There are two courses of action I've heard the most from these days before the impending hurricane here in the northeast. One school is all about water, milk, eggs, rice, prepared foods. The other is wine, beer, cheese, baguette, DVDs, tortilla chips. There's also me on a 24' ladder cleaning out the gutters that I haven't cleared in like two years, now that we might get ten inches of rain in one day.
So think about different types of people and what might be the most important things for them to take care of days before a possible hurricane. Come up with something that is really uncommon or a person who's need is really unique. Write up a description of their preparations through a day about two days before the hurricane "might" hit the area. If you want to take this further, write about the day of the hurricane -- did it actually hit locally, or maybe it was a big bust and never came. How did the preparations and the desperate need play into the results.
It's time for another writing prompt. If you're one of those people who just can't get inspired to start a project, writing prompts are great. But even if you are currently working on an ongoing project, writing prompts are great side exercises to take you away from that constant focus on your project to be free to go have fun with your writing for ten minutes, then get back to your novel, memoir, screenplay, etc. So let's do a short little exercise.
Mine your own life, real situations, real people, real settings to draw out writing prompts. Rather than take everything about an occurrence, take a few key details and launch into fiction. Write into that situation for ten minutes, then read back to yourself where you took it. If you can't come up with one of your own, here, use this one from my life right now.
I am 46 years old and found myself needing to learn a new, very complicated piece of design software. Not having any design experience and having never used a software package like this one, it became obvious I should take a class. So there I find myself in a classroom in the computer lab at Fashion Institute of Technology. I've never wanted to be 'that old guy' who doesn't know about computers or technology, isn't up with the times. But here I find myself in a classroom with 18-20 year olds. They all get it immediately. In fact they're opening their Facebook pages and gmail on their computers while the teacher is re-explaining steps for a few of the slower learners, which sadly includes me. To get into this classroom, I had to walk through the very large room full of dozens of computer terminals filled with young, hip, trendy design students. Write a short dialogue between me and the hip young girl at the next terminal to me during class. Or write a quick interaction between me and a student or group of students during a ten minute break in the two-and-a-half hour evening class. How's that for a fish-out-of-water story?
