Writing Without the Me #6

Exercise #12 Letter from a Place You’ve Never Been

I’m doing a writing exercise out of a book of writing exercises every week (or so) and this is yet another one. Another fun one! I was taking these too seriously and it was making me upset. While I seriously want to be a better writer and so seriously committed to this project, I don’t need to place such seriousness on the prompts themselves. The purpose was to write more and better, and to give me an interesting jumping-off point, not to worry about whether or not I did it “right.” Anyway, below is the prompt and below that is what I came up with. Enjoy!(?)

“Imagine yourself on a journey to a place you have never visited before. It's striking! There are so many______  And the quality of the______ is amazing! You've never seen anything that looked like the_______.”

“This is a place to write home about. Write a letter to someone you like, telling her all about your surroundings.”

Greetings from a place of unshakeable self-confidence! I’ve never been here before, and, let me tell you, it’s fucking great. There are so many options surrounding me, it’s astounding. I can literally do anything I choose to do. Anything! And I just know I’d be wonderful at it, no matter the task I endeavor to take on. Whatever I select for myself. Skiing, cooking, playing the piano, even writing, you name it, I’m gonna let my freak flag shine and blow your socks out of the water. Because you see, sure the number of things I’m capable of doing is astounding, but the quality you get from me? Yeah. It’s also something which, undoubtedly, is astoundingly amazing. Like my writing craft on display before your (very) eyes.

It’s bigger in real life

Man oh man oh man oh boy, I wish I could see the look on your face as you enjoy these words of mine I’m giving to you. I am confident that you will love the art I’m making here, with my words, choices, and word choices, to share with you. With that which I share unto you. Heh heh. So good. 

It’s so terrific here, in this place of supreme self-confidence. For instance, have you ever seen roads with no signs to boss you around about how fast to go and where to park? Well, I have, and it’s here. Because in this place, we can do no wrong. We all just kind of know what’s good and what’s bad and just do the good stuff. And if I do something here and now that I used to think was bad? It’s only because I realized that it was actually a good thing and I was somehow wrong about it being bad before. But now? Here? No mistokes! I see what I want and I’m not afraid to reach out and take it. Because if you can achieve anything you want, then anything you want is something you can achieve. And so by achieving anything I’ve achieved everything, meaning if I want something now I must have already earned it. And if that doesn’t make sense I’m pretty sure it’s simply because you did not read it carefully enough. 

Anyway, yeah, this place is great. The only problem is it's a bit overcrowded. And if you ask me—  and why wouldn't you? — a lot of those people don't seem to belong and I have no idea how they got here. 

Well, I gotta go. We're having a sun-staring contest at noon and I don't wanna be late. I miss you but I don't know when I'll see you again. I have no desire for returning to where you are, in self-doubt, anytime soon and just about the only thing I can't do these days is imagine someone like you ever ending up here.