How To Keep Writing Activity 5: Write Under Pressure

When you write under pressure, you super focus your brain. I have friends who swear by this as the best way to get their assignments done, both for work and for school. If you work best like us, I recommend putting a time limit on your writing. I use writeordie.com to get this done when doing National Novel Writing Month in November! Go to the website, set your parameters, and WRITE. Or it will start erasing your work!!! PRESSURE.

I love write or die because it's so thrilling.

Go there. Select your level. And write! You aren't allowed to stop! Stop, and your writing will begin to delete itself. You will never get it back!

If you know of a similar program, leave mention of it in the comments! =)

You feel pretty psyched up for a time limit, don't you? Feel your blood pumping?

Did you know that the increased oxygen levels to your brain are helping with the super focus and allowing you to pump out such a high word per minute number that you are blowing your OWN mind? Yeah, that's right. You're a pressure junky. (Okay that's going a little far. Still. You get my meaning.)

Interested in one of the short stories I've completed through pressure writing? Of course you are! Since I've also found that it's easier for me to have a prompt, I keep a hidden task on my About Me page on tumblr (URL: meisjunk). Periodically, I change the task, but for now it says:

TELL ME I'M BEAUTIFUL. Then tell me your favorite place to be. I will write you a short story about it. You have to make it known you’ve read this page by bringing this up though!

The lovely Alex from URL alsextehgreat gave me the prompt:

Hello beautiful. <3 My favorite place happens to be laying in bed next to my boyfriend / fiance / thing and watching Supernatural.

And the following short story I wrote below is the result! Enjoy. =) Comment. Etc.

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I tried to regulate my breathing as I darted in the front door, tossed my coat aside, kicked off my boots, hopped out of my socks, and skipped steps up the stairs.

I was late.

“It’s startinnggg!”

“I know!”

I couldn't stress the last vowels like he does. I’m out of breath. I’m trying to reach the TV.

“Hey, babe,” he said and kissed my cheek as I melted onto the comforter. Without looking at each other, he handed me a bowl of wontons and beef chow mein. Perfect. My favorite food, my favorite man, my favorite show.

“Sammy.”

“Dean.”

“They love each other so much,” I whispered. He just rolled his eyes, but I knew he thought the same thing. He has to. It’s canon. Tumblr says so. I pecked him on the cheek for understanding and never admitting to it and returned my attention to the current provider and consumer of my heart.

I think we played footsy that night. I can never remember who initiates it, but we tend to find one another just to touch, to make sure the other is still there. It’s a comfort, especially when our focus is elsewhere.

“Pizza next week?”

“Sure.”

“Cool.”

I loved setting up for the following week’s premiere as well. It was never-ending, epic, a promise he always intended to keep to me.

Too bad I couldn't keep it for him.

*******************

Today I roamed the house. Nothing more. I would dress for work, but then I’d change my mind. It was like every time I tried for the door, something came up.

The first time, the cat started howling on the stairs. I tried to catch him and see if everything was okay, but he was so spooked by whatever it was that he wouldn't let me get a hold of him.

Poor thing. I’d have to ask him to make sure the cat hadn't been bitten when he got home. Why was the cat avoiding me?

I shrugged it off and chose a second outfit. My closet needed cleaned. Shit was strewn from one end of it to the other, as if he kept kicking the latest pileup in and closing the doors. Why had it gotten this far? I’ll clean it when I get home.

I headed for the door again then remembered appliances in the kitchen were still on. He always forgot to turn them off. I did a complete walk through. Coffee pot off? Check. Stove off? Check. Microwave door shut and timer cleared? Check. Huh. Maybe he was getting better.

I chose a teal outfit. This one was soft and my favorite. I couldn't remember the last time I’d worn it. Last month? Nah, maybe it hadn't been since last September at his parents’ house. Whatever. I headed for the door.

It opened before I could reach it. He was home early! I probably almost definitely looked like a bouncing puppy as I streaked toward him. It felt like it’d been weeks. Why did people go to work and stay away from their families for so long?

I…kept going. I turned. Watched as he shuffled up the stairs.

Wut.

“Hey. Don’t forget me.”

He didn't even look back. I followed, but slowly. The slightest warmth was creeping up my spine, only just now signaling my previous chill. How long had I been cold? Was I okay?

He headed to the room across the hall. Weird.

“Hey,” I said. Louder this time. What was going on? Now I was angry. I was some sort of anxiety stricken and not able to even leave the house for work and worrying over messes in the closet that should have been cleaned and here he was without a care about how I was doing or where I had been and why the hell didn't I have a peck on my cheek and—

He lay his shirt on the bed, and then lied down across the bottom, his arm over his eyes. He really didn't think he was going to sleep that way?

“Snap out of it! Talk to me! Don’t forget me!”

I jumped at the sound of a ringtone I wasn't used to. What happened to his creepy Supernatural scene change sound?

“I really don’t want to talk, Mom.”

I couldn't move, I realized. I was rooted to the spot, neither seen nor heard nor mobile. I was just…there.

“Look, it’s been 2 months, okay. Give me more time. I’ll move back into the other room eventually.”

His mother was obviously grilling him like usual. Had we split up? Had I lost my memory? I brought my hands to my face. I could see them perfectly. I could feel them. I was still me. I could feel the warmth of tears falling from my lashes even as I watched his eyes tear.

“I don’t want to think about it.” A pause. “Because I don’t!” Oh god, his voice had choked up, and I knew I was going to cry, and I had to look away, except this time when I faced the hallway and could see into our actual room, it was blackened.

Great. Now I was hallucinating.

“She burned in front of me and there was nothing I could do. Screw you too for caring.”

I felt the phone even as it came at my back, passed through my head, and landed in our room across the hall, whose blackened walls never faded into the cream color walls I was used to. They just stayed black. Burnt.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs ached, itched, were melting. I started coughing, feeling smoke coming from my fingers as I hunched forward and quickly skittered atop hot ashes in the hall and then onto baking wooden floors in our beloved room.

The whole thing was black, save for a white spot on the ceiling. Where I’d burned.