By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor: The 315
“What are you working on now?” As an artist, you either hope for or dread this question. If you are deep into a project and things are flowing beautifully, you likely cannot wait to tell your friend or family member all about it. But if you’re stuck, if you have no idea what to write, paint, draw, sculpt, photograph, or film next, those words are the last ones you want to hear.
“Spark” articles in the 315 are prompts. They are designed to get you started on that next project, or to move you along in your current one. These prompts can be used for any type of art, in any way you wish. You can take a photograph of or start painting what you see in your mind when you read them, use one line of the dialogue in a play or film, start a YouTube or TikTok on a similar theme, or write the lyrics or first lines of a novel that come to mind when you read them. Pick up on one word, one theme, or one line and go with that to launch a new poem. Research some real-life topic they address and host a podcast. As long as the article sparked an idea in some way, it lived up to its name.
Spark: A pink blanket
No matter what else she did in life, he would always associate her with a pink blanket. There was nothing whimsical or warm about the mental link. No babies or puppies were swaddled in one on any warm or cool or peaceful or chaotic afternoon. No kittens frolicked on one at any animal rescue they visited on any dates. Nothing like that. They met at work, and a pink blanket was the thing he saw her wrestling out of a bag in the back of the store room on his first day.
Spark: Car alarm
She had it in her notes to tell her students to use their car alarm as a safety device. According to past advice, setting off the alarm would annoy people so much, they would come out to see why you were making such a racket, see you were in trouble, and call the police. But she had never gotten a call like that, not in her thirty years on the force. Not once had anyone ever called and said they heard a car alarm, ran out, and the person needed help. Today, she feared most people would be too busy listening to whatever played in their ear buds or on their screens to pay attention to another person’s car alarm anyway.
Spark: A night out
“Fancy days,” were always his favorite days. Those were the days Mom and Dad picked him up from school together and everybody went home and he did homework and then it was time to go out to dinner. Mom and Dad laughed when he called those days “fancy days.” They said there was nothing fancy about the place they went, it was just fast food. But it was fancy. It had a fireplace built into the wall that was always lit that they always sat by, and whole place smelled like the best food in the world, french fries. Days that smelled like french fries and looked like pretty fireplaces had to be fancy.
Spark: Green beans
At his first wife’s house, green beans tasted like the inside of a can. She was never much of a cook. Green beans got dumped into the bowl without draining them first, warmed a little, and served. The second time he got married, green beans tasted like they belonged in a salad. Only fresh would do, and they had to be crisp and carefully plated and eaten a few at a time. He got married a third time. When she made green beans, they tasted like garlic, like the huge cloves of garlic she mixed into them before carefully placing them on the table.
Spark: Everything shower
Anna guessed these “everything showers” she kept seeing on TikTok were supposed to make her feel pampered, relaxed, pretty. They made her itch. Worse, there were so many products involved, she had no idea what it was that made her itch. It could have been the anti-bacterial soap that really wasn’t necessary when she also had a body wash. Maybe it was the body scrub, with those rough little grains she probably didn’t need when she used a wash cloth. But she also had both body lotion and a fragrance spray on, so maybe it was that. Or she was just allergic to the luxury brand she’d treated herself to this week. Some treat.
All “spark” scenarios are fiction unless otherwise noted. Names and places are either fiction or fictionalized. Unlike the rest of the content on this website, everything in a “spark” article is up for grabs, including character names and descriptions.
Photo credit: stock photo
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