No one knows what they’re doing

Readers rarely, if ever get to see a messy first draft of a well-loved story. Today, in the world of curated feeds, mistakes and crossings outs are relegated to another universe. The Before is politely asked to leave the building to make way for the After making its sashing entrance.

In my creative writing workshops, a prompt whether a quote, a sound, a memory, an overheard conversation or other, is a jumping off point, not an academic task. There is no right or wrong way to approach it, even if participants assume there is. Sometimes something comes to mind immediately, other times you suffer brain freeze.

This, however, doesn’t make you a failure, all it means is that you have to find another way to get started using what you have in front of you.

If you encounter a prompt that flummoxes you, begin by picking it apart, re-write it in your own words, then choose a word, a phrase, or image that grabs your attention. Here is your beginning. Give yourself permission to spend time riffing on it. Your response may not be what you believe is expected of you, but this is a limiting belief you’ve selected for yourself, not the prompt, the workshop facilitator or the other writers with you.

No one knows what they’re doing not even ‘proper writers,’ and it is in this uncertainty where the joy and the discomfort of the creative practice rests.

#midweekmeanderings