenever someone appears to be being kind. Sometimes it’s genuine, but often it turns out to be some sort of cruel joke or a way of getting the authorities involved to move you on out of their sight. The church was a bit of a mess but not with rubbish, only in the sense that it hadn’t been used for a long time. Everything was covered in thick dust, some windows had been broken and boarded up, but the glass remained on the floor. Most of the useful or ornamental stuff had been taken out but the pews were still there, and the altar and pulpit. It had that sense of quiet that you sometimes get in a church. He leads me to the front to a small room he called the vestry, there was a desk and chair and an old settee, It also had a cubicle with a toilet and sink. He explained that he would have to lock the main door behind him, but the vestry had a door that could be opened from the inside without a key so I wouldn’t be locked in.
This we are concentrating on editing so I plan to come to this piece and develop it further if I can
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