The figurative waste paper basket was full of the hair he had been pulling out over the last 47 hours; the literal one beside him was full of half starts and crumpled ideas.
In front, flanking his laptop, were two creased sheets of paper, the best of a bad bunch.
Not for the first time, he thought to himself:
How the fuck am I supposed to write a story in 250 words?
If that restriction wasn’t bad enough, he’d got unlucky with his prompt cards and now wished he hadn’t changed them.
He gulped down his umpteenth coffee and looked at each story he had. The one of the left was about a …, the one on the right about…
Both were shit, devoid of any creativity and the only emotion either invoked was imposter syndrome. For once, he’d not even bothered asking his girlfriend for feedback, ashamed of his failings.
The worst part was that he had been so looking forward to entering the competition. Since reaching the final 32 in the previous writing battle, he’d been practicing his editing skills, giving himself random prompts and hacking away at idea after idea until he felt confident that he could trim away the excess fat and write a story with such a severe word count restriction.
Writing 60,000 words was easier than this.
The clock was ticking, it was decision time.
He chose the story on the right, purely because the other had the empty coffee mug on it and then it came to him.
He began to type furiously.
The figurative waste paper basket…