August 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill

“her bell tinkles”

Waking from a dream,  she wondered if the sound was coming from the lovely fairy she’d met in a luscious garden near a bubbling spring. Uh, no. She was awake now, yet the sound persisted. A door bell? In her groggy state she wasn’t even sure she had one. Then she remembered. She didn’t, but she wasn’t home. This bed was not her own, but the narrow one in her daughter’s guest room. Who would be at the door at this hour? Why didn’t her daughter answer it. She looked at the time on her phone, which she had slipped under her pillow. 10 am. Her daughter was at work. She was here by herself. How ironic. Because her daughter had said after the episode that took her to ER, “I don’t want you going home to your house. You’re all alone there.” Well, yeah. She got out of bed, straightened her pajamas and made it to the door. “Hi, I am the nurse your daughter hired to look after you. May I come in.” Oh that girl. She’s forgotten how much I enjoy my solitude.

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com

It can be hard to get going sometimes, and a writing prompt can help! Once a month, I post a five-minute timed writing prompt. You’re given a quote from something I’m reading, and you respond for five minutes. There’s no stopping, correcting, editing, nothing…just write. For five minutes. The prompt does not have to feature in your writing at all, it is simply a springboard. Where does the prompt take you? Write it out.

If you are a paid Patreon supporter, send me your response and your short bio when you’re done for a chance to win the monthly contest. Winners are featured on all my socials/website/newsletter. You never know where five minutes could lead….

For the current monthly writing prompt, please visit Patreon.

July 2024: Heather Saint

“restless in a permanent way”

but I don’t want to…I don’t want to stay here but I just installed a woodstove.  I want to travel but I don’t want to see people.  I want to stay home but I want to see far\flung family.  I am restless, I can’t decide. Wait a year they said, my year is up and I still don’t know what to do.  I want, I don’t want, stay, go, read, sit.  My restless drives me yet I am paralyzed with immobility. Restlessness is just a nagging ping in my brain that says do this, go there, see that.  but I want the quiet, the soft, the safe. there it is – Safe. but safe is boring. I am not wanting boring, but I don’t want frightening.   Safe and not boring? what to do, what to do…

Heather Saint is a world traveled native Montanan, settling into retirement in NW Montana.