writing prompts. and chocolate.

A friend just sent me a care package full of interesting books and movies and bits and pieces. Among them: a book of writing prompts. I’m trying to think of a way to describe what this is like, for somebody who writes for a living, but nothing fits. A box of truffles? Maybe. Some of the prompts just don’t strike you as interesting (orange cream, not something I seek out in a box of chocolate). Some you want to devour immediately. Others you think about for a while.

(Aside: today in a shop I saw chocolate flavored with absinthe. Really. I asked about it and the shop owner said the FDA was always trying to put that particular chocolatier out of business, but hadn’t yet succeeded. I have no interest in trying chocolate with absinthe. None.)

Here’s a writing prompt from the book that made me think. That I’m still thinking about:

A phone sex worker is ten minutes into a call when she realizes she’s talking to her teenage son.

This doesn’t work for me for a couple reasons. First and foremost — I can’t buy the idea that it takes her ten minutes to recognize her son’s voice. But it is interesting. So now I’m playing with the premise, trying to tweak it to something more viable.

A phone sex worker is ten minutes into a call when she realizes she’s talking to

…her adult daughter’s new boyfriend.
…the professor whose lectures on medieval romance she’s been attending two afternoons a week
…her neighbor’s ex-husband

I’m not going to write this scene or story, but it does pose interesting possibilities.

Any possibilities occur to you?