Some background: My husband Adam and I got married in Texas on September 14 of this year! In October we visited Virginia, where he had moved from in April to live near me. One Saturday morning while there, he brought me to the local creative writing meetup he had previously been active in. We met with about 8 other people in a coffee shop. The leader handed out little slips of paper with writing prompts printed on them. She then gave everyone 10 to 15 minutes to write something based on the prompt they had received. After the time was up, everyone took turns reading their prompt and their resulting creation.

I laughed as Adam read his stories: his wit, humor, and references to our relationship came through strongly. I enjoyed the opportunity to allow my values and life experiences to have some space to be explored by myself and seen by others. Though we wrote fiction, our newly-wed selves couldn’t help but include facets of our relationship and hopes for the future in our writing.

We both really enjoyed our time there, so much that we decided to start a creative writing meetup back in Texas. Another time I’ll share what I wrote at that Virginia meetup. In today’s post I’ll share my results from today’s meetup: our first Texas meetup, attended only by my husband and I. We’re calling it a practice round, and we hope others will join us next week.

What I love about engaging in these creative writing prompts is that what’s in one’s heart comes out. “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” as the book of Proverbs says. I hope to give my heart some expression and I hope to get to know others through their creative writing. Perhaps we can both make new friends and enjoy old friends in a new way.

So without further ado, here are my two prompts, the resulting stories, and some AI-generated artwork to illustrate my stories! (Adam is an engineer and loves AI, and I’ve learned to harness this revolutionary tool in the kitchen. I’d love to share how I do that in another post!) The prompts themselves Adam generated with the AI tool, ChatGPT, and each prompt has two parts for extra complexity. Also, as you read, remember I wrote each one in about 15 minutes off the top of my head and I’ve edited them minimally.

Prompt 1: Describe a character who tries way too hard to be ‘cool’ in front of kids. A teacher finds out a student cheated on an important test. Do they report it?

Miss Crystal Woods, age 24 was in her second year of teaching at Lake Worth High. Being not much older than her students, she hoped to be a ‘cool’ teacher and thereby gain their cooperation. She handed out a $5 Starbucks gift card to every student who made an A on a test.

One student, Clifford, had a particularly rough background. His foster parents were kind, and they told her some of his childhood abuses to help her understand him. His father, an alcoholic had beaten him as a child. And his mother was in jail for selling drugs.

Cliff flourished under Crystal’s attention and received one of her $5 gift cards.

One day, weeks after PSAT testing, Crystal overheard Cliff bragging that his high score and status as a National Merit scholar came through cheating on the PSAT. Crystal knew the scholarship opportunities that come with National Merit scholar status: full rides to many schools. Cliff needed that kind of help.

Crystal approached Cliff.

“Cliff, I heard you saying you cheated on the PSAT. I’m going to have to report you.”

“Miss Woods, please. You’re going to ruin my life,” Cliff said.

Crystal winced, but regained her composure.

“No, Cliff, cheating will ruin your life. The earlier you learn that lesson, the more successful you’ll become.”

Prompt 2: A character must choose between taking a dream job abroad or staying with their partner. A character creates a ‘genius’ life hack, that goes hilariously wrong.

Joey and Abigail were inseparable, always together in the college cafeteria and library. Because they were one year apart, they planned to get married after Abby graduated in a year and a half. Joey, a senior, would graduate at the end of the semester.

He had applied for 20 job openings in his field, engineering, including a few dream jobs in Europe.

“Abby, Abby, I got the job in Germany!” Joey said as he opened his mail in the student union.

“But Joey, that’s so far away, and I still have another year before I graduate.”

Joey’s face fell.

“Yeah, I know… I didn’t think I’d actually get it. But I did! An AI job at Germany’s top engineering company. You could come join me after you graduate.”

“But Joey, I’ll miss your hugs. How can I get through a whole year of school without them? You help me feel calm when I’m stressed, and I need your arms to hold me.”

Joey thought for a minute.

“I have a plan,” he said.

Joey returned with gloves from the nurse’s office — filled with hot water from the bathroom and tied off into warm ‘hands.’

“Here, try this. It’s really calming. I heard they gave these to COVID patients who were isolated during COVID and they helped to calm them.”

Abby rolled her eyes as Joey tied the hands around her arm.

Pop! Abby was covered in warm water.

“Joey!” Abby ran off to change.

Joey sighed and opened the next letter. It was another job offer for a job nearby.

“Way less cool,” he muttered. But it would be a good way to stay close to Abby for a year.

“It’s perfect,” he whispered.

Joey drove to the neighborhood market to buy some flowers. He wanted Abby more than any dream job.

————

So those are my two little creations from today’s creative writing meetup.

Adam shed a tear after I read the second one and playfully asked why I had to make him cry in public. He said the part about giving up the dream job for the girl got him. (See the top image for a loose AI illustration of these scene generated by midjourney.com.)

I wasn’t thinking of this when I wrote the story, but years ago, when we were fresh out of college and thinking about marrying each other (we broke off our relationship and then got back together 6 years later), he really didn’t like his job. But he told me that he had thought to himself, “I would work this job for the rest of my life if it meant having a happy life with Aliya.” I never forgot those words because they made me feel so loved.

Well, here we are, six years later. He has me, and he’s way past that miserable job. But that precious heart of his hasn’t changed one bit.