The Sunday Brunch Prompted Writing Chat is an opportunity each week to test your skills at writing under pressure — or to have some fun without the need to be brilliant — or both!
The prompts are intended as both as a challenge and a starting point, open to creative interpretation. You can use these as an excuse to write anything that comes to mind, whether it’s fiction or creative non-fiction or a mixture of both. You can write a separate piece for each prompt, or try to link them all together in a single story.
If you join in the chat, you can add “an excuse to complain about unfair prompts” to the entertainment, too. But even if you can’t attend the chat session, feel free to give the prompts a try anyway (and leave your responses, comments, or complaints in this thread if you like).
This week’s prompts are posted below.
1. Use the following five words: prosper, disk, satisfaction, biology, able. (10 min)
2. Use the phrase, “the best ever.” (10 min)
3. Write about a stack of mail or lots of incoming messages. (10 min)
“You need a new computer,” said Susie. “The disk drive in this one is sooooo slooooow.”
“Hmm?” said Sarah and went back to whatever she had been doing.
“What did you have in mind?” Vicky asked. Susie could almost see the dollar signs flitting by in her eyes.
“Prolly just need more storage and up to date technology,” said Susie. “The computer spends most of its time waiting for satisfaction of its data hunger.”
“If biology would stop growing faster than computers do…” said Vicky.
“I kinda think biology cornered the market on exponential growth,” said Susie. “Since every unit comes out of the box able to make more like it.”
“True enough,” said Vicky.
“Which, come to think of it, is why we’re all here, doing this. Trying to prosper that aspirational goal or whatever,” said Susie. “Isn’t [i]prosper[/i] a transitive verb someplace?”
“Trans what now?” Mo asked.
“Transit of Venus,” said Vicky, not looking up from her screen, or pausing her clacking fingers.
“Well, I went through it to she,” said Mo. “Maybe that counts.”
“OK, I’m done here,” Susie announced, retrieving the thumb drive from its socket. “That’s about as fast as we can make the program until we have a faster disk.”
“You wanna have lunch?” Vicky asked.
“Sure,” said Susie. They got their coats and walked down the block and around the corner to the usual diner.
“So I have yet another new dread,” said Susie.
“You have the best dreads,” said Vicky. She wasn’t talking about Susie’s hair. She knew better than to comment on Susie’s appearance. “The best ever.”
Susie ignored her. “I was idly watching the names go by, checking them off, as we gathered samples from Sarah’s Kids and sent them off to Miranda to sequence.”
“Right,” said Vicky.
“And it turns out at least one of my housemates is on the list,” she said. “I’m pretty sure. I didn’t ask them directly. I don’t know their real names. Legal names. The ones they use are more real.”
“I… uh… huh,” said Vicky.
“I mean I figured the odds that two such people are right here in easy commuting distance from the clinic,” said Susie. “Not large.”
“You probably had to make up some of the numbers to do that?” said Vicky.
“Still not large,” said Susie. “And yet, here they are. I wonder if the whole neighborhood is, like, one big zombieland or whatever.”
“Speaking of bio-units and their reproductive capabilities,” said Vicky.
“Yeah, exactly. I figured it was time to get out of the clinic before I idly speculated something more pointedly related to the truth,” said Susie. “While the perp is listening.”
“She never listens,” said Vicky.
“Until suddenly you realized she actually was listening,” said Susie. “And you watch in horror while she rewinds her mental recording and quotes you word for word.”
“She’s very smart and hardworking,” said Vicky. “But, like, laser focused, and so the little people can do whatever we like, pretty much, right at her feet.”
“It’s a fine art, knowing what you can get away with,” said Susie. “I grew up, well, I did most of my growing up, in a house with three adults, two of them watching me like a horror movie with subtitles.”
“With subtitles?” said Vicky.
“It takes more attention,” said Susie. “And meanwhile my actual mom picked only what she wanted to hear from the torrent of information flying around the household like… Oh God I was gonna say bats.”
“Bats eat mosquitos,” Vicky pointed out. “What are we talking about? I forgot, sometime about three meta-metaphors ago.”
“Whether Skud and Webb are Sarah’s Kids or not, and if so what she did to them,” said Susie. “And whether their… specialness (isn’t that [i]special[/i]) is something she did.”
“And what happens when they’re in a room with Jim,” said Vicky.
“I didn’t think of that,” said Susie. “They came to Thanksgiving at Sarah’s.”
“So did we,” said Vicky. “But the room was full of other people.”
“Yeah, I didn’t notice anything special,” said Susie. “But I do remember Jim’s profile at the other table, so maybe I was, like, drooling at him or whatever.”