Below is the transcript for Season 1, Episode 120 of Freely Written, a podcast by author Susan Quilty:
Welcome to Freely Written where a simple prompt leads to a little unplanned fiction.
[Light piano music]
Hi, friends! I’m Susan Quilty and today’s prompt is Widgets.
Today’s prompt came out of nowhere. Meaning, I genuinely can’t think of a reason the word widgets would wander into my mind. I simply realized that I didn’t have a writing prompt for this week yet and there it was, widgets, just popping out of nowhere. So, I went with it.
It’s fun when that happens, and it’s fun when someone else gives me a prompt. If you have a suggestion, let me know! You can connect with me through my socials, which are mainly Facebook and Instagram—links in the show notes—or through my website: SusanQuilty.com.
My website will also tell you all about my books. And, as of this week, my website also has a page for quick quizzes on book trivia. So far, the quizzes are about books that I love, books that I’ve written, and stories from this podcast. I made them as a fun side project, while taking breaks from the book I’m currently writing.
Speaking of side projects, here’s a reminder of how my process works on this podcast: I sit down with a prompt and write whatever comes to mind, with no planning and very little editing. I then record the story and share it with you.
Let’s see how that turned out today:
Widgets
“Is a widget a whatchamacallit?”
Dave looked up from his book, unsure if Sue was talking to him.
“What?”
“Is a widget a whatchamacallit?” Sue repeated, without looking up from her workbook.
“I don’t understand the question,” Dave answered with a furrowed forehead. Nonsensical questions weren’t unusual when talking with Sue, but this one had him flummoxed.
“Neither do I,” Sue agreed with a shake of her head.
Dave watched as she erased something she had written, then held her pencil above the page, considering another approach. He turned back to his book but the idea of widgets and whatchamacallits tugged at his attention.
“Are you going to tell me?” He asked, once it became clear Sue wasn’t going to volunteer the information on her own.
“Tell you what?” She frowned at the page, pursed her lips, and turned her head to one side. Whatever was written was still worrying her, whether she wanted to say more or stay silent.
“Whatever you were asking about,” Dave responded with a sigh. “Widgets and whatchamacallits.”
“Oh, that.” Sue settled the open workbook against her bent knees, tucked her pencil into the crease of its spine, and stretched her arms overhead. All without taking her eyes away from the page that had captured her attention.
Dave waited.
“It’s a prompt,” Sue said at last. “A writing prompt that says to write a story about a whatchamacallit. Any whatchamacallit, I guess. But I can’t think of a whatchamacallit that would make for a good story. Unless maybe I can figure out what kind of whatchamacallit I want to write about.”
Dave frowned, processing that information.
“And the widget comes in… where?” he prompted uncertainly.
Sue finally looked up, studying him as if the answer were obvious before saying, “Well, if the whatchamacallit is a widget, I can do something with that.”
“Well, sure,” Dave said with a sarcastic shrug. “Who wants to write about a whatchamacallit when they can write about a widget?”
Sue squinted at him, then turned back to the open page. “You think a widget is better than a whatchamacallit?”
Dave sighed. The conversation had him off-balance, which was also not unusual when talking to Sue. He tried to remember her original question. It had something to do with a widget and a whatchamacallit, though he couldn’t remember her exact question.
“What did you ask me before?”
“When?” Sue had started to write something in her workbook only to change her mind and ply her eraser again. She brushed the eraser dust away, as if it would disappear into the air, and pressed her lips together in thought.
“The first thing you asked,” Dave clarified. “About the widget and the whatchamacallit. What did you ask about them?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Sue shrugged. “Just… something…” Her words trailed off as she brought her pencil to the page, then shook her head and removed it again.
She turned to face Dave, finding her footing by saying, “What did you just ask?”
“I asked what you asked,” Dave said. “Earlier. About the widget and the whatchamacallit.”
“Oh,” Sue shrugged again. “Just if a widget is a whatchamacallit. You know, so I could maybe write about one.”
“Couldn’t anything be a whatchamacallit?” Dave asked, genuinely confused by her confusion. “I mean, isn’t a whatchamacallit just what you call a thing when you’ve forgotten its name?”
“Right,” Sue agreed, “but would you call a widget a whatchamacallit? Or is that a different kind of thing?”
Dave narrowed his eyes. Sue widened hers.
“I don’t understand the question,” Dave repeated, giving in to her confusion.
“Exactly,” Sue agreed. “It’s impossible to understand.”
Dave tried to resume reading, putting the whole predicament out of his mind, but he didn’t get through two sentences before looking up from his book.
“If you can call anything a whatchamacallit, then a widget can absolutely be called a whatchamacallit. You just have to have someone forget what the widget is called.”
Sue nodded as if she were three steps ahead of him.
“Yes, but what is a widget called? Can you call a widget a whatchamacallit when a widget is already the same as a whatchamacallit?”
“What?” Dave dropped his book in his lap, losing his place as he ran his hands over the lower half of his face. “Wait. Are you asking if the word widget is used the same way we use whatchamacallit? Like, does widget just mean a thing with a forgotten name?”
“Duh,” Sue said simply, unsure why Dave’s face was turning a splotchy red.
“Then, no,” he answered with a carefully controlled sigh. “A widget is not a whatchamacallit.”
“Okay…” Sue said uncertainly. “Then what is a widget?”
“Oh, well, a widget is a…” Dave began to flail for an answer. “Widgets are those little app things on our phones, or they could be some kind of gadget, or maybe parts to a bigger machine, or… uh, yeah. I think that’s it.”
Sue considered his answer before asking, “If they’re parts of something bigger, do they have other names?”
Dave started to answer, then stopped himself, seeing where this was going.
“Like names you might not know?”
“Fine, yes,” Dave agreed angrily. “Whatever. But you wouldn’t call just anything a widget. Only certain things. And you know, none of that matters because anything can be called a whatchamacallit, so if you want to write about a widget, just write about a widget and call it a whatchamacallit.”
Sue raised her eyebrows, surprised by his outburst.
“Um, okay, thanks.” She hesitated, then carefully said, “But I already have a different idea for the whatchamacallit. The exercise is to make up your own prompt, and I was going to use widgets, unless that’s too close to a whatchamacallit.”
Dave stared at her, blinking fast then slow.
“You know what?” Sue began casually. “I think I’m just going to use it. Widgets seems like a pretty good prompt.”
She made a note, then set her workbook aside, saying, “But I’ll write about it later. I have no idea what I’ll write about widgets.”
The End
Thanks for joining me! I hope you enjoyed that wacky little story. If so, please share it with your friends and go back through my past episodes for any stories you may have missed. And don’t forget to check out my website—including my new book trivia—at SusanQuilty.com.
Until next time, try a little free writing of your own. Let go of any planning and see where your imagination takes you.
[Light piano music]
