Free Writing Exercise – Create Your Own Story

As an aspiring author, with my fiction/fantasy novel currently in its final phase of editing, I thought my blog would be a nice place to free write. What is free write you say? I shall explain what I will be doing. Why should you care? Two reasons: one, I’ll be writing something entertaining, and two, I’ll be explaining how you can do this, with tips along the way that will improve your writing!

• Create the name of a short story to be written, along with the theme of it. Take the most time on this. After you decide it and create the theme, you will not have anymore pauses until the end of your writing session.
• Write the title and basic theme of your story first. Spend no more than 30 minutes on this part!
• Now write the story, non-stop, for no more than 30 minutes – and a minimum of 10 minutes.
• Do not go back to fix mistakes of any kind while writing, just write and let it flow.
• This is to get creative juices flowing and not be perfect.
• Do not worry about anything except writing, no matter how crazy you think things are getting.
• At the end of the time, stop. There will be time in the next session to fine tune everything.
• And with that, let’s do this!

The day that lasted a week.

Larry was just going to work in the morning, ready to do his duty as a programmer for an online website selling nutritional supplements. The company had grown quite successful quickly and Larry was happy to have a job. However, when a gun man enters his place of employment and begins shooting, Larry begins a day that lasts far longer than he could have ever hoped for.

Larry heard his alarm go off, blasting some old 80′s rock music. He turned to his left, seeing his wife sound asleep on the bed. He decided to not wake her. She had been up late into the night tending to their newborn son of five weeks. He sat up on the side of the bed, fighting the urge to go back to sleep as he too had been awoken many times that night.

However, Larry fought through the fatigue and made it to the bathroom. His vision was blurred and he rubbed his eyes to compensate and looked in the mirror. He was a 39 year old programmer with an average physique. he had a large scar on his back from a boating accident in his youth.

After taking the time to get ready, he went downstairs to get some breakfast. He reached for a box of OH’s in the cupboard and opened the top, quickly holding it upside down over a bowl. Nothing came out of the box.

“Aww crap!” Larry thought to himself in frustration. He was going to have to settle for Corn Flakes. As he munched them, he thought about how plain they tasted. After finishing them, he crept upstairs to see if his wife was awake. She was not.

Larry trotted back downstairs and out to his garage. As he opened the door to his car, a 2004 Honda Civic, he noticed that dark rain clouds were decorating the sky.

“Guess a storm is coming,” Larry thought to himself. He drove the car along the street, listening to a radio talk show about politics. He drove up to the place of his employment. As he walked to the front door, he reached into his pants pocket. There was nothing in it.

“Where the crap is my badge?” he angrily blurted under his breath. Then he realized it was still in his car. He trekked back to his car, used his keys to open it, and then slammed the door. He looked in the window just to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything else. Shaking his head, he made his way back to the front door. He held his badge next to a sensor, which let him in.

Larry’s cubicle was down the hall past several offices and a secretaries welcoming station. Larry worked with a few other programmers. As Larry sat down at his desk, a scrawny looking man with glasses approached him. He spoke in a voice that sounded like a chip munk.

“Hey Larry, good to see you this morning!”

Larry nodded, “Hi William, how is the alpha project going for you?”

William smiled with eagerness to speak, “It’s supposed to launch next week. I can’t wait. Corporate said we’ll all get a $3,000 bonus if we release on time. Can you believe it, $3,000 dollars. I can think of 10 things right now I could do with that. I’d by myself a quad core 4 Ghz Pentium with a….”

Larry began to tune William out. Larry heard the sound of a man shouting in the entrance to the building where he worked. He looked at William.

“Quiet! I think something is wrong, do you hear that?”

William shrugged his shoulders, “There’s been shouting before, what else is new?”

Larry bit his lip, but decided that it was probably just an argument and would go away. He shooed William away with his hand. As Larry sat down in his cube and began typing to login, he heard a loud scream from the secretary, “Stop! What are you doing?”

Immediately followed one loud pop that sounded like a firecracker. A few seconds later, two more pops blasted out. The secretary was eerily quiet now. William looked over his cubicle wall at Larry. Larry’s heart beat very fast and he felt as if he were encased in ice, unable to move…

To Be Continued…