Wait

/ Liz H-H

The challenge? Write a story in exactly 6 sentences based on Denise’s one word prompt: GRAIN. Visit, comment, and write & perhaps post your own on SIX SENTENCE STORIES

All the To-do’s have been done: cat bowls cleaned and filled; appointments made and most delivered; floors vacuumed and kitchen linoleum scrubbed within an inch of its worn-fifties life; visits with friends — weak coffee and overpriced egg on toast, bacon a buck a slice – because it’s really mostly about catching up; glancing out the kitchen window at yesterday’s first seasonal mow, the red, resolute dandelion stems pushing their way through damp, fat clumps of clipped blades.               

A rabbit with white rings around her eyes shivers off the dew and looks in dismay at what I’ve done to her field of dandelion salad, not pleased at having to wait ‘til mid-morning for the golden surge, forgetting that dandelions are badass and will quickly rise again.

Writer’s block sits at the base of my neck, bony legs dangling between shoulder blades, whispering conspiracies of self-doubt, a solid grain of self-loathing at its core.

And there’s really nothing to it, is there, except to fire up the laptop and put fingers to keyboard, clear the crap with a free write and then, take on each of my fractious characters, one by one, in the larger work that broods in the temporal zone of my post-covid brain?

Cup of coffee at my elbow, shawl draped over shoulders, laptop settled into the lap blanket (Spring has well and truly arrived, but mornings are still cool), and the tension begins to ease.

It’s that easy, and that difficult.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)

19 thoughts on “Wait”

  6. totally agree for the remedy (maybe it might be better termed ‘work around’) for writer’s block.

    I’m a big fan of the ‘move the fingers and see what comes out (on the screen) to limber up… like the old saying reminds us, “It’s way easier to edit than it is fill up a blank page’

    (And totally thank god for enduring characters)

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