The Darker the Secret, the Harder You Keep It

Just finished a writing prompt given to me by a friend on her blog.  I told myself that I would write for an hour today and I wrote over 1500 words in forty minutes. I think that's a big accomplishment for someone who's got writer's block.  But in writing that little short story, I realized that I might not be ready to jump back into writing a novel.  I think I should work on some more prompts or possible some short stories of my own prompting to get back into the right groove.  It's not easy and I just want to get something out of my system some days.  

Back in January and then a month or so ago, I just wanted, well needed really, to get something out of my system.  So I turned off the tv and turned on my iTunes and wrote it out.  The first time it was this story about this man who loses the woman he loves when she gives birth to their child.  It was tragic, but something I'd never actually experiences.  And yet, as I was writing, I was crying for him, for the child he had but couldn't look at, for the future he'd lost.  It was heart breaking and even reading it now makes me cry. 

The second time, it was a young woman being approached by someone she'd been in a relationship with who wanted her back.  That one I knew personally.  It's hard to just cut someone out of your life, especially when you cared for them so deeply.  And then to see them again, to be reminded of how you felt, how much they had been a part of your life.  It isn't easy.  Being human and caring isn't easy.  We all have secrets, regrets, choices that we are forced to make that no one saw coming.  It's messy and it hurts but it's part of living.  Maybe that's something I have to remind myself of when looking into characters.

I might post the prompt later, depending on how I'm feeling.  And how much my friend enjoys it.