Writer In Motion: The Prompt Has Dropped

When I first glimpsed the Writer In Motion prompt, I had a bit of a moment. It reminded me of a dream I’d had years ago, maybe even one I had as a teen. I can’t remember when as time just doesn’t seem to work in order for me half the time, but it was one of those dreams you forgot you even had….until something tugs on that old thread.

Anyways, the dream: I’m in the psychiatric ward. It’s dim, cold, filled with all the usual smells: generic soap, crisp linen blankets, bleach, and medicine. I’m wearing one of those hospital gowns, the kind they give you when you arrive with nothing else to wear, and those weird socks with rubber bottoms. I’m wandering around in the hallway, trying frantically to find a use for myself. I attempt to do things for others, to help them, but every time I do, it goes terribly awry, and before I know it, the whole place is awake and angry. I am chased through the halls. I find myself running for the doors, because there’s a place I want to go, I need to go. But I can’t remember which door of the several there will take me back or to whatever place I need to go. So, in desperation, I go through the center one and end up in some sort of field on top of a hill at night. The air is humid and the sun was slipping just out of reach over the edges of distant mountains. And I see a cottage, I think. Smoke rose from the chimney and the nights were on. Shadows moved around inside and there’s noise–music and chatter– but I’m too far away to hear anything distinct. I somehow knew it was my family’s home, that my grandparents lived there. But I stand there in the tall grass, unable to make my feet take me there. I just hover there, feeling as if there was absolutely nowhere to go, as if whatever was in front of me, in some fort, wasn’t real. It wasn’t whatever I wanted or needed it to be. And so I couldn’t return there. 

Weird, right? I’m sure my Jungian Therapist would love to unpack that.cough After my little trot down memory lane, I went through my other (and less personal) initial thoughts on the prompt:

• Loneliness | Isolation | Unseen | Sorrow | Cold | Fragility | Frozen or Untouched | Waiting to be discovered
  • Reflection | Solidarity | Freedom | Escape | Slowing Down | Survival | Strength
• The surroundings are beautiful but harsh, rugged, distant — no boundaries, lines, or limits except environmentally imposed.
• Somewhere by Hajin, Washed Away by Emily Jane White, and Sleep Baby Sleep by Broods popped into my head.
• So many SYML vibes!
• “This would be a great place to bury a body.”
• “This is where I’d go when the world went to Hell.”
• “Nothing worthwhile is easy.”
• “If no one knows you’re there, do you even exist?”

My thoughts on this prompt were less Stream of Consciousness and more Eccentric 52-Pick-Up. During the first Writer In Motion round, inspiration came to me instantly and I ended up writing the opening scene to a project I’d been dying to start, but had no idea what to do it. This time, however, there was no initial spark beyond reminding me of that dream and all the feelings that came with it. Where might I take this prompt? I….don’t know. I’m considering using pieces of the dream (or the feelings associated with it) to make a sort of Alice In The Real World kind of story. Kind of like a Stories Of Your Life meets a literary take on Black Mirror.  

At the moment, I’m playing with a scene where different versions of a character all converge on this one place to swap histories from their own lives to avoid making the mistakes of the others. Perhaps a funeral takes place, beneath the stars. Maybe they’re all there because they all know, deep down, nothing can be done to avert the tragedy of the main character, who will likely die and be reborn again. If you’ve seen the anime Orange, it’s kind of in the vein of that. Sort of. With a splash of Orphan Black. 

But I genuinely have no idea if that’s what I will do or if I’ll decided, last minute, to write something else. Even plotters make last minute left turns, ya know? I was going to go over my whole process, but I think I’ll save that for another day. I don’t want this post to get too long and it’s already late here. So, I will leave you with a thought-baby aesthetic for this unformed idea, inspirational tidbits, and end this post by reminding you what Writer In Motion is all about.