Welcome to the final week of the Spring Writing Challenge!
It’s the final week! This has been such a fun challenge. You’ve all done so well with your stories. There are so many interesting and unique ways you have taken the prompt. It’s now time for the final week, so let’s do this one last time! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
So, without further ado, here’s your final prompt!
Week Six Prompt – The Character Prompt
Write a story about a character that experiences a rebirth
Wait…what’s a character prompt?
A character prompt is a prompt that’s about a specific character. It doesn’t matter where your story takes place or what’s said. What matters is that your story must be about a character who experiences a rebirth.
Before you start writing, we have some important rules for you to follow.
Writing Rules
1. Please keep the content of the stories you post to a PG rating. Please avoid real curse words. Violence/fighting should be limited and purposeful. Please do not include any spice.
2. Your story must be 1,000 words or less, and must contain the prompt to be counted for the challenge. You’re not required to post it in order to “win” the challenge, but if you want it to count for your team, your story must be posted by Sunday at 11:59 PM ET, and you must include your team name.
Remember to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and post your story as an “answer” to this question, not a “comment”. 🙂 You’re all doing such a great job! I’m so proud of all the stories you’ve posted.
Happy Writing!
We’re so glad that you participated Juli! 🙂
Turtle Run
team 1
It had been six months since they had buried her mother. Six months of well-meaning platitudes from family, friends, and strangers. Six months of “Everything happens for a reason” and “She’s in a better place now.” Six months of replying with a smile that couldn’t reach her eyes and graciously accepting odd casseroles and overly flowery cards. Answering questions about the death or how she and her husband were doing with false positivity, “taking it day by day,” or “Yes, at least she didn’t suffer.” It was exhausting.
The funeral had been hurried with no time to let the enormity of the situation sink in. One day her mother was there, the next she was gone. Lucy didn’t know what she would have wanted, they had never discussed it. She only knew that at twenty-four, she was now an orphan and felt lost. Her mother had been her best friend; it had always just been the two of them as long as she could remember, at least until Lucy met Tony, then they added him to their tiny family. Now it was just her and Tony, and Tony’s extensive family.
Since the funeral, Lucy felt they had buried her along with her mother. She didn’t know how to breathe anymore. She was going through the motions: getting up, going to work, making dinner, and then not sleeping through the night. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t eat, she felt lost in the world, like she was missing half of herself. Tony did his best, but Lucy was going through her days, a sleepwalker in her own life.
It was Friday night when Tony walked through the door, arms full of takeout from New Moon and a bottle of Tost. He set up the coffee table, cued a movie, and waited for Lucy to finish up her day in the home office. Ten minutes later, she emerged in fleece pajama pants with purple dolphins on them and a concert t-shirt from six years ago, her hair in a messy bun and leopard print slippers on her feet. She looked at the dinner Tony had laid out and tried to smile, before flopping on the couch, exhausted from her day. Tony handed her a set of chopsticks, and she opened the Pad Thai and started picking out bits of chicken, then popping them into her mouth. Tony watched her for several moments before clearing his throat. “Luce,” he started, “I want to talk to you.”
Lucy looked up from the take-out, “What’s up?”
“You need to get out of this funk!” he blurted out. “I know you’re depressed, but you need to do something. See someone, join a club, take up a hobby, anything. But you need to get out and do something. I’m worried about you, you know your mother wouldn’t want this.”
She looked up at him in surprise. She thought she had been doing ok, not great, but managing, but evidently, she wasn’t. She took a deep breath. She knew he was right, but she had no clue where to start. “Okay.” She said, picking up an egg roll. “I know you’re right, I just don’t know what to do.”
Tony didn’t have an answer for her, they let it go and watched the movie.
That night, while Tony snored peacefully beside her, she scrolled social media looking for something to distract her. Between a video on baking cakes and a clip of pandas rolling down a slide, a photo of a girl she worked with, and the local running group popped up. They were posed at the head of a trail, all smiles and sweat. The caption read, Join us Sunday, 8 am at the Turtle Island trail. Something clicked in Lucy’s mind, turtles had been her mother’s favorite animal. It must be a sign.
Saturday, Lucy went out shopping and picked up new running shoes. Tony watched as she willingly went through her closet looking for a pair of shorts and a top. He said nothing as she woke up early Sunday morning and drove to the trailhead, and he only smiled to himself when she came back two hours later, flushed and sweaty but looking happy. He listened contentedly as she talked about the people she had met that morning.
Tony watched as Lucy got up early the next day and went running again, returning an hour later red-faced and happy. She stretched, showered, and for the first time in months put on a pair of slacks to go with her work blouse, not ratty sweatpants. Each day that week, Lucy got up, ran, and felt a little better. By the end of the week, she asked Tony if he wanted to go hiking Saturday morning, something they hadn’t done since before her mother had passed.
Day by day and mile by mile, Lucy felt herself coming back to her life. She was able to smile again, a real smile. She had found something of her own, something that brought her joy. A year after her mother’s death, while running along the trail, she spotted a small turtle crossing the path on its way to the river. She picked it up gently and placed it on the bank. She looked around at the sun shining through the trees and smiled to herself, happy with her life.
When the new prompt arrive, my first thought is, Oh no! What am I going to write to make that work? But the Holy Spirit ALWAYS shows up and I get an idea every time. It amazes me. Thanks for a thought provoking six weeks.