The fun begins! No doubt we will hear and read a lot about the races in the week ahead. Your challenge for this week is to consider the following writing prompts and write a story—or more than one! Fiction, genre, style, none of that matters to me. Just be sure bicycles are a central element. Please share what you create!
Write a story in which a bicycle is central to love and/or romance.
Write about how and why this bicycle is on the roof of a dry cleaning business.
Write a story about biking under the influence. (My preference is that the message be it isn’t a good thing to do—but that isn’t a rule!)
Write about someone who commutes by bicycle.
Write about bicycles that are able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
And in the spirit of Stephen King (a write-by-the-seat-of-his-pants author who starts with a single question): What if a cyclist on a country road suddenly realizes that his bicycle is turning to jelly? What if bicycles could reproduce the way (choose an animal) do? What if bicycles had secret night lives? Or start with your own What if...?
Who but Nimrod Writer Women would be passing around a paper mâché wedding cake at breakfast? A few years back, NPR put out a call for short stories about the wedding cake in the middle of the road (or something close to that). But story possibilities are endless!
I’m not sure what the central decoration is supposed to represent, but think about it. Imagine the symbolism! I’m just saying…
Here’s one thing at Nimrod that’s even less needed than fake wedding cake. No writer is ever disturbed between breakfast and lunch–and seldom otherwise.
Speaking of meals–as I sort of was–the food is great, especially the salads. Tomatoes grown here. Crisp sweet peppers. Corn cut off the cob. Black beans. Green beans. Asparagus. Shredded kale. Quinoa. And I, for one, had never considered thinly sliced raw Brussels sprouts!
Frances and I walked near the old boys camp mess hall. Even in their heyday, I’m sure the food was nothing to write home about!
old boys camp mess hall
Frances Webb Burch and I walked past the old mess hall after lunch today. She is my most frequent walking partner. She writes wickedly funny essays about sex and aging, touching memoirs about coming of age in the 50s, gritty stories about mothers and daughters–and sometimes dips into magical realism. She is one of the Founding Mothers of the Nimrod Hall Summer Arts Programs, first visual arts and then writing.
Frances Burch, classy as this Tesla
Frances was “on” today, as was I. And as Monday is my preference, I was a happy camper. I workshopped 15 pages of a new novel. Tonight I read a short story in progress. And now I must stop this, for Cathy Hankla, writer in residence, assigned me to read “Brokeback Mountain” and consider point of view, distance, and narrator as I revise 3-5 pp of my new novel!
Sometimes a story starts one way and then takes an unexpected turn–sort of like thinking it might be nice to visit Rhode Island and suddenly realizing you’re headed for the Bahamas. So today’s challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to revisit your story about hyperbaric therapy and turn it in a different direction. If it was successful, make it a disaster. Loaded with fear? Make it excitement. Or humor!
ALTERNATIVELY: write about hyperbaric therapy that goes terribly wrong. Of course it could be medical malfeasance or incompetence, but think more broadly: natural disaster, act of God, equipment failure. And what about suicide, assisted or otherwise? Or perhaps murder. Possibly some combination of the above?
To do either of these stories, you must get the details right. For example, a typical pressure is 2.0 pounds per square inch. That is equivalent to being 33 feet under the ocean’s surface. Details like that might mean something to deep-sea-diving readers. Know the benefits and risks of this treatment. Know what would be possible. And remember to bury your research by making it part of plot, dialogue, setting, and action.
And FYI, here’s a picture of a hyperbaric chamber after a treatment.
Research is central to writing. Getting the facts/background right is central to credibility. So here’s a research exercise for all you fans who are also writers. Pictured here is a chamber for the delivery of hyperbaric therapy. It comes equipped with a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen mask. The patient being treated wears four leads to monitor cardiac function. Find out as much as you can about the hyperbaric chamber, the therapy, and the conditions for which it is used. Write a story about someone receiving this therapy. And don’t let your research show!
