Disclaimer: These writing prompts are borrowed from the blog Sunday Scribblings, a blog that specializes in getting the pen to paper, and the brain (more specifically in this case, MY brain), to moving. Bless these lovely ladies for providing just the thing I need. My plan is to work through the prompts as steadily as I can and have fun with it! Writing is work, but it isn't dull work. I feel like that should be an Anne Lamott quote or something. This 'creating stuff from the strength of my own brain' is hard work, dude. Anyway, here goes.
#1 What I Would Do If I Knew I Would Not Fail
I would fall. Probably face down, nose scraping on the concrete. Because, even though I might know that I'll come out victorious, I still have every right to screw up on my way getting there. Who knows? I might forget in that one embarrassing moment, the certainty of my success. I might feel pain, and I might cry. Regardless of the outcome, I will still feel useless, stupid, and incompetent. I will still wish for a DeLorean-shaped time machine to make it all better.
But most of us work for something much bigger, much more powerful than fear, and that's why we keep going even though the ground is a scary place. We keep dreaming of cozy bookstores, Muppeteers, hot air balloons, and England in autumn, just to spite failure. Just to prove that it is a much less worthy opponent than most villains. To laugh boldly in its face and declare yourself its lord and master!
Sure it might be nice to forget failure, to slide through home plate every time. Then again, a charismatic hero is nothing without the unflappable, relentless foe. You know, the guy (girl) with the brown cloak (blue windbreaker) and the monacle (bifocaled reading glasses) and the blue leather boots (yellow suede pennyloafers)? Without that, you might as well go shove the Earth out of orbit and watch it crash into Mars while narrowly missing the moon.
