How Do Your Writing Exercises Work? Essentially, I go to a “Single Word Prompt Generator” and have it throw a random word at me. Then I go to Unsplash.com and use that word to search their database of images, and scroll through for something that catches my attention. This may be something where I simply want to describe what’s in the image, or maybe it sparks a small story nugget in my brain. Regardless, I then take the picture and post it here, with credit, and proceed to write for 15 minutes. Whatever I produce, I share with you lovely people. Unedited. Typos are to be expected. Word Prompt: Heat She could hear them hissing. The burnt orange glow hidden beneath a deceptively cool shade of grey ash. The heat coming off the coal was near-painful, and Emma could feel a moist trickle of warm sweat trails it's way down her neck and slip beneath her blouse. Once neat and crisp, it was now limp with the heat and soaked in sweat. Her black skirt was dusted with ash, and Emma stared at the path before her. If she didn't know better she'd think it were cobblestones, but the heat shimmers in the air told her that the coals were near-molten. Her breath was fast, nervous. Her feet, covered only with thin stockings, shifted against the cool stone anxiously and she considered turning to run. She'd considered fleeing, more than once, since she'd been guided down into this hellish landscape full of towering black columns of volcanic black rock, and lakes of yellow glowing lava. "Go on," the demon at her side prompted, his elbow nudging hers in what she assumed was supposed to be some kind of encouragement, but it made her lean back instead, away from the fiery path before her that led up to nothing less than a bloody castle. "What's the matter, don't you have any faith?" the demon teased. Emma wished it was a taunt. A taunt she could rise to, argue with, but the demon at her side was smiling gently, his tone nearly playful and Emma swallowed back her snarl. He was only trying to help, she knew that, but her eyes settled on the coals before her again and she hesitated. Again. It wasn't that she lacked faith. She believed in so many things. But believing that you were born to become the queen of hell was something else entirely. Emma distinctly remembered burning her hand on the oven as a teenager, and while chocolate lava cakes were delicious, she suspected that real lava wasn't nearly so pleasant. It wasn't that Emma didn't have faith, she just didn't have faith in this. With that, her resolve broke and she stepped back. Pressing her feet against the cool stone that didn't seem to be retaining any of the heat from the air, or the rivers of molten rock on either side, and she began to back away from the road ahead paved with white hot coals. The demon's hand wrapped around her wrist, but his grip was lose. "Please, don't," he whispered, and Emma met his golden gaze in surprise. "If you leave, he'll rule us forever. We need you." "Aren't demons supposed to lie?" Emma gasped, the sweltering air making it difficult to breath, "How am I supposed to trust you?" "Lie? Of course we do," the demon admitted, but his eyes were wide, open and honest, "but not to you. Never to you." She held his gaze, and gods help her Emma believed. Her breathing slowed, and the heat faded, and, against her better judgement, she stepped forward...
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Arista Holmes
I'm a writer in her thirties, who is based in the South East of England. Archives
March 2024
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