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Write a story about someone experiencing a lightbulb moment of writing inspiration.

Posted in Short Story on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 139 stories

My Heroes Have Always Been Writers

Submitted to Contest #46

The first pages of a writer aren’t written, they’re read. Good writers are good readers. We learn the craft and beauty of the written word by being spirited away in our imagination by storytellers and troubadours. They lie to us and beguile us, enchant us with the rhythm and cadence of phrasing and seduce us with the crisp crackle or mellifluous melt of words in our mouth or soft, dulcet, alliterative tones in our ear. Good writers are magicians who surprise us, acrobats who astound us, monsters who keep us awake at night, bullies who make u...

21 likes 7 comments 7
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Shadowing.

Submitted to Contest #46

He looked outside the window. The cracked window glass made him sad. The wilting flower on the window sill made him sad.He ran his fingers across his palm, on the bruise that was gone but its memory still there, pressing on it, feeling the phantom pain.He walked back to his desk, dumping himself into the chair, and staring at the pages in front of him listlessly. He pulled the laptop towards himself, waking up the screen and started typing.“She walked in the shadows.”He looked at that sentence for what seemed like a long time for him. “This ...

21 likes 9 comments 9
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Paper and Pen

Submitted to Contest #46

I sit at the desk. Wait. Check the clock. Wait. Sip my coffee. Wait. Hear the dinner bell. Wait. Read business papers. Wait. Sip my coffee again. Wait. Check the clock again. Wait. Click my pen. Wait. Read my old stories. Wait. I am stuck, looped, cursed to go through this abominable feeling forever and longer. And, of course, now the words flow. Now that they are of no use to me. They flow, they barrel, they stream through my mind and out of my mouth. "Such a shitty situation, shouldn't have accepted the deadline, need to come up with s...

20 likes 3 comments 3
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Writing in My Sleep

Submitted to Contest #46

When I was in graduate school, my professors really kept me studying. I was working on a masters in English, and I didn't want to waste any time. I had two small children, and I was afraid if I spent too much time in school I would miss their growing up. I know that children are with us for just a short time, but I needed to go to graduate school because my family wanted to go overseas. My family needed me to get a good job and a good visa, so I had to have the correct education. My education led to a lot of unusual books, deep thi...

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Words

Submitted to Contest #46

My fingers shake as Tom’s words fill my mind. “Why are you doing this to us?” He asks me, his normally soft voice growing harsh. The buzzing from the overhead lights fills my ears as they bleach the color from his skin. Every part of my being wants him to take me in his arms, to soothe me, but his arms are crossed, and his expression is guarded. My eyes plead with him. My palms press together. Tears fill my throat, but I fight them furiously. “I — I…” I try to speak, to explain myself, but the words refuse to come. The words that used to...

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What Darren Wrote

Submitted to Contest #46

Before today Miss Evans had never heard of a six year old who could spell 'Nihilism' or 'Simulation Hypothesis', let alone use them in a sentence. She sat, slumped over the desk, head in hands, re-reading Darren's work from today's English lesson. His usual purposeful hand, the bold lettering of a child still trying to master cursive had been replaced on this particular piece of work with a frantic scratchy scrawl that went on for pages and pages of his tatty workbook. Miss Evans was at a loss to explain this piece of writing. It s...

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The Creator of Wonders

Submitted to Contest #46

The golden sun flew as gracefully as a bird down onto the house, swooped down and took a fall. Splashing bright yellow light everywhere. Collin waltzed in. The walls were cracking and the place was coated in thick ivy. Dark torn curtains hung on the wall. It seemed so odd to be here again-weird even. The short walls were whispering. All those shared times he had, with his child and wife. It was so wrong to be here, but it was the only place he had. He brushed his long fingers against the cracking walls. A piece of dry blue paint flitted to t...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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What's your excuse?

Submitted to Contest #46

"I am a writer. I love to write. But why don't I get ideas flourishing in my mind?", mumbled Kathy, a freelance writer. It was a pleasant evening. She put down her pen and marched towards her kitchen, made herself some potato burritos (her favorite eatable). She was worried about the deadline that was nearing and still she had no idea on the content. Kathy often experienced 'the blank page syndrome'. For her, starting was always the hardest part. Sometimes she underrated herself that she was not a good writer. It takes some time and effort t...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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The Power of a Piano

Submitted to Contest #46

The waves rolled endlessly. Livianna watched as tiny grains of sand were pulled into the swirling tide pools beneath the rock she sat on. Before her stretched the wide, blue-grey expanse of the ocean. A larger wave crashed into the rock and sent a spray of salt water to her face. She squinted and spluttered, attempting to wipe it away from her eyes with an arm, only to be reminded that her face wasn’t the only thing drenched in seawater.  On any other day, probably, this would have been welcome. Even that annoying sting from the salt i...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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FACING THE GHOSTLY WHITE RHINOCEROS: A writer’s journey

Submitted to Contest #46

There is a condition every writer, faced with a deadline, both fears and dreads. It is a circumstance so heinous and disabling that many writers forgo their craft altogether to pursue other art forms. What manner of insanity or hell could impose such gloom and doom? You may be asking. It is a simple term known to anyone who has every sought artist expression through pen and paper, err, word processor—writer’s block. Personally, I have never given writer’s block much thought, for I am seldom, if ever, at a loss for words. As I sit to write ...

17 likes 11 comments 11
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Inspiration Strikes

Submitted to Contest #46

 I sat down at my computer, coffee on the table beside me and an array of notes neatly stacked past the mouse. As I started to open up some documents, I pushed jagged strands of hair off of my forehead, making a mental note to get a haircut soon. With a practiced finger I pushed my wire-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of my nose and focused on the words on the screen. Scrolling down the page, I found where the section of the writing ended and began typing, my mind circling as my fingers slowly tapped the keys. I tried to think, wri...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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What If I Was A Spider?

Submitted to Contest #46

    Diane always wanted to be a writer, but she just did not know if she could do it. Diane was worried about what other people would think of her. She was terrified of failing. However, she felt incomplete. So, with a heavy heart she went outside to sit under her favorite Pecan tree to ponder the idea of being a writer and facing her fears.     She loved nature, appreciated her surroundings, and found it to be very inspirational.  A gentle breeze stroked her face as she l...

16 likes 9 comments 9
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Uninspired

Submitted to Contest #46

I sit.  I stare.  I type “I sit, I stare.”  I delete delete delete. Here I sit in my Writing Chair, a tattered leather recliner I bought used from a downstairs neighbor for twenty dollars. A bargain, really, when you think of the seven, no, eight, historical novels I have written from this chair. The late afternoon sunlight has found its way through my apartment window and onto the tabby in my lap. Together, the sunlight and cat gaze expectantly at my screen. As do I.  The deadline for the ninth adventure awaits. It ...

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Twelve Days

Submitted to Contest #46

Twelve days. It had been twelve days since she had written anything. She brought the mug- with vapors still coming out of the steaming hot coffee- to her lips and inhaled the scent of freshly brewed coffee. The aroma of this beverage was the only thing had could calm her down for the past few days.As she took the first sip of the mind-numbing beverage, the voices in her head shouting ‘WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!’ died down a bit. Their chanting got a little softer and the splitting headache that Alicia had been sporting since the past nine days- ni...

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Inspiration, Devastation

Submitted to Contest #46

Okay, a story.I stared at my screen. The slash blinked lazily on the first line of the white blank page. My fingers hovered over the keys, but none dared to launch a letter.I leaned against the backrest of the cotton sofa. Sinking into the cushion, I felt utterly disappointed by my own creativity. It seemed that I had overestimated it.I've read many short stories, novels, watched videos about world-building and shaping a good character, I was so motivated that I thought that maybe I would be able to create a world of my own and show it to th...

16 likes 4 comments 4
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