Fiction + Poetry Prompt: Start or end your piece with “Guilty as charged.”
Non-fiction Prompt: What were you last guilty about? How did you deal?

Prompt: Write something, anything with as many or as few heteronyms as you wish.

The way he addresses you is unacceptable. It’s honestly scary the way he talks to you. At least you never gave him your address. He hasn’t got a single redeeming attribute about him. I attribute his poor manners to his bad upbringing. Just look at the content he posts on social! Clearly, he’s not content with where he’s at in life. Also he’s developed a complex over the fact that you dumped him. Like, dude, it’s not that complex, you just suck. I hated how he basically saw you as an object. I try to stay out of people’s business but I definitely had to object to that. I feel like he’s made it his pet project to project his hurt onto you. He’s trying to wound you but it’s obvious he’s the one who wound up miserable.

Prompt: In the form a recipe, list all the things you need in order to have a productive writing session.

Recipe for that elusive bitch, Inspiration

1. Sit down at the computer to write.
2. Get up and plug in the twinkly lights to liven up the cave you call an apartment.
3. Sit back down at the computer, open a new Google doc.
4. Get up and light a candle.
5. Refill the water in the flower vase.
6. Put on a contemporary piano record.
7. Give the dog a treat.
8. Brush the dog until you have a heap of hair the size of the dog.
9. Check the weather.
10. Make a snack, crack open a sparkling water.
11. Sit down at the computer to write, snack and seltzer at hand.
12. Re-read what you wrote yesterday.
13. Re-read what you wrote in your undergraduate short story workshop.
14. Get up to turn the record over.
15. Sit down and wait for that bitch, inspiration.

Prompt: Write something, anything with as many or as few heteronyms as you wish.

My submission, a story fragment:

A dove lands on the wire mesh that covers the outdoor rec area. It will shit all over and no one will clean it up. The life of a convict: not only incarcerated but also covered in bird shit.

I was charged with a dozen crimes, only one of which I committed. Trespassing. I dove into the pool of a rich man hours after he was robbed by someone else. But they only caught me.

He was an art dealer; Polish, I think. I don’t remember much from the trial, other than a low, simmering anger that never abated. It never flared though, either. Even when I received my ruling.

Guilty, of all charges.

I was high as a kite when I jumped into his pool. I’m sure that came up in the trial but I can’t remember.

It was midnight and the water shone like the hard face of a cut gem. I had the strongest conviction that I had to break the surface. You understand. Do you understand?

I took off all my clothes. I knelt and put my hand on the plane of the water, moved it back and forth, as if to polish it. I let the water still completely, reharden, before I leapt. When I came up, red and blue lights turned the night into a nightmare.

I look up at the bird perched on the “roof.” In other parts of the prison, men get to actually go outside. They’re surrounded by chain-link fence, yes, but they can see the mountains in the distance, sagebrush, wild turkeys. I can only see cinderblocks.

Because they found bodies in the house that I am supposed to have robbed.

I remember one moment from my initial interrogation. My Cousin Vinny style, I questioned the detective as he questioned me.

“I left the house, stashed the shit, and came back to jump in the pool? You really believe that?”

He really believed that, as did a full jury of my peers, apparently.

Prompt: [Pick a sense] Something about the rain [smells, tastes, sounds, feels, looks] different today…

Something about the rain sounds like mother-nature’s lullaby.

Prompt: Fiction + non-fiction prompt: Pick a scar (physical or emotional). How did you/your character get it?

A facial anomaly piques the lieutenant's eye. I watch anxiously as he charges over to Private Dallas, presumably to investigate his broken nose.

The night before, Private Dallas had emerged outside of the barracks with his Confederate-flag blanket and the stench of dollar-store whiskey. He mistook me for the enemy, and an exchange of unarmed friendly fire followed.

After watching Dallas ashamedly exchange words with the lieutenant, the lieutenant began marching towards me. I immediately stood still and placed my hands behind my back, awaiting threats of nonjudicial punishment.

To my surprise, the lieutenant said, "I'm proud of you." "In my platoon, nobody will call anyone any kind of n***** again."

"But next time, hit below the neck, not the face."

After a brief moment of relief, I began to realize that the lieutenant would not fight any of my battles for me. And there would be many more blows to be exchanged in the years to come.

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.