I'm writing as fast as I can.

I joined Steemit in January 2018 because of my friend @jarvie, an accomplished photographer and blockchain enthusiast, who started empressing his dislike on other social media platforms about how they were limiting his posts unless he paid to promote them.

I too had seen fewer people interacting on my Wordsmith Holler page, and it was frustrating because I wanted readers to weigh in on my writing. At the very least, I wanted to know if I touched one life. Most days, I felt like I was talking to myself.

All of this happened around the time of my stroke in July 2015. Man that was a challenge, and rather than go into all the details, suffice it took months of relearning how to walk and write. Thankfully, I retained most memories and only appeared slightly dyslexic when I'd scramble up thoughts while talking.

At that point I just decided, "Screw it. I'm writing for myself and I won't worry about who reads it," and I started adding to my blog and my page and just wrote as fast as I could.

Still, it is nice to receive praise and feedback, and about that time I discovered Steemit and the #Freewrite prompts.

I love prompts because they cause me to step out of my thought pattern and write. The time limit actually helps me to get to work. In fact, many of my conversations and poetry have come to me like the muse whispered in my ear. Then I take off writing.

With the exception of Twilight Settles Around the Texas Spoon, all of these took five minutes to write. The poem about the west Texas dance hall took longer because I needed to rhyme some words and make the right fit. Other than that, all of these scribbles came from @mariannewest's 5-minute freewrite prompts. Some I wrote with the The Most Dangerous Writing App - most dangerous indeed - and most of them I just scribbled down on my blog.

So, I have been asked to pick my favorites. These jump out at me because they were different and I engaged the most people in the comments.

1 - A Toddler at Church

This came from Day 117: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: church and is semi-autobiographical in that I channeled myself at a small country church in 1967. Plus, I thought about trying to keep my own kids in line at church. For a kid, the room is big and full of people. And everyone is so quite. Then there is a feeling of anticipation as everyone waits for something to happen. I tried to capture those feelings in my post.

2 - A Day of Rest

I hiked up a trail to Mary Jane Falls near Mt. Charleston and captured an image of a black ant crawling across the top of a fallen tree. This post takes my memories of that hike and the eventual rest at the falls. Whenever I am in the mountains, my stress escapes through my pores and I feel like a new person. I tried to capture those feelings in my short story.

3 - Close Enough to Touch

Marianne's prompt was "nothing" and this idea came to me almost too fast. In high school, I nearly drowned. And it was so peaceful. No struggling. Just the feeling that I'd done everything I was supposed to do and now it was over. Then I was pulled out of the water. I imagine running out of air in space is close to this feeling of drowning. There isn't much you can do about it. You might as well take one last look at planet earth.

4 - Twilight Settled Around the Texas Spoon

I anchored the evening news for the CBS affiliate in Lubbock, Texas. My car broke down before I took the job, so I walked to work everyday and back for the first month. In that time, west Texas must have had a dust storm every week. The dust filled your nose and got in your hair and it was very miserable. I nearly quit after 6 weeks. I stuck it out though and lived in west Texas for nearly 12 years.

One of my favorite places was the Texas Spoon. It was actually called the Texas Cafe, but there was this big spoon out front and everyone just called it "The Spoon." They hosted live bands on the weekends and had this wonderful smoked turkey sandwich; just smoked turkey, mayonnaise, and bread. You made it pop by dipping it in BBQ sauce.

This freewrite took longer than 5-minutes, but it's one of my favorites.

5 - I'm The Dude, Man

My first serious girlfriend had a composer friend who wrote the music for Joel and Ethan Coen's Blood Simple. She handed me a cassette of the music before the movie came out and I just needed to see the movie. The script blew me away and I became a Coen Brothers fan.

One of their best movies stars Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, who spends most of his time slacking around and bowling. The characters are just "so-LA," as they say, and I often see this movie playing at Best Buy or Target in the background. I stop for a moment for a laugh.

That's how this story came about. I figured The Big Lebowski would likely be playing during an armed robbery.

And those are my favorites #freewrites. I thank all of you for commenting with your feedback. Honestly, that is what makes this worthwhile for me. However, I just enjoy writing and would probably do it even if no one ever read another word.

Thanks @mariannewest for the prompts and @freewritehouse for the honor.