Writing Prompt #3: Meadowlark

It’s another writing prompt this week!

This time, our assignment was based on the following snippet, which I used as the first line of a larger passage: “The playful intimacy she experienced with him was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.”

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She vaguely recollected something akin to it in her foggy past, but she no longer truly recognized herself in those remembered moments. That had been a different time. She had been a different person – a gentler, kinder person – before everything had gone wrong.

She’d had lovers since then of course, but never for longer than a single night and it was a rare thing to find someone willing to overlook the strangeness and death that lingered on her skin like perfume. Rarer still to make friends even if she had wanted to and she hadn’t.

She could admit to herself that she was lonely, and had been for a very long time.

Now, even more twisted than before, here was someone who… didn’t care. Even better – or worse – , someone who embraced the sharpness and off-putting wrongness of her without flinching. Someone who wasn’t afraid to challenge her.

He was charming, he was intelligent, and he was ruthless, but above all else he was playful, and it was that quality that had her cautiously prowling around the idea of loving again. Perhaps not the same way she could have before, softly and warmly, but it would be a kind of love all the same. 

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I wrote all these prompts for a creative writing course I took in the fall, and it didn’t escape my notice that the majority of the other students wrote literary fiction and romance novels. Both great genres with stories that I’ve loved, but not generally my cup of tea. For better or worse, I’m a sci-fi, fantasy, and horror enthusiast to my core (though I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to branch out as a writer and read from MANY genres).

I’m starting another short story focused writing course this week with the same teacher, so I’m sure I’ll plenty more to share in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please like, comment, and share if you enjoy what you’ve read. 

And don’t forget to be kind to one another. 

Love, Charlotte