I’ve been reading a book called My Name if Lucy Barton. The author reminds me of students I’ve taught who learned to write on their own, without much guidance or instructors telling them how to write. It’s fiction (at least I think it’s fiction), but what is most striking about the story is how honest the narrator is. She’s blunt, not fancy. She repeats herself at times, as we might if we were storytelling aloud. She doesn’t dress up her sentences or her story. It feels as if she has found an editor to remove obvious language mistakes. Even so, the clunkiness of her writing remains at times, and it underlines her truth-telling.
So here is your challenge. Write five honest statements about yourself. That’s the only rule. Let your honesty make the impression. I’m not asking you to embarrass yourself or reveal secrets you’ve kept for years. That’s for Facebook or your journal. I’m asking you to simply state five honest things about yourself that you could write about.
Here are five of mine:
…I picked up a handful of snow today and wept.
…Cooking fills up a welcome couple of hours daily.
…I take three steps forward for each two steps backward and count this as my usual progress.
…The things I write surprise me, as if someone else wrote them.
…I like to notice when happiness overtakes me.
12 Responses
Not too late. It’s great you’re exploring this site and finding writing challenges that make you want to sit down and bang on the keys! Brava!
I know it is probably past the time anyone will read this – I am late to the party, but…
Each trip I take to the ocean, my first look out across the water makes me cry
My love for my dog is boundless and unconditional
The first warm day each spring reminds me how lucky we are to be alive
I wish I was more social
I hope I write a novel someday that people will actually read
Wish I had never eaten an animal (or part thereof)
Would like to like more people as much as I like my dog
Should have listened more in class – including yours Ann
Remember smells and tastes from my childhood rather than events
Going to a funeral tomorrow – hope it reminds me to savour every moment.
(Better make that savour every nice moment, don’ t intend to dwell on the box up front and it’s contents)
I am over fifty and just now enjoying shoe shopping. My husband didn’t allow me to be frivolous like that. He’s not around anymore. I almost cried the other day when I picked out some beautiful pastel, run around shoes that were just for fun (not work or church or something serious).
I survived a stroke and have had to relearn how to talk, and walk and write again. Creating ideas with words brings me such joy and contentment. It is tremendously draining but I feel so alive when I write on a consistent basis.
The quiet of the hours before dawn is many times worth more than all the other hours of the day to me. There is a hush upon the world that strengthens my soul and speaks of great things.
Whenever life is getting to be too much, I either escape to my garden or pick up my camera and look for unique things that need to be captured on film.
My little dog has been a constant friend to me and has provided puppy therapy and a place to dry my tears on numerous occasions. She is old now and can’t see so well, but she still has the heart of a lion and scares the workmen more than my big dog who licks their hands!
I see character weaknesses in my child and it scares me. She reminds me of her father at times and he scared me. I have to believe that the love and good things that I pour into her will help her be better than both of us.
It is hard work for me to spend money. I had a paper route as a kid delivering the Star Weekly once a week. I would buy a grape crush pop after doing my route which was around a small cove with umpteen stairs at most places I delivered. I collected once a month and did all the stairs that day.
I never married and never wanted to. My father always joked about being trapped by my mother into marriage; I never wanted that to be said about me.
I like to do things myself rather than hiring someone to do the job. It gives me pleasure to tackle a challenge and accomplish the task.
I cook from the ingredients and never eat out.
I buy 25 pound bags of rice, black beans, green peas, lentils from an organic foods dealer but in the supermarket I never buy organic stuff.
The quietness outside my home in the mornings (when taking the trash out), has been replaced by the rumble of the nearby highway and it makes me sad.
Trying to assist elderly parents makes me hyper-aware of every sign of aging in myself.
I’m glad that I still find the beauty of creation in odd moments of my life and it always makes me smile.
Watching my kids/young adults having adventures in their lives makes me want to have some adventures too.
Recliners may be the chair that kills America because they make it far too easy to sit a bit until the urge to do something passes.
I can think of three-
I keep trying to dream myself to success instead of working for it.
I’m comfortable with enjoying the small things life offers.
The pain of losing outweighs the joy of winning (I just returned from a business trip to Vegas).
The small things are vastly under-rated.
I wish that I had started paying attention earlier in my life.
If I am ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s like my father, I want to have a doctor assisted suicide,.
I was much more in love with the idea of being in love, than really loving my husband.
I thank God each day for His gift of a quick wit and dry sense of humor.
I am still expecting the next great thing to come into my life and i PRAY THAT i WILL RECOGNIZE IT WHEN IT COMES.ALONG,
Paying attention! A gift that keeps on giving.
There have been many times when I have thanked God for YOUR quick wit and dry sense of humour too Peanut
Hello Peanut! Your first statement could’ve been my own. Now that my husband is studying his genealogy, I realize I have many questions about my parents, grandparents and other family members that will forever go unanswered. Gramma used to say ‘Too soon old, too late smart.’ to me all the time.