It started as a running blog. I named it Running, Writing, Other Stuff. Sure, sometimes I wrote about other stuff, but the emphasis was running. Five of my first eight posts focused exclusively on running. It morphed quickly, though. There’s only so much you can write about running, or maybe I should say there’s only so much *I* can write about running. Plus, how many people actually want to read about running? Based on the sales of my book Bad Ass, which is entirely about running, not so many.
Other topics tugged at me. Sobriety, mental health, rock and roll, right-wing fascism… Two years later, I renamed my blog. Now it’s all about The Other Stuff.
Which other stuff?
Any other stuff, just about—all those topics listed in the last paragraph plus literature, celebrities, humor, my memories, even some fiction and poetry. But the one topic I’ve studiously avoided is sex. I’m not the kiss and tell sort of guy. At Sunday morning breakfast in college, some of my friends bragged about the gory details of their nighttime misadventures. I kept my mouth shut and blushed whenever someone tried to pry.
Not too long ago, I read a blog post by a guy I follow(ed). He wrote about an encounter with a woman that got as graphic as “and then she reached down and unzipped my trousers…” Luckily, he didn’t elaborate on the dot dot dot, but it all left me feeling queasy and uneasy, and after a bit of thought, I unfollowed him.
You’re probably thinking, “What a prude!” Whatever. It made me uncomfortable, so why read it? And if I can’t read it, imagine me trying to write about sex.
A few days ago, I read a post by Georgia Kreiger* where she talked about writer’s block and how prompts are an effective way to get unstuck. She listed ten prompts and invited her readers to give one a try. I commented “I could use a prompt right about now. I’ve been sitting with a blank brain for a week.” As it turns out, one of her prompts shook loose some memories, and I immediately started crafting this story in my head.
“Write about your memory of a fragrance or odor.” I thought about my prom night kiss with a girl named Laura.
Georgia responded to my comment: “I hope one of my prompts will spark your interest.”
“Oh, one already has, but it’s a topic I’ve always avoided.”
This is where you chastise me: “Oh, for God’s sake Jeff, are you still talking about sex? A goodnight kiss isn’t sex.” Maybe I am a prude. Besides, to seventeen-year-old me, that kiss was sex. Laura was only the third girl I ever kissed. And it was the first kiss I didn’t like. I never mentioned it to anyone.
The band Camper Van Beethoven has a beautiful song called All Her Favorite Fruit**. The tune is haunting, enveloping, captivating. It often plays in my brain as a backdrop to my daily activities. But the lyrics, the lyrics stop me in my tracks every time I hear them:
I drive alone, home from work, and I always think of her
Late at night I call her, but I never say a word
And I can see her squeeze the phone between her chin and shoulder
And I can almost smell her breath faint with a sweet scent of decay
Wow, poetry! When I read that lyric, I think of my kiss with Laura. Her mouth tasted weird. It didn’t taste bad, not like halitosis, or garlic, or how I imagine my mouth might taste around 10:30 a.m. after three or four cups of coffee. Laura’s mouth tasted like the sweet scent of decay—but that’s something I didn’t know for another decade while I waited for All Her Favorite Fruit to be released. “Eww” is probably the word I assigned to it at the time.
It’s incredible what writing prompts do for me. I seem to have an infinite number of stories trapped in an asteroid belt in my brain. The right prompt nudges a story out of its stagnant rotation, allowing it to hurdle into the center of my consciousness. In my biweekly writers’ group, our leader gives us a prompt and up to forty minutes of writing time. I never fail to get a flash of inspiration. I read the prompt and within a minute or two, I’m furiously writing as if I’ve been planning the story for a week. I’m sure prompts don’t work like this for everyone, but for me, recently, it seems to be my best source for story ideas.
Happily, Georgia’s prompt sprung free a forty-five-year recollection of an unpleasant kiss. And given my love of music, I’m unsurprised that memory is mashed together with a song lyric as well. While it’s my preference to keep my intimate encounters private, I’m grateful for the excuse to weave together this story. If you know any sites that feature interesting writing prompts, please send them my way.
* This is the fifth time I’ve referenced Georgia’s blog in the last ten months. You should probably check it out. Person on the Page (georgiakreiger.com)
** All her Favorite Fruit is inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s book Gravity’s Rainbow, a story that takes place near the end of World War Two. Staying on theme, the song contains an old-fashioned term for POC that might offend some listeners.