Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s writing prompt.
For anyone new to The Writing Shed, this is currently the core of my activity here on Substack.
I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I am returning to full-time education in October (yes, I know, at my advanced age!) I’ve spent the last week mulling over how to fit a full study and research schedule into a life already packed with the everyday. Therefore, this month will be the last in which I publish a weekly writing prompt. From October I plan to craft them monthly and you may also be grateful to receive fewer missives in your inbox too.
And, after asking whether there were sections you would miss, a resounding no-one said they wanted to keep the Weekly Soul Shine, Weekly Writing Competition and Missing in Action, so I have removed them.
Have fun and enjoy your week’s reading and writing.
The Prompt
We often have a chance to re-do some aspects of life or learn lessons through repetition. Today, the challenge is to create a character who needs several attempts to learn something important about life.
If you feel like sharing your thoughts please add them as a comment below. I’m always curious to read what everyone creates.
I have had an abiding interest, nay passion, for all things alternative, spiritual, conspiracy and different since I was a small child. My father, bless him, made the mistake of reminding me I could always ask a question, and the one most frequently out of my mouth was ‘why?’. It’s still the case today.
He introduced me to different ways of looking at the world including (but not limited to) the joys of ley hunting, astronomy and dowsing. He was a misfit who loved marginalia and when I look through the books of his I still have, I can see where he too asked the question ‘why’. It was his insatiable appetite for information and knowledge that unwittingly fed into my own.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been revisiting my BA dissertation. The course director for my MA had asked if he could read it. As there are only two copies, one with me, the other in Manchester I wondered how I might get it to him. At first the solution seemed to be photocopying; later I took a look at OCR technology but that barely worked. Finally, I decided the only recourse was copy-typing to create a digital version. I asked a friend, who said yes but couldn’t do it until the end of the year. Eventually, it dawned on me I needed to do it myself.
So I settled back to enjoy a journey back into the dim and very distant past.
And what a ride it’s been. On the one hand, I’m so pleased I’ve had a chance to re-read what I wrote at 20. On the other, I have found myself in parts frustrated, annoyed, and irritated by the lack of thought that went into it. My internal conversation runs something like ‘Where on earth did that come from?’, ‘Why is there no translation for this Latin quote?’; and my favourite, ‘There are so many dots to join up here and there’s nary a one in sight’. Alongside the spelling mistakes (I’d like to say typing errors, but as Mum kindly typed it for me on her classic typewriter that would be mean), grammatical errors and general structure, it has been an insight into how powerful life experience can be.
The exercise has also offered me a suggestion, or two, for the research I’d like to pursue next year. No, it won’t be improving on what’s gone before but themes have popped up out of my inner woodwork that join the dots, suggest additional questions and ponder a few life-long questions about how the world works.
On the whole, it’s been a fruitful experience, reminding me of past passions and interests, and bringing me full circle to this point in time, right now.
Reflect
I include a reflection opportunity with every writing prompt because our writing always wells up from our inner landscape.
Have you ever revisited a period in your life, either deliberately or unexpectedly? What happened and what was the outcome?
If you’re a writer who wants to manifest your writing hopes and dreams from the practical and pragmatic to the esoteric and spiritual, or who would like to clear any subconscious self-sabotage you may be experiencing, why not work with me? To find out more head over to my website by clicking the button below.
With love, light, and laughter
Linda
x
(Image by feladombra from Pixabay)
I went back to school in my 50’s. Never regretted it!
What can I say? My BA dissertation was rubbish. And that's not just my opinion. It got an F. For fail. Good job I did rather better on the rest of the course and got the 2:1 that was a huge relief. By the time I did my Masters (in my 50s), I'd moved on, a lot. Somehow got a Distinction in my LLM. That dissertation was invited for publication, but I split it up an self-published in the trade press because I thought my argument mattered to real people rather than just lawyers.
But my real learning is that none of it actually matters. I did my first degree because I loved language and it was better than working for a living. I did my Law degree because I'd spent so many years regretting not having done it in the first place. I did it 'for fun'...which delighted our course leader.
And now...now I'm doing things that don't need any formal education at all.
Whatever your reasons for going back to your studies...I hope it brings you to where you want to be.
Good luck!