Crunch: The Morning

Writing Exercise #23

This Crunch was inspired by

Mark Dykeman

’s question from way back at the start of June:

So I thought I would give it a crunch-sized go!

If you have ideas for Prompts, Crunches, Sprints, Relays, or other writing exercises in the future, please leave them in the comments! If you would like to write your own take for this exercise, please comment with a link so that I can see what you wrote and support your work, maybe even share your version with my subscribers. Please let me know if you have any thoughts, comments, or constructive criticisms as well!

Enjoy!

Crunch: Write about an amnesia situation but make it good fiction

I…I don’t know what I was going to write.

I’m not entirely sure who I am. I woke up this morning—there’s a laptop here, so I opened it and it was opened to this page. There was a prompt and so I’m writing.

Is this supposed to be fiction?

I can’t open my phone because I don’t know the passcode. I can see some notifications on it. A text from “mom” that I can’t read. There’s empty bottles of whiskey in the living room. There’s no food in the fridge. I…what happened?

It’s not normal to black out and forget everything. If I even blacked out.

Where are my keys?

What is this place?

I decide it probably would be good to get my bearings outside. I find something that looks like a car key but the key is so old and worn that I can’t interpret the logo on it—I couldn’t find a beeper so it looks like this is going to be guesswork.

At least the keys to the apartment are still here. I went out for a moment and looked for a car that looked as old and beat up as this key.

Where am I even going to go? I can drive around for a bit but none of this helps me. I go to the street and look up and down—there’s a gas station, great.

I brought some snacks back and…now this. If you know my phone passcode please let me know.

(250 words)

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The Promptee Has Become The Promptor

Your feedback helps to improve my writing. I would really appreciate a comment on your thoughts on this writing exercise. Consider telling me your thoughts about:

1. Are you forgetful?

2. Have you ever waited to write something for your substack until midnight the night before? Just curious. No reason.

3. What are your favorite gas-station snacks?

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Photo by Thimo van Leeuwen on Unsplash

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy! Come back next week for another writing exercise!

Hey, before you go—have you read my recently published Serial, SANDBOX EARTH yet? You can buy a hardcopy too! Check it out at the link!

God bless!