Writing Prompt: Balance
When You Try To Balance A Writing Prompt
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, May 9th
Balance. It is such an exciting word with so many different meanings and derivatives.
The first thing that came to mind when I read the word for today’s challenge was an old fashioned weighing scale that the merchants used in India and Pakistan when I was a child.
Of course, those scales weren’t this fancy or clean at any time. But you get the picture, I hope. The standard weight goes on one side, and the merchandise on the other. It could be anything: fresh vegetables, salt, sugar, rice, or legumes.
Oh, and we got our water delivered to us by strong men carrying two five-gallon cans hanging from either side of a long bar, similar to this Vietnamese lady carrying the fruit baskets.
Another meaning relates to the challenge or struggle of maintaining one’s balance while treading a narrow path, especially above ground. Like this monkey…
… or these circus acrobats.
When I walked from Chicago to Santa Monica, I saw many structures similar to this, particularly in the Mojave Desert, where people had created their own pieces of art by stacking stones of all shapes and sizes. It has to be perfectly balanced, or the whole thing will come crashing down.
Then there is a Balance Sheet, where the numbers on both sides have to balance out.
Then there is another meaning of balance in the sense of what is left, as in bank balance.
In the end, all I can say is I am getting a headache trying to balance all these different meanings of balance into a blog post, or a Medium story, which is a response to the May 9th prompt at SCBWI. Thanks, Amy Marley.
As always, thank you for reading and responding.
More about me:
Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.
He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)
“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”
