Author commentary on stories featured on my Freely Written podcast in March 2025: Lucky Break and Autopen.
At the end of each month, I’ll shed some light on my writing adventures.
If you’re new to Freely Written, this podcast offers very short stories written from a chosen prompt with no planning and very little editing. These stories are an exercise in letting go of perfection and embracing spontaneous creativity. You may even be inspired to write a story of your own!
Episodes are released every other Wednesday and are around 10 minutes long. Listen with your favorite podcast app or from the links below!
Ep. 136 – Lucky Break – March 5, 2025
Listen first to avoid spoilers! Find the story here: Lucky Break
Honestly, I’m not sure if this story will appeal to everyone. It’s rather niche with its sudoku theme. Though, you could swap out the sudoku jargon for another hobby. I enjoyed writing Lucky Break, perhaps for obvious reasons. It was a bit of a rant about some of my common sudoku frustrations. Some puzzles are just more fun than others. I love a sudoku that is challenging in the right way. One that makes me break out some trickier strategies, but can still be solved without resorting to luck.
Saying that makes me sound like a sudoku expert, but I’m really not. I can rarely spot a place to use an x-wing, I only loosely understand a y-wing, and I think I’ve maybe used a swordfish once or twice. Yet, I love looking at the strategies and seeing how they place out in sample games and videos by expert solvers. If you like that sort of thing, too, check out Cracking the Cryptic’s x-wing explanation.
Even if you aren’t a puzzle lover, hopefully you can enjoy the idea of a couple bonding over their own odd little interests.
Ep. 137 – Autopen – March 19, 2025
Listen first to avoid spoilers! Find the story here: Autopen
I’m trying not to bring politics into these Freely Written stories. I want them to be a break from what’s happening in this country. Yet, free writing often brings up our deeper thoughts and emotions, so it may be hard to entirely avoid it. For this story, the prompt was inspired by something in the news, though I tried to steer away from the details and let my imagination focus on the idea of an Autopen.
While I never know where a story will go, writing this story unfolded in the way I appreciate most. I was feeling pressed for time when I sat down to write, and that pressure made my mind go momentarily blank. But the show must go on. I made myself start writing words—any words—describing a person and a place and letting my imagination take over from there. While there’s not much story in this story, I like the idea of the mayor releasing control to find a joyful relationship with his autopen coworker.
If you’ve never seen an autopen in action, you can watch some short videos here: Autopen on YouTube. It’s a strange contraption that I’ve heard about but hadn’t seen until looking it up before writing this story.
While it’s fun to see how a real autopen works, I like my imaginary autopen more. That’s the joy of creative writing. You can make up anything you want and bring it to life on the page. Try it yourself and see where your imagination takes you.
Have a suggestion for a future writing prompt? Let me know! If your prompt is chosen, I will give you credit in the episode.