Red Bicycle Prompt

lizshine74by lizshine74

In Prompts.

I finished reading Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson for my first critical response paper (part of MFA program). I finished the last twenty pages sitting here at Batdorf and Bronson and wrote for a long while trying to get at how to respond to this book.
Needing a break from this type of analytical work, my gaze shifting first to the yellow dog waiting patiently at the front doors, watching intently for its owners to return, then to the rain that is coming down in force now–it began this morning with muted sprinkling–then to a red cruiser bicycle, a rain-soaked paper for-sale sign fluttering in the wind.
I began a story about that cruiser bike, the beginning of which I’ll post here.

Here’s the prompt: Find a window! Let your gaze wander and settle on something. Write about that thing.

Mine:
A stranger—a man—was on his way to take the red cruiser bicycle she’d loved so much off her hands. She’d been riding it every day for three years, since the day Joseph had strolled with her through the narrow aisles of the bicycle shop. She recalled the pressure of his hand on the small of her back as they walked, the gravity of his eyes, always pulling her toward him. This one, he’d said, after interrogating the salesman with a swagger she blissfully ignored.
She’d tried camouflaging the bike, draping it with jewels—a bumper to protect her from splashes, rainbow-colored spoke covers, and on one particularly whimsical day—a shiny brass bicycle bell. These efforts proved vain. She couldn’t look on the bike without thinking of him…

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.