The Prose Project

Week 1

A personal experiment to write down, in rather self-indulgent prose, one memorable moment a day, for a full month.

It’s an easy enough concept, to find something beautiful, or even mundane— anything particularly memorable or interesting — and write it down. Four weeks worth of random moments, 31 days, collected on here.
There are no real rules, as I don’t want to restrict it, whether that’s in style, content, or a set length. I want it to be a creative expression of whatever I choose on the day. The core idea is that it will help me grow as a writer and as such be a good learning experience, through range of different subjects if nothing else.
I guess it’s also my way of ignoring the fact that I won’t be doing NaNoWriMo this year, seeing as I have to make my first novel readable before moving on to a second.
I’ll try to keep it down to just a few sentences a day, but we’ll see how I go.
So without further delay here is week one:

Day 1

The noon sky was blue. Not the harsh blue of mass-produced ‘fine china’, and not the soft and passive shade of baby blue, it sat somewhere resolutely in-between. The wispy leftovers of larger clouds were peppered along the horizon. There was something else in the distance as well, something that shouldn't have been disconcerting, but was. The moon, crescent-shaped and as white as the wisps of cloud, only its unnatural and jellyfish-esque silhouette stopped anyone from mistaking it for condensed water vapor.

Day 2

Reading, writing, imagining. The midnight wind is like a jet engine, rising and falling, causing something in the walls to vibrate. The time of day should not make a difference, but it sounds louder.
The music in my ear plays to the irregular bass of the wind, sometimes they are in sync and it works, mostly it doesn't. But as I read, and as I write, they both cease to exist, dissipating like steam in the air, fading into the background. They are drowned out by something else. Something… louder. Imagination.

Day 3

Seconds tick on passed, much like water flowing from a shower head, intangible and unstoppable. With each tick they mature into a larger whole, turning into minutes, before eventually entering their dotage as they become hours. No one remembers one second from within an hour.
There are 3,600 seconds in one hour. There are 86,400 seconds in one day. There are 31,536,000 seconds in one year.
A year has weight, weight that is added to our backs as we ourselves age, so do not seconds also?
No, seconds are not like water, but like sand. Crushing, inexorable, choking. A single granule is nothing, but en masse they can consume everything around them.

Day 4

The night is cool and dead, the street empty and the shops closed, their lights dull against the black sidewalk. I walk past a rubbish bin, beer bottles overflowing from within.
As I walk I spare a glance through the windows into the pub, a dismal scene. The lone staff member rests her elbows on the bar top as her fingers tap away mechanically at her phone, her eyes glazed.
There are only two customers.
I turn a corner and a cat slinks across the pavement in front of me, silent and cautious. Once across the road he stops and looks back at me, before melting into the darkness that lies out of all lights reach.

Day 5

Driving past a field of frost, the goal posts stand facing each other, mirrored sentinels over the battleground. Obelisks erected by warring clans, they stand solitary and opposing. An expanse of emptiness in-between them, it is contested ground, where battles rage until a side wins or loses.
But there is no fighting, just an empty field, grass crusted over in a shimmering blanket of frost. The field is in shade, soft shadows that will fade quickly as the sun rises and the frost melts. The field will see battle once again, before the day is done.

Day 6

The bustling sidewalk is crisscrossed with sunlight and shadow, hot and cold. After a night of wind and rain the only source of warmth is that direct sunlight. Buskers are out in force; their music cuts through the droning urban white noise like a Ferrari through a rest home. I watch them at work, and can’t help but notice the small number of coins they have earned that morning.
I never carry cash, I think as I pass, and one day no one will, does that mean the future streets will be devoid of music?

Day 7

The warmth of a car that has been left to sit in the noon sun, a direct connotation with summer, it’s like a glimpse of what’s to come.
A cat relaxing in the shade, paws stretched out lazily in front of it, eyes closed loosely against the outside world.
Writing a new beginning, with the same old characters. It comes more easily than expected, like talking with an old friend.