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11/13/2025

Yet another 20-minute writing exercise, this time for Halloween, with the direction to take a scene from a horror movie, then rewrite it with a terrible twist. My movie choice: Tremors

Perfection revisited

The tremors came again just as they had settled down to a fitful sleep on top of the stone outcropping in the desert. Val and Earl instantly awakened, tensed for another attack. They were down to a single stick of dynamite and a single match to light it.

Val whispered, “Where do you think it’s coming from? I might be able to get to the truck ahead of it if it’s far enough to the south.”

Earl said, “Don’t risk it. We don’t want to stir it up any more than we have to.”

Val said, “And I don’t want to die of thirst out here on this damn rock.”

At this, they both fell silent and waited for dawn.

As the first fingers of sunlight filtered through the mountains, Val suddenly made a decision and stood up. He grabbed the dynamite and scrabbled in his pocket for the match.

Earl said, “Val, I told you not to be going off half-cocked. Let’s wait until—”

Val said, “I’m done waiting,” and began slamming rocks into the loose dust at the base of the outcropping to draw the thing out. The tremors began again, this time headed directly for the outcropping. With a remarkable economy of motion, Val struck the match, lit the fuse, then threw the dynamite into the dust roughly 15 feet from the base of the outcropping.

As Val had hoped, the thing grabbed the dynamite in its mouth and Val’s heart lurched with joy. That is, until the thing spat it back into his face two seconds before the explosion.

11/13/2025

Yet another 20-minute writing exercise based on this writing prompt: Cerulean

The child's eyes were a deep, intoxicating blue, verging on cerulean, with a hint of green near the irises. I took a deep breath and tried to recenter myself. It was foolish to become fascinated at a moment's notice with a child I'd never met before and would likely never see again. I turned to her mother.

"Your daughter has lovely eyes. Does that color run in the family?"

The mother dismissed my remark with a grimace.

"No, she's . . . unique. Just like I wanted."

I drew back in shock -- mothers typically love it when some praises their child. Why did this one seem bitter, almost offended? I decided to try again.

"Is she an only child?"

Again, the grimace. After a few seconds, she unbent enough to respond.

"She's an only child now. Her sister passed away before she was born."

I scrambled to find something to say to mask my embarrassment, but ended settling for a few apologetic noises.

The girl stood up from her seat suddenly and squeezed past me as she disappeared down the train's aisle. The mother stirred herself to speech once again.

"She's not really mine. I mean, she's mine, but I didn't give birth to her."

"Adopted?"

At my questioning glance, she said, "Not exactly . . . more like acquired. But at least she came with a 20-year warranty."

07/16/2025

Here's a 20-minute writing exercise based on this excessively odd prompt: Nefarious snipping hedgehog

She scrolled leisurely through her online bank statement, grimacing a little at the number of restaurant tabs and retail extravagances she’d racked up over the last month. She really had to get her spending under better control. That’s how a girl ended up scrambling to pay her taxes at the end of the year. Yeah, she really needed to stay off the Talbot’s and Ralph Lauren sites. As she approached the bottom of the list, one item caught her eye: Hedgehog.com, followed by an indecipherable string of numbers and letters. She was all for supporting hedgehogs, as well as a long list of other woodland creatures, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t made any donations to them.

A phone call to her bank later, she was only more confused and increasingly angry. The bank couldn’t tell her anything about the mysterious payee; all they could do was tell her it looked like a subscription. Well, she shut that down damn quick. What nefarious organization was slipping $20 out of her account, and had apparently been doing so for some time? Then she did what she should have done first; she surfed over to hedgehog.com to check them out. Ahh, that explained it; it was a lookalike site for one of her favorite local merchants, right down to the logo and the typeface. She must have clicked a link in a phishing email and that was all it took. Now they had her credit card number and they were snipping away at her balance each month, hoping she wouldn’t notice a relatively small amount.

Well, that was over. She located their physical location, just a few towns away, and put her plan in action. The next morning, Operation Hedgehog was a go.

07/16/2025

A 20-minute writing exercise based on this "bartender's challenge" writing prompt: Lemon

I turned the key and pressed the accelerator with little hope of hearing the engine catch. No, I could never be that lucky. I sat still for a long minute, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to attain some measure of equanimity or zen or something that would keep me from taking a sledgehammer to this absolute lemon of a car that my father had foisted on me years ago.

“Oh, it’s big enough to keep you safe in case someone sideswipes you out on the highway,” he said, just before he demanded $800 f*cking dollars of my hard-earned cash to “pay him back.”

At the moment, getting out on the highway wasn’t likely. All I could hope for was to get it started so I could go home.

The car was never a beauty, probably not even when it was brand-new. A ’73 Plymouth Fury was never anyone’s dream car. By the late ‘80s, it was a rolling nightmare, complete with a peeling landau top and an engine that would usually only start after generous applications of ether. At least the Plymouth Fury in Christine did its own bodywork.

And then an idea came to me. After judicious application of a can of starting fluid, I was rolling toward the other side of the tracks.

As I pulled up to the rural railway crossing, I looked both ways, then inched forward and stopped. As it was wont to do, the car promptly stalled. And gosh darn it, I was out of starter fluid. Now, all I had to do was climb out, wait and make sure my insurance was up to date.

07/16/2025

A 20-minute writing exercise based on this rather unsavory writing prompt: Fill me like one of your rat holes.

“I’m hungry. Like really hungry. Bring me some of whatever you’ve got out in that kitchen.”

The waiter looked at me silently with a combination of exasperation and bone-tiredness. His exasperation eventually won out.

“Don’t test me. Just look at the damn menu and tell me what you want.”

“Chicken paprikash.”

An uncomfortable pause followed. This time, the exasperation and tiredness were seasoned with embarrassment.

“The kitchen’s all out of it.”

“Nice of you to tell me that in advance. Now trot your little ass back to the kitchen and confirm what they have, and then I’ll tell you what I want.”

The waiter slid away, then came back after what was surely too short a time to have interrogated the cook thoroughly.

“We have lobster mac and cheese and pot roast with new potatoes.”

“Now we’re talkin’. Give me some of both. And don’t skimp on either.”

Five minutes later he was back with a tiny portion of pot roast that looked like it had been scraped out of the darkest corner of the dutch oven.

“You’re f*cking with me, right? There’s not enough on that plate to keep a rat alive.”

He had the grace, at least, to look embarrassed.

“It’s been a busy night. And it’s almost 10; we’re about 5 minutes from closing the kitchen.”

I stood up suddenly, scattering the silverware and candles and all the other bric-a-brac that comes with civilized dining.

“I don’t give a damn what you have to do; I don’t care if the cook has to fight the rats in the alley for food for me, but you will bring me something.”

He dropped the plate in front of me and headed back to the kitchen. I scarfed down the meager serving before someone tried to take it away. When the waiter emerged from the kitchen, he had the cook in tow but nothing resembling food.

“Listen, mister, I don’t want to fight with you, but you will bring me food. I don’t care what it is, just fill me like one of your rat holes, before I make this place look like the last act of Hamlet.”

07/16/2025

A 20-minute Writer's Inkwell writing exercise, based on this "bartender's challenge" prompt: Cucumber

She peeled the cucumber lengthwise then cut it into thin, transparent rounds. Dress it with half a cup of light cream, a chiffonade of shallot, some capers, a tablespoon of vinegar and another of sugar, salt, pepper, and it’s done and ready to chill. The perfect summer side dish.

She pushed back from the sink and blew the hair out of her eyes. Now, nothing to do but light the candles on the dining room table and wait for him to arrive. And wait. And wait.

Three hours later, she had long ago given up on waiting, blown out the guttering candles, and gone to bed. There was no other explanation. He was stepping out on her. Either that or he was dead as the result of a multicar pileup on the interstate. At this point, she didn’t much care which one it was; she was done. Half a dozen unanswered calls, all of them straight to voicemail. No one got to treat her that way twice.

As she lay tossing in her sweaty sheets, she suddenly heard someone in the kitchen, fumbling with cabinets and the refrigerator. She rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen, determined to get an explanation from him. Instead, she flicked on the overhead light to find a very young, very drunk woman digging into her cucumber salad with a serving fork.

“Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”

The woman peered at her blearily, trying and failing to focus on her.

“David told me to come in and get him something to eat and bring it out to the car. This looked good, so I thought . . .”

“Yeah, I doubt you’ve been doing much thinking this evening. Otherwise it might have occurred to you that trying to steal food from your f*ck-buddy’s girlfriend was a bad idea.”

She goggled at me unsteadily. “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, girlfriend.”

There was a long silence followed by a sudden convulsion as the milk dressing decided it didn’t like where it was sitting and decided the floor was a better idea. She stumbled out the door and into the driveway, wrenching open the passenger side door before she was overwhelmed by yet another convulsion, this time on his upholstery. I made it to the front door just in time to witness his punishment.

07/16/2025

Another 20-minute writing exercise based on this random prompt: They started off without fully understanding how difficult the French were willing to make sauce-making.

She added another dollop of butter to the saucepan and stirred furiously, hoping against hope that this batch wouldn’t break, unlike all the others. Please god, please god, please god, let it come together. Chef said nobody could leave until they achieved a perfectly smooth bernaise sauce. Stir, stir, stir.

She could feel sweat forming at her temples, threatening to run down her face and into her eyes or, worse still, her bernaise. She glanced furtively at the students around her; those smarmy bastards acted like this was simplicity itself, like they were born making bernaise. All of them French, of course; they all sneered at her like sharing a kitchen with her was an assault on their Gallic sensibilities.

Why was she here? What gave her the idea that skipping grad school and coming to France for cooking school so she could open her own restaurant made sense? Hadn’t her mother told her it was a stupid idea? Hadn’t Dad? And pretty much everyone else who knew about her lame-brained plan? This is where being stubborn had gotten her, stuck in a sweltering kitchen with a bunch of snobby French kids trying to figure out the trick to making a kind of sauce that she didn’t even like.

Okay, the sauce was thickened, and somehow, wonder of wonders, it hadn’t broken. She pulled a sauceboat from the cabinet and poured in the finished bernaise. As she moved to put the sauceboat on the pass for the chef’s inspection, she almost tripped over another student’s outstretched foot. Very clever, Guilliame, but not quite clever enough. She reached the front of the room without further incident and set down the sauceboat. One sauce down, several dozen more to go.

07/16/2025

20-minute writing exercise based on this prompt: Pickle

They met for the first time on the apartment building’s doorstep. Juggling her clumsy bags of groceries, she nearly tripped over him as he lay sprawled on the stairs, clearly pickled, even though it was just 9:30 in the morning. Being that drunk that early in the day bespoke either a professional level of dedication to forgetting something terrible or simply being too stupid to find anything better to do than drink. She didn’t know which one it was and she didn’t much care. She just wanted him off her stoop. She edged cautiously around him, then knocked on the landlord’s door and demanded his immediate removal.

The next few times she saw him were much the same—him blackout drunk, her annoyed. Finally, a few months later, she actually met him before he went comatose. It was not an inspiring encounter. Surprisingly, he actually recognized her, at least enough to know that they lived in the same building. He immediately tried to hit her up for a “loan,” which she denied with her usual claim to be broke herself, then trying to borrow money from him.

After that, they settled into an uneasy compact consisting of almost indistinguishable nods from across rooms and a muttered “’Sup?” now and then. Whenever he looked like he was about to hit her up for money, she employed her tried-and-true technique of asking for a loan. It worked like a charm every time.

As Christmas time approached, he switched tactics, now claiming to be “fundraising” for a children’s charity that was being heavily promoted in the media. In response, she pivoted to the “I gave at the office” gambit to block his attempt to guilt her into a donation. If he could be relentless, she could be too.

The last time they met was at the morgue when she was called in to identify his body. It was a sobering place. So much so, in fact, that the cold of the slab woke him up. So, not quite dead after all.

He glanced up at her blearily and muttered, “Lend me a quick fifty?”

07/16/2025

20-minute writing exercise based on this writing prompt: There is writing on a creature or object that should not be there.

The astronomer squinted through the eyepiece of his backyard telescope at the surface of Mars, struggling to decode what he was seeing. There was something there, but what? No matter how finely he adjusted the focus, he couldn’t resolve the image. He needed the telescope at work.

With a muttered excuse to his wife, he rushed to his car and backed out of the driveway, headed to the observatory. An idea kept tickling the back of his brain, but he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept what he was thought he was seeing.

At the observatory, he convinced the reluctant grad student who had booked time in advance on the big scope to give him a few minutes to “check something out.” Eventually, a $20 bill and the promise of a beer afterwards were all it took.

At the console, he swiftly keyed in the coordinates for Mons Arsia, one of Mars’ largest mountains and waited impatiently until the telescope moved into the proper orientation. As he called up the highest resolution image possible, he felt his heart start to pound and his skin to turn hot. It was true. What he had tried to deny in his backyard was now undeniable. There, nestled at the base of the mountain, was an advertising banner painted in varying shades of regolith, proudly proclaiming “Busch, Head for the Mountains.”

That was when he knew that commerce would always seek to subjugate science to its own mercenary ends.

07/16/2025

20-minute writing exercise based on this random writing prompt:
Samurai

She crept silently down the corridor, straining for any sound that might disclose her opponent’s approach. Behind her, she heard a faint cry and turned to find a cat padding softly toward her, its tail held high and its face curious. She allowed her tightly strung nerves to loosen fractionally but not to relax. This was not the place to relax.

As she edged silently through yet another doorway, she caught the muted sound of a man shouting furiously several rooms away. He cursed her fluently, with a rapidity that suggested plenty of practice combined with a natural arrogance. Bingo! Target acquired.

She moved through the adjoining rooms until she was immediately outside the room where he continued to swear. Time to get ready.
After centering herself and taking a few deep breaths, she kicked the door open to see him charging across the room, samurai sword raised high, intent on filleting her. With a remarkable economy of motion, she raised her sub-automatic and pumped four bullets in his chest in rapid succession.

When the smoke had cleared and people began to filter back into the building, someone timidly asked her what happened.

She gave him the enigmatic smile that had made her the most-recognized contract killer of her generation.

“Some people never learn not to bring a knife to a gun fight.”

07/16/2025

A 20-minute writing exercise based on this random writing prompt:
She questioned but searched down hostile money.

She twisted her swizzle stick disconsolately into the remaining puddle in her martini glass. Olives . . . gone. Cocktail onion . . . gone. And soon the martini itself would be gone and she’d have to find another rationale for occupying this barstool . . . with luck, one that didn’t involve shelling out 18 dollars for another martini. She cast her gaze down the bar, wondering if there was anyone in here tonight who might be lonely or dumb enough to cough up the price of another drink.

Her salvation arrived with a rush of brisk evening air and settled into the seat next to her. Not bad-looking, but a little brutish in a way that didn’t really line up with her usual style. With a mental girding of her loins, she turned on the smile that used to make them curl into her like a leaf in a windstorm.

Apparently, it still worked. Fifteen minutes of flirty conversation later, he made a suggestion that, surprisingly, didn’t involve s*x.

“How’d you like to make some money? I’ve got a friend who’s looking for investors and it’s easy money.”

She drew back into herself.

“Usually when I hear a proposition like that, it’s something less than legal. I’m not interested in doing time for anyone. We just met.”

“It’s perfectly legal. Absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Tell me a little more. Who’s your friend and what’s the investment?”

He plunged into a complicated story about his buddy Raymond who had this fantastic opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new crypto currency. Her interest dwindled rapidly as he led her on a twisting bugaloo of fortunes to be won by the courageous. It was time to make her exit.

She rose from her barstool with a murmured apology. “I’m sorry, I need to visit the little girls’ room.”

As he turned his attention to the man on his other side, she headed toward the ladies’ room, then detoured quickly to grab her coat and slip out a side door. As she approached her car, suddenly he was at her back.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

07/16/2025

Another 20-minute writing exercise, this time based on the word "f*ck."

“F*ck you, Bobby. I don’t have to take this crap from you any longer. Pack your s**t and get out.”

He leaned back and gave her that lazy smile that was supposed to make her roll on her back and beg him to rub her belly.

“Take it easy, babe. It’s not that big a deal.”

“You don’t get to tell me how big a deal it is. You’re out of here before the sun goes down.”

“Why don’t I go down the street to Hannigan’s and watch the game and when I come back, we can discuss this like adults.”

“I don’t care what you do, as long as you and your s**t are gone by the time the game is over.”

He slouched out the door without a backward glance, digging in his pockets for his keys. Once the door closed, she sprang into action.

Step 1: Call the emergency locksmith to get the locks to all the doors replaced. She gladly shelled out the extra $200 for 1-hour service.

Step 2: Gather every stitch of clothing he owned, stuff it into a laundry basket, and haul it out into the yard.

Step 3: Pull the car out of the garage and position it just out of sight down the street.

Step 4: Put the laundry basket at the end of the driveway.

As she waited for the locksmith to arrive, she tuned the car’s radio to the sports station that broadcast the local basketball games. The fourth quarter was just starting when the locksmith finished up and handed her the new keys.

As the announcer gave the final score, she put the final step of her plan in place.

Step 5: Find the charcoal lighter fluid and the matches.

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