Rashad was at Deepwoods Writers Retreat for inspiration. Leaning back in the chair, he stared into space and muttered, “Why is this so hard?”
Another Retreater stopped, laptop under her arm, and said sympathetically, “Writer’s block?”
“I paid for inspiration!” He dismissed her.
“Uh, sorry.” She fled as he tipped until his cheek pressed against his keyboard, staring at desolation. A rainbow striped unicorn appeared. “Cliché,” he sighed.
“Nope, Toilet.”
Bolting upright, Rashad exclaimed, “What?”
“Toilet the Unicorn. So, these writer’s blocks you’ve been whining about? They’re a gift. They’re not for walls! The blocks your grandkids leave on the floor? Sure, they kill our feet! But the kids imagine they’re building Towers to the Stars!”
“What?”
Toilet sighed, “Dullard Humans,” then vanished.
Guy Stewart is a husband supporting his wife who is a multi-year breast
cancer survivor; a father, father-in-law, grandfather, foster father,
friend, writer, and recently retired teacher and school counselor who
maintains a writing blog by the name of POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAYS (https://
The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Each month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.
You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
This month’s challenge was to write a 125-words-or-shorter flash fiction piece keying off the words “writer’s block,” whatever the writer might interpret those words to mean. While normally the challenge is open only to members of the CODEX online writer’s group, this time Pete decided to up the ante by inviting the members of the Stupefying Stories Secret Inner Circle to submit entries as well. The results have been… interesting.
3 comments:
Sigh. This is one of those times when I wish there wasn't a word limit. I really wanted this one to run longer, branching off from this point and going something like this:
“Toilet the Unicorn. So, these writer’s blocks you’ve been whining about? They’re a gift. They’re not for walls! The blocks your grandkids leave on the floor? Sure, they kill our feet! But the kids imagine they’re building Towers to the Stars!”
“What? Wait, did you say 'for walls' or 'four walls'? Do you mean that writer's block is a metaphor for being obstructed but not boxed-in, as if my writer's journey was a path through a maze, and this blockage is only my subconscious telling me to try a different direction, make an oblique move, to take a non-linear path as it were, to—” [and on and on and on, with as much deconstructionist LitCrit psychobabble as you can muster, until we get to the absolutely perfect ending]
Toilet sighed, “Dullard Humans,” then vanished.
The word limits of the Pete Wood Challenge are not for wimps.
Bruce: BRILLIANT ENDING! Wish I'd thought of it!
Pete: THAT is for certain!
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