Free Write

Sometimes the best way to get your imagination flowing is by doing a free write. Most writers are very familiar with the free write. You sit down, set a timer if you wish (I usually so something like 15 minutes), and just write whatever comes to mind. It's basically word vomit.

A lot of writers will simply write what's going through their minds at the time. I don't know what to write. It's been a long day. The last time I had such a long day was that time I was hit by a car full of circus clowns. And so on until a story arrives. I usually wait a few minutes until something sparks and then start writing. Still others will already have something in mind they want to free write about, like a character they want to flesh out more.

Every so often on this blog, I will post my free writes. For this post I found an old free write that I'd done in a coffee shop years ago when I was still dating my now husband. He was studying for a test (we were both in college) and I was using the time to do a little writing. Something I hadn't done in a very long time. This was the first thing of mine that he ever read. I apparently kept it as I recently found it folded up in one of my writing notebooks.

I didn't mean to die, it just happened. My mother is going to be so angry with me. I guess I should have seen it coming with the way things have been going lately...or had been going? What tense does one use with one's dead?

I guess it all began on that windy night when I was rushing home, head bent against the gusts. It was late and the streets were mostly deserted. The moon hung suspended over the buildings shut up for the night with only a few warmly lit upstairs windows.

I was hurrying through the intersection of Burke and Capitol when a man came stumbling out of the darkness and all but knocked me over. He quickly righted himself and the bowler hat perched precariously on his balding head. He was a round sort of man dressed in tattered, out of date clothing. He wore a tweed jacket frayed at the sleeves with a gaping hole in the shoulder seam. Underneath was a bottle green waist coat and what I thought was a rusty gold chain belonging to a pocket watch. A knitted scarf was wrapped enough times around his thick neck, one would think he was securing his head from toppling off his shoulders.

"You must help me sir!" he burst out at me, his eyes darting between the shadows.
"I...well, I'm not sure I under--" I began before he interrupted me, grabbing fistfulls of my coat collar. 
"We are both in an immense amount of danger! They've already began looking for you!"

His breath reminded me of mothballs and his fingers, shaking so close to my face, were in need of washing.
"But who sir, is looking? What sort of danger?" I was becoming increasingly worried about the state of his mental health. Maybe he was drunk. 

He became even more agitated and began shifting his rather large weight from one foot to another.
"No time now! We've run out! We shouldn't be speaking out in the open. Come, follow me!" he sputtered. When I hesitated, he grabbed a hold of my wrist and began pulling with determination.

Against my better judgement, I followed.