What is mine, what is yours? Do we want mines, or do we not want mines? We mine our minds for worthy ideas, we mine our family – for hugs and tears … When we’re young, the idea of ownership comes soon, very soon, but it can take a lifetime to understand the nuances of what is ‘mine’.
For the baby, their continuing life depends on their demands being met, are crucial, and as far as they’re concerned, their cries saying ‘that’s mine’ are paramount. They need to be fed, whenever they are hungry, and so their demands are met, almost every time.
Their understanding grows, they may have siblings come along after, or they had some from the start, and they learn that others have demands on thier parents too. Then baby is an adult, and the whole world makes demands, and they struggle to learn about, and hold onto the concept of ‘mine’.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
And of course, there are currently protesters protesting about mines, and mining, and there are a great many things to be said and written about such things. And of course we may have some things in our homes and hearts, that we can look at and happily say, ‘Yes, that’s mine, and I love it.’
Then there’s the concept of our children, and our partner too. We look at them, and can say, ‘They are mine too, and I love them.’ But such love can be shaped, wrenched away, lost, via a variety of ructions in life, and the idea of what is ‘Mine’ and what is ‘Theirs’ is decided, not by love, but by the courts.
Can anyone ever actually say about such people, ‘They are mine’? Because surely we are all our own people, no matter the love there. Love doesn’t imply ownership. Or does it?
These things are all ideas that can be explored in writing, because the writing prompt for today is that tricky and nuanced word – MINE.
Do with it what you will! Regards to all, following along on this “Fabulous February”, month of writing prompts. May your writing bring you joy and understanding.
Today’s prompt is another phrase, rather than a word. There has been feedback, indicating phrases are good, no problems with that. I was happy to know that, and welcome comments and ideas, for sure, because I want this month to measure up to the name – Fab Feb, Fabulous February!
I know I’m doing fabulously well, in having a new writing prompt to consider every single day, my creativity has kicked up, and I’m focussed on giving myself daily writing time, or at least trying to do that. Sometimes life intrudes, but the writing can happen in tiny spaces around the edges of other things.
So what is the writing prompt for today? It is this – “When the time is right …”
When the time is right, what? The strawberries will be ripe? Peace will reign over us all? You will get a new job, child, new car, a dog, cat, budgie, spouse, life! You can probably come up with lots of your own possibilities, so think about it, and get writing!
My best response to this writing prompt is – When the time is right, I will have a great poetry manuscript ready to submit to a publisher! Fabulous February is adding new ones to the poems that were already in that poetry work in progress, with interesting new ways of looking at things. I’m loving this interesting Fab Feb!
That’s what using random writing prompts does, it encourages the brain to move away from the obvious, and with creative writing, anything beyond, above, underneath and on the edges of the obvious, is so much better than the ordinary and predictable pieces of writing.
If you’re enjoying this month, and these prompts too, why not leave a message, I’d love to hear from you!
Saturday both loses and gains, when you no longer have a full time job. You don’t have the excitement of not having to drag yourself out of bed to commute to somewhere away from your home, to work hard for somebody else, doing things that may not be high in your list of great things in your life, then there’s the sometimes tedious commute back home and busily working at home to keep everything neat enough, and everyone there fed.
Saturday comes along, you can sleep in – luxurious! You’re more in charge of your tasks for the day, and can do things more in tune with what you really want to do (hopefully). You can loaf around, or get stuck into the projects that make your heart and mind sing. And so on.
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com
When you retire from paid work, the demarkation between weekend and working week is more or less gone for you, you can sleep in and loaf around any, or every day, if you wish. But if you do that, you may lose any actual sense of purpose, if you’re not careful.
For some, their sport gives them that sense of purpose, and you can give your all to your preferred game on Saturday. Or if sport isn’t you ‘thing’ there are many other hobbies you can get stuck into on Saturday, working hard at what you love to do, and still have time for that sleep in, if wanted, because you’re more likely to be doing ‘your thing’ closer to home than a paid job might be.
If you have are a writer, as I am, you may have deadlines, editors waiting on your next book, things you have to do to promote your previous book written, and these things may have to be done on days of the weekend, possibly a Saturday …
(authors own photo)
But of course, that Saturday work can bring in book sales, or payment for workshops or other promotional duties. Book signings and sales, what happy work that can be, connecting with your readers!
Freelance writing, which can feel like not really working at all, because you’re doing what you love doing the most in life, you’re writing because you love it, not because your a paid writer.
For many writers, the money earnt is far less, than what they would ever be paid in a full time job, working for someone, or something, else. Working for ‘the man’. But doing what they love makes it all worthwhile for them, despite the lower earnings.
If you’re a freelance writer, writing a book with or without a publisher waiting for you to finish, Saturday may come and go, with you barely noticing, because that book you’re busily bringing into the world is the most important thing in your head.
You might find your characters intrude in every quiet moment you have, demanding you stop what you’re ‘supposed to’ be doing, and even if you were going to give yourself a break on a Saturday, after working hard on that novel, or whatever, during the working week, your characters demand you get back to work.
as name
book promotion when ideas and characters intrude
(author’s photos)
So on Saturday you may not have time for the normal ‘Saturday’ things, sports, or other hobby stuff, not when that book demands you put your focus into that.
And of course, for many people Saturday is when they have the time to do the shopping for the household. But when your weekdays are free from having to go to work, you can go and do the shopping on whichever day you want to.
You’ll find it far easier, and less stressful, with more and closer car parks available to you. There will be fewer people in the shops, so once you have all you need, you will get served more promptly, at the checkout.
Quicker, easier, but sometimes the shops may not be as well stocked as they may be on the busier of Saturday, depending on what time you do your big shop. Decisions, decisions, if you’re a writer, you can look at the realities and make your own choices. Shop on Saturday, or another day, it’s up to you!
So being a writer, whether to do a ‘working day’ and ‘weekend day’ or not, is up to you, and maybe your bank balance – you are a writer, you write, words are your tools for work, and the things you love the most, writing, shaping the words, making sense of life, and putting it, ultimately onto a page for others to read.
Is there a reason for everything that happens, I’m wondering. Sometimes things just happen, like it or not, and all you can do, is try to find the good in what has happened, and deal with it as best you can.
Whatever the answer is to the question, is there ever a better word, for the parent of an endlessly enquiring child, than “Because …” Because it just is, because I said so, because it’s the rule, the law, the govenment says so. Because.
(Mallala Mayor Mark Wasley, local government on Australia Day, small government in action)
And if we remember our own childhood, how frustrating , yet exciting to have to go and find your own answers to your demanding questions. To find things out, to know that the stars come out at night, for reasons that are known, and that we too, can further study more about such things, and take our questions to university, and learn so many of the answers to the questions in our mind.
Sometimes, the questions are not always properly answered, but ignored by pressured parents with a cheat’s answer of “just because” or “because I said so”. Is that ever going to be a satisfying answer? No, and the answer of because, may become the very thing the questioner needs, to prompt them to look into it htmselves.
The satisfying knowledge that because x, then y, is satisfying knowledge, with it being a way to build up further knowledge, having a lifetime ‘Becauses’ as you live and experience new things. Every new idea, or journey, or task, can bring answers to questions …
The answers, the ‘becauses’, give you a sense of having a handle on life – as in, my dog likes to chase creatures, because she is a sight hound, and sight hounds like to chase and catch things, it’s in their genes.
MY BECAUSE POEM
Because we live, we will die
Because we love, we may sigh
Because we grieve, we will cry
Because we think, we question why …
So, the prompt for today, is Because – think on it, and come up with your own creative writing response. I wrote the little 4 line rhyming poem above, as an example, but I expect you will produce something much better than my own little effort, and I hope I can do something else, that’s much better than that, too.
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away”, and so on and so on … A song most of us have probably heard many times in the past … Our own yesterdays can teach us or haunt us, enknowledge us or taunt us.
Writing about our pasts, exploring history, ours or that of others, can lead to interesting stories. If we refuse to look back to what has already happened, are we going to repeat mistakes of the past? Who can know the answer to that? Well historians can actually …
Historians or writers who aren’t afraid to look back behind to look at what has happened, and considering what it happened. Whether poet, fiction writer, or non-fiction writer, the past is a thing to write about, shape, put our own mark on what has happened in the past, using our thoughts and knowledge.
We can also put a spin, or twist on actual history, change things, such as considering/imagining, what may have happened, if say Hitler’s Germany won WW2 … Life now would be very different to how it actaully is.
Writers have the power to change these things, write about them, imagine alternate pasts, with different nows. If this kind of writing interests you, go for it, in poetry or prose, and imagine possible present times, and futures, based on alternate pasts … Australian writer John Birmingham is one I know who likes to consider different results from different pasts, and does them well.
Or you can look at memoir, instead, and write actual real things that have happened to you. All of us have life stories, and at the moment, memoir is popular, we all like to watch other people, and reading memoir is a legitimate way of watching. If you consider you have lived a like and found useful and interesting things happened to you, write about it. Nobody know your story better than you know it.
Who are, and what you’ve done, can be fascinating to others, write about it, poetry or prose, and bring your past to life, by telling about it, bringing your learned wisdom into your story.
So today is your chance to do a retrospective on your life, look back to consider and reconsider, tell your truth, explore ideas, find answers, share what you know, with steps showing how you learnt them, perhaps.
Enjoy sharing your Yesterday, today! This is the day when YESTERDAY is the writing prompt.
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 