A prompt & a pearl: Week 11
A writing prompt and bit of writing advice/insight once a week in 2024
I’m working on a chapter, Peleona, about being a fighter. When I came home from first grade crying because I was being bullied, my second mom Millie took me out to the backyard and taught me how to throw a punch—a straight right, a jab, an upper cut. She put her hands out in front of her and told me to swing, correcting me as we went—keep your thumb outside of your fist, don’t flail, punch with precision, know where you’re aiming and land there, the force comes from your legs. I swang with everything I had. At one point, I hit so hard, Millie’s hand twisted back. She yelled, “Puñeta!,” as she shook her hand vigorously. Then she grabbed my hands, turned them over as if surveying them and said: “Ten cuidado con esas manor de madera.” That’s when I learned the power I had in my hands, and that’s when I started fighting. Both bully and bullied, I spent years using my fists to punch and pummel. The violence hit fever pitch in third grade. I was all of seven, eight years old.
No one asked: “What happened to you?” They only saw a problem child: “What is wrong with you?” What no one knew was that I was molested around that time and I was enduring a lot of abuse at home.
What I was really saying, over and over, with each punch, slap and yank of hair, was: “Help me. Help me. Help me.”
I keep going back to the climax scene in the movie Creed. It’s the twelfth round of the match between Adonis “Donnie” Johnson and “Pretty” Ricky Conlan. It’s been a blow for blow, intense match where Creed has more than shown himself a fighter in his own right. He’s a mess; can’t open his right eye and his body is battered, but he pleads with his trainer, the legendary Rocky Balboa, to let him finish.
Donnie: Don't! I have to prove it!
Rocky: Prove what?
Donnie: That I’m not a mistake.
The Prompt
Look back at past behaviors that you have been judged for and/or even you judged yourself for: What was happening around that time in your life? Can you trace that behavior to something that happened to you? Have you judged the past versions of you? What would you say to that younger you?
The Pearl
So often we try to figure things out in our minds—answer questions we have about a story, a plot twist. The epiphanies more often than not happen on the page. So write. Even on days when you don’t want to, write. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write whatever comes. Don’t let your pen leave the page/Don’t let your fingers stop racing across the keyboard. Leave room for mystery. Just write. Learn to trust that wild mind of yours. The best way to do that is to write, write, write.
Reading should also be a part of your writing practice. In On Writing, Stephen King writes, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Reading allows you to witness the possibilities of the craft. As you read, you accumulate knowledge about what has been done and how it has been done. Then you can take this into your own writing, to see if and how you can do the same, if you even want to. We learn how to write through writing and reading and practice. There is no other way.
I love you. I believe in you. Hold fast.
~V