Welcome to the place that is dedicated to getting you writing (again?). Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to start but have always wanted to try being a writer. Maybe you want to write the great American novel or you thought you'd write a poem about hidden life of a grain of sand. Maybe you just need a little inspiration to get you started or you find yourself just a little stuck. Maybe you find yourself trying to break out of your comfort zone or mix things up at work. Whatever your reason for landing here, practicing a little creativity can impact your life in ways you didn't expect.
But let's be honest. Creativity is a muscle and it needs exercise to work properly. That's where this series comes in. With any luck, this series will get your creative juices flowing and get you thinking in ways you hadn't before. Throughout the summer, we posted a couple of prompts every week. We cut back a little during the school year but will attempt to post at least one prompt a month. If you are interested in more, not only are there prompt sites online, we also have a prompt booklet you can get from us and enough creative people on staff to maybe come up with an idea you can run with if you come in and ask.
In the last prompt we asked you to look at late bloomers. But in addition to those that take longer to become themselves, to reach their full potential, there are those that seem to have reached their peak early, some in high school, some in college -- these are the ones that flood the mainstream consciousness with the idea that high school or college are the best years of your life. They also tend to be represented by pictures of middle-aged men in letterman jackets with beer bellies and working as car salesmen in that same media that spouts their mantras. Some peak after an early success stunts them as they fear that they can never do better and so never truly try.
It is a sad sight. Reliving glory days is rarely an uplifting experience, though it can be comforting. At the same time, it can lead to some interesting storylines, tragic or nostalgic, that can become something beautiful.
Write the story of someone that peaked early. Be sure to look at the whys and how this affected their lives. An alternative is to write two stories side by side: In one, the characters peak early. In the other, they take their time and/or overcome.