The question isn’t “How do I make up a story?”, as much as it is, “Where is the story lying in wait for you?” 
Consider this picture. Imagine what you might hear in that place. How does the air feel? Who is the dark figure? What day is it? What season?
You don’t have to make anything up. Just study the picture for at least five minutes and place yourself somewhere in or out of the scene. Are you standing? Do you know the dark figure? Are you walking on your way to somewhere? Where?
We carry a near-infinite library of visual, auditory, olfactory and sensory memories. There is only one fee for admittance – the willingness to step away from the busyness with which we distract ourselves. Please give your stories thirty minutes today – five to occupy the image or any other image, twenty-five to write. If you want a prompt, here you go: I’d nearly forgotten the moment and the place. Please send us what emerges.
Here is Lynnette Sheppard working from one of the bi-weekly prompts I send out. If you’d like to be added to that list, write me at bstarr67@gmail.com
I know the work I came here to do. Until I don’t.
There are days when I feel certain of my life’s work. It’s as clear as the mountain air that I sustain myself with in summer. I can focus and work is no more effort than breathing.
Trouble ensues when my life’s work, my contribution is different from day to day. Am I a photographic artist? A movie script consultant? A nature essayist? A fiction writer? Mists move in obscuring the pathway and I no longer know where I am to go.
I am suffering one of those confusing times right now. Nothing seems good enough or compelling enough. Or maybe I’m feeling that I’m not enough. You’d think by one’s sixth decade that these doubts would not exist any more. To be sure, I’m stronger than I was in my younger days but still…..
Just writing this is a welcome reminder to slow down, breathe deeply, find perspective. My task is to remember that any and all work is ultimately a response to my life’s Vision. I am Healer. And that shows up in so many ways. Creating art and sending it on its way. Writing and letting go. Responding when needed. Following the passion.
My first profession as critical care nurse was in service of this vision. And as any healer knows, she is actually healing herself. When I can recall the greater source of my vision, the “work” takes care of itself. I am nourished by any and all of these pursuits. I send the residue out to the world. Maybe it helps, perhaps not. It’s not my job to know. But it is my job to keep it flowing. That’s all.
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