Sometimes our Free Writes are similar, but this time they were very different. All three were triggered by the photo of the statue.
The goal of our group Free Writes is to just let our thoughts pass through our fingers to the paper. There's no right-wrongs or maybes.
As a writer, Free Writing allows me to prime the pump of my creativity. Although I will do one when I'm blocked on whatever project I'm working on, sharing this experience is an entirely different experience.
D-L's Free Write Memories to File under Past
Note: This photo prompt sent from Switzerland by our third member of the group stumped me at first and then after the first sentence my pen flew across my notebook. Thank you Julia for the workout.
Maddy hated that statue.
Maddy loved that statue.
Each morning on the way to buy her crispy crusted Brötchen at the Bäckerei she would walk by the little girl riding on a four-wheel board. On the stone stand "Die Zeit fleight dahin," translated as time flies, was written.
Today, the statue was snow covered.
Next week she would be back in Boston for Christmas. Her six-months at the German Language School over. She could now understand, read, write, speak in passable German.
She would have to leave Thomàs.
The secretary at the school had warned her how he always choose the prettiest student each session. After they went home, letters would pour in from the departed student. Thomàs threw them away unopened. I telll them I don't have an e-mail or social media." he told Claudia the secretary.
Sometimes the women wrote Claudia. She'd reply he'd left and she didn't know where he had gone.
Maddy took this to heart and added her affair with Thomàs to what would become of her memories of Germany along with the Biergartens, the view of the Alps and the crispy crusted Brotchen.
Five months, three-weeks gone. One week left and time was flying.
Rick's Free Write Time Flies
Sometimes, it seems, time stands still. Especially if you’re waiting for something to happen – an event, a message – and it is not coming fast enough. Or perhaps you’re immersed in a project, totally focused, and you have no sense of time passing. This often happens to me, particularly when I’m writing in the middle of the night.
I once worked with an artist who seemed to think time was frozen as he hunched over his drawing board. When the book was finished the publisher threw a party at his lake house, and we gave the artist a ‘Vertical Time Continuum Award,’ a broken watch. Later, Bob, the artist, rowed a boat into the small lake and played ‘Amazing Grace’ on his bagpipes – wearing a Scottish plaid kilt and a yellow terry cloth shirt. Quirky, but a brilliant illustrator.
More often, for me, for us, time seems to fly throughout the day. We end up in bed, near exhausted, frustrated at not accomplishing all the things on the day’s to-do list. Time-consumers have intervened. Computer or other electronic issues. Chasing down information that should be readily available online but customer-unfriendly companies seem intent on obscuring (such as how to cancel their service or contact a real person). Random social interactions on the street. Something really interesting to read. The dog needs to go out – just when you sit down to eat (Pavlov’s trigger).
We probably get more done than we realize. Better than we admit to ourselves. But if we could buy a few more minutes, hours, days, years, how many and for how much?
Julia's Free Write
He had had a very busy day, starting when his was awoken even earlier than usual. They were going, finally he thought, to an amusement park. A quick breakfast so that they wouldn’t be hungry during the two-hour drive, and they were off.
Once in the park it was ride after ride, fun stand after fun stand.
One of the highlights found him entering a tunnel then faced with a long slide down towards oblivion – or at least that was how it seemed. At the bottom, several entrances to choose from – off to the right and another slide, even deeper into the earth. This led to yet more choices, at the end of which a long elevator ride up to the surface of the earth, where it all started over: a merry-go-round, a flying dumbo ride where the vehicles ended up flying straight out and he became dizzy.
A brief stop for lunch, just to keep up, and they were off again, the wife having decided to sit out the next round on a bench in the shade of a coffee shop.
When he finally returned, he noticed a a small statue of a child on what looked like a scooter with the motto at his feet: Time flies.
All too appropriate for a day during which he followed his small son.
Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends. Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/
Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com
D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com
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