Blog Chain: Storytime

Long blog hiatus! (Partially because I blanked on the last topic. I blame Hurricane Irene and the loss of power). Today’s chain is brought to you by Christine. She wants us to be creative! Go figure, asking writers to actually do a story.

She says, “Since we are all writer’s, I thought it was about time for us to stretch our creative muscles and do a little writing. So, take the following topic and go crazy! Show us what you’ve got. Your story can be as long or as short as you choice.

The topic: A dark and stormy night.

And she also wants us to follow these rules:

1. Write for a minimum of 5 minutes… AND THEN KEEP GOING!
2. NO editing. (well.. do the obvious spelling and punctuation.. but nothing major)

OK, then. My piece is below. And I got a little confused and thought we had to start with “dark and stormy night” but oh well. When you’re done reading check out Shaun’s masterpiece from yesterday, and tune in tomorrow for Sarah’s post.

It was a dark and stormy night when Julia found out. She remembered because the lightning illuminated the window just as she read the text. She also remembered because the whole thing was a cliché: finding out bad news when it’s dark and stormy. Like the start of a bad ghost story. And forever, if she told anyone (not that she would), in her mind, whether she started the story that way or not, it would be on a dark and stormy night. She hated being a part of a cliché, hated that her family had turned into a cliché, and she hated finding out about her mom’s affair via erroneously sent text message. That, too, was lame and so two years ago. If her family had to fall apart, why couldn’t it be in a new, trend-setting way. Like maybe her mom could have fallen for a traveling trapeze artist or the guy who played the clown every Thursday at the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner. That would have at least told her something. Like maybe her mom was zany and she needed something different. But what did it say when her mother’s affair was with an old high school boyfriend? A former bad boy turned accountant. It said her mother was the typical mid-life crisis example. A typical, dark and stormy night, cliché.