Category: The Writing Life

# Trust30 Prompt: Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.

I have always wanted to write a murder mystery novel. I love the great British mystery writers of the whodunit genre because the adventure was in the chase. Seldom did Dame Agatha detail a grisly crime scene. Simple poison could do the trick, and then the sleuth would match his or her wits against the killer. I want to use my creative gifts to both delight my imagined audience and to honor, in a sly way, all those terribly interesting and eccentric people it has been my honor to meet. I can see each one of these real people contributing to the gene pool of my fictional characters, lending depth and more believability than the same crew could muster in real life.

I have cheated a little in response to this prompt. You see, I have already begun my mystery in bits and pieces. One piece was shared last week as my fifteen minute story that had to be told. As to obstacles, there are none except the biggest ogre of all–resistance. In this fallen world, resistance is the weed in the garden during these last days, of the noxious flora that threatens to choke out all other verdant life. My plan is simply to name the enemy, refuse to underestimate it, avoid poisonous playmates but call upon friends and loved ones who know me and are committed to my finishing the project well, and capturing every available moment of writing to fight resistance tooth-and-nail until it is defeated and I am finished. Then celebrate. Another trophy to lay at Jesus’ feet.

#Trust30 Prompt: Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive. Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

If I had one week to live I would probably still do this writing challenge as my “last hurrah,” but mostly spend time laughing, singing, and storytelling with my dearest ones. Everything else would have to go and the bucket list would be burned and quickly forgotten. Since I do not actually know how much time I have left, I can improve my present by jettisoning every “improvement strategy” that separates me from, and does not cause me to grow in, my most important relationships. After all, was it not the great philosopher who said, “Without you there is no me.”?

#Trust30 Prompt: If we live truly, we shall see truly. – Emerson  Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

I admit it. I am a peregrine. My bucket list of visited places includes a Number One for each continent–including Antarctica. In North America I want to visit Great Slave Lake; South America, Machu Picchu; Asia, Kyzyl; Australia, Uluru; Africa, Victoria Falls; Europe, Too Many To Count; and Antarctica, well, The South Pole. But my first choice is just that because it carries a task with it. I want to visit Hadrian’s Wall in order to transverse Britain by foot. My plan is to lead a Reformation tour in 2012 or 2013 and hold back enough income to take two weeks for this project. This will also mean getting in better shape than I am in presently. This summer I am building up my walking time and I am watching what, and how much, I eat. I hope to lose 55 pounds in thirteen months to pull all of this off. And, of course, I want to write about it, so I will continue my habit of writing every day. My second task is to be accomplished a year after Hadrian’s Wall: To spend a month barging through Europe.