Illumination Writing Challenge
That One Quote You Will Never Forget
It might be in this story; you will have to read it to find out
About a week ago Britni Pepper suggested a writing prompt in a comment on one of my articles. I thought it was a brilliant one, but one that took a little bit of work and careful consideration.
Britni suggested picking out a line from a story that you find worthy of highlight and featuring it as a quote as if it were from someone famous. Then, as I understood it, to build a story around the quote.
As to the topic of highlighting, I did my mini rant (well, just an observation really) a bit back about what I consider to be over-highlighting. No sense rehashing that, but I have my own particular strategy for highlighting.
I do it for one of two reasons. One is if I think the writer has said something particularly noteworthy, and I use the highlighting to tell others about it. “Hey, everybody! Look over here at what so and so wrote!”
The other time I highlight is when a particular word, or sequence, or turn of phrase just grabs me for some reason. Often it is humorous, but sometimes it just is the magic that happens when certain words are put together.
Perhaps it is a bit ironic that Britni suggested this because one of the phrases that has stuck in my mind for some reason is hers and comes from her (now famous) story about good travel without much luck in the romance department; or so it might seem.
The phrase that stuck is one where she is dining with her traveling companion and, “sent smouldering glances across the table.” I cannot explain why, but that just implanted itself in my brain as noteworthy. I loved it. In any case, if you haven’t read this, you are probably the only one left that hasn’t and you better get to it:
So, since Britni threw down this particular prompt gauntlet, I have been looking for phrases to craft an article around. I found a few, but none of them really spoke to me as a catalyst for a whole story. Or, probably more correctly stated, my creativity just wasn’t working that great that day.
Then, finally, this morning something did the “jump off the page” thing for me.
I am not surprised that it came from P.G. Barnett, because I pretty much always find something “page-jump” worthy in his writing, I really enjoy seeing a new article pop up from him. Today it was him saying that he replied to a prompt from Sherry McGuinn and I had not seen his reply as yet.
Sherry asked us what our mantra was these days, and if it was like hers and not all that positive and uplifting, she wondered if we couldn’t collectively come up with something that was more worthwhile and positive. Here is here initial post:
Paul, and many others, did a great job responding to Sherry’s prompt, offering up some genuinely positive outlook and some great takes on mantras that we all might benefit from at least a little.
Paul’s mantra is short and sweet, but nothing short of powerful for anyone that writes:
Write something
Paul clearly lives by his own mantra, because by the date stamps it looks like he responded to Sherry on the same day. I loved the flow of Paul’s article and the way he repeated his mantra throughout — something which I believe is inherent in a mantra. That little detail eluded a lot of us. Not Paul.
But it wasn’t until almost the very end that the quote that needed highlighting popped out, and here it is:
“If I ever stop focusing on consistent production I know I’ll simply wither into nothing but a pile of dust that will scatter from the downdraft of the ceiling fan in my office.” — P.G. Barnett
Like I mentioned, I am not always able to define what it is exactly that makes me want to highlight something. It is when something bounces into my brain and grabs hold of something and doesn’t want to leave. I can’t tell you ahead of time what phrases or sentences might do that. I just know that they do.
Maybe this particular phrase doesn’t resonate with you. That’s okay. It does to me, and that is what matters most when I read things. But there might be other things that grab hold of you and won’t let go in Paul’s writing. In fact, I am willing to bet you that there is!
So, try it out. Read Paul’s response to Sherry about mantras; and if that thing that grabs you and won’t let go isn’t in that story, then go on to another one of Paul’s. It is in there for sure.
I guarantee it.
I invite you to play along on this one. It is pretty fun to pick out a quote from someone and write about it. You are already reading stories I bet, so half of your work is done!
Diana C., Joe Luca, Henery X (long), Matt Lillywhite, Eddie A Tejeda, Gena Vazquez 🖊, Geetika Sethi, Kristin Wilson, Adrian Drew, Amy Marley, Tim Maudlin, R Tsambounieri Talarantas, Tara Blair Ball, Steve Campbell, Shelby Church, Rasheed Hooda, Mary Holden, Holly Jahangiri, Aurora Eliam, CMP, Paroma Sen, India Snow, and Dr John Rose
Please make sure you tag me when you do!
If you like this, you might like some of my other recent writing:
A recent poetic response to a prior challenge:
And another more spontaneous poem:
Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.
