TIC TOCC week 1

I mentioned the other day that I received Kat's first newsletter with her TIC TOCC prompt on Tuesday.

The whole point of TIC TOCC is that you can do something creative in just a short amount of time.  Kat provides a prompt, you set a timer and go to work, whether you're drawing, writing, painting, it doesn't matter, you just create for 10 or 20 minutes.  So, after a couple days of putting it off, I finally sat down to work on the exercise.  You can see this week's prompt (and wonderful interview with Michael Nobbs here).  I chose to write with the prompt as inspiration.  Here's the unedited result:

She held her breath.  Her heart beat in her ears and the bark of the tree poked her through the back of her dress.  She knew that she shouldn't be wearing her Easter dress outside like this, but she'd put it on anyway, before running outside to play with Derek.

She could hear him now, calling, "I'm going to find you!"

Her chest ached from holding her breath so she let it out in a gust, quickly gulping down another mouthful of air.  Derek crunched through last years dried leaves.

"You can't fool me," he yelled.  He was getting closer.  Enid tried to breathe quietly, short breaths.  She was feeling a little bit dizzy.  An ant crawled up her arm and she bit her lip.  She didn't mind ants, but this one tickled as it crawled toward the lace at the edge of her sleeve.  What if it crawled in her sleeve?  She tried to blow it off her arm.  First try didn't work.  The second was successful.  She didn't hear Derek anymore. Uh-oh, had he heard her blowing at the ant?  Where was he?  Enid held her breath again and moved in slow motion to try to peer around the tree.  The bark pressed into her cheek.  She didn't see Derek.

"Gotcha," he cried and toppled her onto the ground.

Giggles sprung up in her throat and she wriggled out of his grip, rolling away from him.

"No you don't!" she choked through her laughter.  She managed to get up and start running away.  She knew he'd catch her again.  And she knew she'd be in trouble now.  Her dress was dirty, though she didn't dare slow down to look.

"You can't get away!"

Enid shrieked.  She wasn't really scared, but a mixture of fear and excitement bubbled in her stomach.  Then he tackled her, simply pushed her toward the ground.  She shrieked again.

"Ha-ha!" he cried triumphantly, "The Queen is unseated by barbarian armies!"

"Alright. Alright," said Enid, trying to catch her breath.  "You win, just like always.  Now, can I be the barbarian army?"

"Not wearing that."

Enid sat up and looked at the dress.  It was covered in mud and grass stains.

"My mom is going to kill me."

And that's where my timer beeped. 

Thanks, so much, Kat!