I’m going to stick to a specific naming convention for the prompts I use from Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2, just to be neat ‘n tidy. You can see the format in the title of this very post. Exciting!
Prompt 2
(from Chapter 1: Time and Place):
What past memory do you cherish the most and why? If you could trade that memory for something amazing to happen in the future, would you do it? Why or why not?
Answer:
What do I look like, some incredible brainiac with a steel trap mind that remembers everything and forgets nothing? Did you know short term memory only lasts about 30 seconds and almost everything we take in is immediately discarded as useless junk and forgotten?
I can immediately think of some nice memories–the giddy sensation of vertigo riding a roller coaster on summer vacation, the giddy sensation of awesome sex when I was young and had enough energy to knock over trees, the giddy sensation of coloring inside the lines in grade two (there was one kid in my class who was seriously great at this, which is no mean feat in grade two; like any gifted artist, I imagine he grew up to be a heroin addict, alcoholic or reality TV show contestant) and the giddy sensation of being in a car that got clipped by another and spun off into a nearby ditch. Since I was dozing at the time (note: I was not driving), I was jostled awake, opened the car door and fell into the ditch. Even though I got to ride in an ambulance, the greatest injury I suffered was the indignity of getting out of a car and falling into a ditch. Come to think of it, that’s not really a memory I cherish so much as one I cannot forget.
But let’s pretend that was my most cherished memory ever. If I could trade it for something amazing happening in the future, would I do it? For this exercise I’ll assume the amazing thing is something that would happen to me specifically and not something like world peace or a sudden magic solution to global warming. The answer is yes, I would make that trade in an instant. Why? Because if I traded away the memory, I wouldn’t know it was gone–otherwise it would still be a memory–and I’d have something amazing happen in its place, like developing telekinesis, knowing all the winning lottery numbers, or once again having the energy to knock over trees.
[spoiler title=”Explanation of this exercise” icon=”plus-circle”]I am using the prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link) to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long. I will work through the prompts in order. After that, I will perhaps have a party of some sort.Sometimes instead of a story I will simply answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).[/spoiler]