On April 1st, I randomly selected 3 of your suggestions to give our scene a direction:

1. Location: Under a bridge
2. Inanimate object: Pocket watch
3. Advice your mother/grandmother once gave you: Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

And then yesterday, I wrote it (had a proper write-a-thon). All of your suggestions are in bold to make it easier for you to find them.

I Did A Thing

Before I started writing, I labeled cups for each suggestion category to allow me to physically draw suggestions easily as needed. As I organized this, I became stupidly excited (These suggestions are sooo awesome, I wanna use all of them, and I have no idea what order I’d get ’em in! Who knows what that’ll do to the scene? Who knows what’s gonna happen?). But then I realized that I can only include so many items in a scene which meant some ideas – many of them – would be left out. I wouldn’t get to play with all of ’em. That’s how improv works, I know that. But… but… BUT!

Megan suggested perhaps writing several scenes so I could use more of them (yeah, I could do that). But then my brain got rolling on the scene and, a few lines in, I knew.

It’s not a scene anymore, it’s a short story (I used many suggestions). And I love it.

I broke up the story into 8 parts to avoid publishing a single super long blog post, and so you’re not inundated with too much randomness at once. (Did you see everyone’s ideas? What story would you write with those?) I’ll post a new part every day until the end. Happy Monday and thanks for all the help, I had too much fun!

The Story: Nana Ana’s Secret Hideout

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3