Challenged to Write

CHALLENGED TO WRITE

Here is a little food for thought.  What is it that feeds your writing bug?  What is the recipe, your favorite one that says to you, “This piece (thought) will be interesting but fun to write…” and then you are suddenly starving and can’t wait to dig into the challenge.  Most of us favor a specific genre or maybe more than one but similar usually just like we favor certain foods and cooking styles.  What challenges your appetite to write?

Any of you who have read my work for any length of time know that I write mostly Christian articles, devotionals and poetry as well as health and nature articles, poems and an occasional recipe.  Every now and then I write a story and I’ve even written a novel and have another in the works but sharing my faith and my understanding of God and of nature and trying to live a healthy life is where the heart of my writing beats steadily. 

Sometimes a thought, a prompt or a situation will lead me in another direction away from my usual genre like the two short stories I recently published at Authspot:  WHAT IS GOING ON IN CARDDERSVILLE and my most recent THE POLYNOWSKI FILES…both are mystery-suspense on the light side and not my usual genre.  Both of these stories are the outgrowth of a challenge given…and I found it challenging and fun to write them.  (If you haven’t read them, please do and let me know what you think.  I love a good critique.  It challenges me to write better.)   

We all need to be challenged from time to time.  I am thinking of doing another mystery about stew and cleaning the refrigerator; then again maybe not.

Perhaps I should have posted an article, recipe or maybe a deep and dark mystery about the stew I made the other day for dinner:  I’ll just call it “Waste Not-Want Not Stew” but I want not to make it again or even share it so I won’t tell you what I did suffice to say it was edible, just about.  The whole mess came about while I was cleaning my refrigerator.  I ate it and I’m still here.  I didn’t get food poisoning, though I was a bit concerned after the first few bits.  When you are 70 and living on a fixed income you learn to hone, fine tune your survival skills and know what waste not want not truly means.  Enough said.

I tell you true though, when things get tight, I’m challenged to write. It has been a long month between paydays but I survived and here I am turning shapes into letters and combining them into words on my screen.  I hope this comes out better than my stew.  

There are other things that also challenge me to write; something I observe on the streets of my town or while I’m out shopping or just bumming around enjoying the day, an overheard conversation not meant for my ears but it caught my attention, my writing groups as we toss ideas around, prompts given in my groups or prompt sites that I have bookmarked and can pop up and reflect on.  All or any one of them may give my writer’s bug a shot of enthusiasm and energy, give me that little push I need to get writing and sometimes it is the last few days between pension checks, a freak October blizzard and 20 degree weather that challenges me.

Stay challenged and keep writing.  It is good exercise for mind and soul.  We all need exercise.  Mystery Stew or Waste Not, Want Not…Grab the challenge and run with it.  Maybe I really should do that, or you can.