Writing Prompt #2

You find out that you will die in five years or less. How did you find this out? What would you do in those five years?
 /** NOTE : obviously this is a fictional account as I have not been given 5 years to live. **/

 
"Five years to live." The words left the doctors lips and crashed into my brain leaving me reeling. They began a looping echo while I stared stupidly at him. His lips continued moving and random sounds reached my ears, but it was as if he had suddenly switched to speaking chinese.

I had gone in for my regular checkup and had mentioned to the doctor that my headaches were getting worse and that I had failed to have my monthly hormonal changes for the last 3 months. He had ordered an MRI. "Just to be safe", he said. When it was done and I was back in his office awaiting the results, he looked at me gravely and said the words that everyone dreads but never truly expects to hear. "Tumour."

He said it was still small, just sitting on my pituitary. In fact, it may not even be cancerous. However, the odds of that were slim, given my previous hypothyroid-like symptoms and my malfunctioning reproductive hormal system. The surgery would be a small quick procedure to remove the growth, and we would only really know in five to ten years whether it would metastasize to the rest of my brain. I would live a normal life for those first five years. After that, well, it was anyones guess.

Once the shock wore off, days later, I began to plan. If I only had five years left to live, by god, I would live them! I would travel to all the far-off places I had ever dreamed of : Ireland, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, The Maldives, Bhutan. I would take my family with me and make as many memories as I could. Memories to last them a lifetime. I would write, every day. I would give my dream of becoming an author my fullest attention and effort.

My diagnosis would have given me financial freedom. My dread disease and life insurance would pay out allowing me to stop forcing myself out of bed every morning to get to a job only to travel back home in the evening, exhausted. I would have the freedom to try, and possibly fail, at anything I chose, giving myself the opportunity to possibly succeed beyond my wildest dreams. I would not waste time doing something simply because it is practical and brings home a paycheck.

I would go back to studying. Maybe I could get a teachers diploma, allowing me to work half days and get a break during school holidays. With the extra time, I could study other subjects, just for the fun of it. I would work as a teacher, filling those eager faces with a love of learning.

If I were told I had five years left to live, I would prepare a lifetimes worth of letters, emails, messages, to remind the ones I love that though I might be gone, the love will always, always remain.

Writing Prompt #1

Describe an important item from your childhood. Why was it important and where is it now?

When I first read this title, I immediately drew a blank. An important item From my childhood? When I closed my eyes to think, the first thing that popped into my mind were my bookshelves.

It seems a strange choice, I know, but there it is. Let me explain.

As a child, I was an extremely avid reader. Reading was my joy, my refuge, my first love. When the children at school or at home were cruel, my friendships in my books never failed me. When the world was difficult to understand, there was always a quote or a saying to provide explanation or solace. I was never alone so long as I had a book. I went on adventures with my friends : "The famous five", "The secret seven" and "The three investigators". I solved mysteries with "Nancy Drew", "The Dana Girls" and "The Hardy boys". And I fell in love along with Jessica and Elizabeth from "Sweet Valley High".

I primarily read from the library, bringing home 7, 10, 16 books at a time and devouring them in the two week period. And slowly, over time, my personal collection of books grew. Old baby favourites like "Cuddles Bath Time" and "Dandy Duck" began to vie for space next to "Rumpelstiltskin", "Old Friends, New Friends" and "The good-bye day".

One day, my dad brought home two blocks of wooden shelving. They were old, slightly rickety and filthy, but the wood was solid underneath and he promised we could fix it right up. Fixing those shelves became a family project. While dad banged in nails and supports, my mom, my brother and I used damp cloths to clean up the layers of dust and dirt that coated those old shelves.

When they were finally clean and sturdy, we all got out the paint brushes and had a ball painting them white. And while my mom complained about the smell for days afterward, you could tell she was proud of it as well.

When the paint was dry and all was ready, my dad drilled holes and fixed in the L-brackets that would support the shelves and fix them to the wall. We then all pitched in to neatly set our books onto them.

I think it was the first project we had done together as a family.

When circumstances forced us to move out of the family home, we took just 4 things away with us: Our beds, our clothes, the gifts my mom parents had given her on her marriage and those old shelves.

For many years after that, they stood proudly on their legs of bricks in my parents garage. And so that garage became my refuge. "Mom, I'm just going down to the garage", I would say, and disappear in there for hours.

Today, twenty years after we moved, those same shelves under a new coat of paint and some new legs, stand proudly in my own home. They form the place of my refuge, still. They now form my library.

Train your brain

There is an old adage that in order to get better at something, the only thing that will help is "Practice, Practice, Practice". The results of practice has been seen the world over : A person who does not know how to draw takes up a 365 day challenge and at the end of it is creating amazing images; A person takes up knitting and at the end of the year of practice is producing the most beautiful clothes, throws and toys; A computer programmer does programming "katas" and trains their brain to work more efficiently or within a specific methodology or a new language or even simply learns about an area that they were not proficient in.

If this has worked for so many, why not me? I am a computer programmer and I have seen the benefits of Code Kata's. While going through my current ebook collection which recently grew to incorporate a friends collection, I found a book called "1000 Awesome Writing Prompts". This sparked the idea in my head. If it works for drawing and works for coding, why can't it work for writing? I am going to give it a try. As I complete each exercise, I will post it up here on the blog and you can follow my progress. Occassionally, I will divert to using a writing prompt from my pinterest boards, but that will simply add to the number of prompts I use. I will write for no less than 1000 prompts.

Join me on this journey and let me know how I'm doing in the comments. Please, please comment. I will appreciate any comment, positive or negative, as it will only help me grow as a writer.

So lets start on this journey together and see how we go.

Photograph

~ Ed Sheeran

Loving can hurt
Loving can hurt sometimes
But it's the only thing that I know
When it gets hard
You know it can get hard sometimes
It is the only thing that makes us feel alive

We keep this love in a photograph
We made these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Hearts are never broken
Times forever frozen still

So you can keep me
Inside the pocket
Of your ripped jeans
Holdin' me closer
'Til our eyes meet
You won't ever be alone
Wait for me to come home

Loving can heal
Loving can mend your soul
And it's the only thing that I know (know)
I swear it will get easier
Remember that with every piece of ya
And it's the only thing we take with us when we die

We keep this love in this photograph
We made these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Our hearts were never broken
Times forever frozen still

So you can keep me
Inside the pocket
Of your ripped jeans
Holdin' me closer
'Til our eyes meet
You won't ever be alone

And if you hurt me
That's OK, baby, only words bleed
Inside these pages you just hold me
And I won't ever let you go

Wait for me to come home [4x]

Oh you can fit me
Inside the necklace you got when you were 16
Next to your heartbeat
Where I should be
Keep it deep within your soul

And if you hurt me
Well, that's OK, baby, only words bleed
Inside these pages you just hold me
And I won't ever let you go

When I'm away
I will remember how you kissed me
Under the lamppost
Back on 6th street
Hearing you whisper through the phone,
"Wait for me to come home."

Superman (It's Not Easy)

~ Five for Fighting

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naïve
I'm just out to find
The better part of me

I'm more than a bird,
I'm more than a plane
I'm more than some pretty face beside a train
It's not easy to be me

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
'Bout a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd but don't be naïve
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
And it's not easy to be me

Up, up and away, away from me
Well, it's alright
You can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy or anything

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naïve
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
Inside of me, inside of me [2x]

I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
I’m only a man looking for a dream
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
And it's not easy.
It's not easy to be me.