PRACTICE

Jeff Goins has a great post on goinswriter.com today about the difference between cartels and clubs that's fueling my imagination. For our prompt today, write about a cartel. Think Mexican drug cartels and East Coast mafia families.

Write for fifteen minutes.

When your time is up, post your practice here in the comments section. And if you post, please be sure to comment on a few posts by other writers.

Mafia

Here's my practice:

What can I say about my time in los carteles? I won't say it was the best time in my life, but it had it's benefits. Fiestas every night. As much liquor as you could drink. The girls, oh god, the girls. They flowed through that place like a fresh running stream.

But the best times were when something bad would happen. Yes, it sounds strange, but that's when everything would change from a party to a family. When Tomás got picked up by the federalis everyone sobered up and got into six or seven of our trucks silent. We drove out far into the pitch black of the campo. We drove for hours and we didn't know where we were going. We were just waiting to be told what to do. Finally, “El Segundo” pulled onto a one lane dirt road heading up to a mesa and at the top of the mesa we stopped. Everyone got out. The doors slamming sounded like cannons being shot into the night.

Segundo crouched down in the center of the trucks and lit a cigarette.

“We're going to kill them, Segundo,” said Benito. “Don't worry. I'll take care of it. I'll hit them tonight if you ask. Just give me the word.”

“Are you so quick to go to war, Benito?”

“They took, Tomás,” said Alejandro. “We can't sit back.”

“Why not?” said Segundo. “You know what war brings? Nothing. Right now, business is good. We're making millions every day? What will happen if we go to war? Those profits will turn to nothing.”

“This isn't about business, Segundo,” said Benito. “This is honor. Family.”

“Yes, they took my nephew. But how many of us will they take if we go to war with them? How many of us will they kill? We declare war and in a years time there will be silence on this mesa. Is one stupid boy worth all of that, Benito? Alejandro?”

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris, a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

Share to...