“Describe yourself in third person – your physical appearance and personality – as though you were writing a character in a book.”
*
Sat at her desk, listening to music that was far too loud to get anything productive done, Gwen stared at the laptop screen in front of her. Nothing of worth being caught by the net she was holding out in her mind; in fact, she hadn’t felt quiet so lost in a long time. Words always came easy, so why were they currently so far away?
Disappointment pumping through her veins, she sat back in her chair and let her blue eyes stare out through her glasses, and out of the window instead. Watching people walk by, with places to go, why didn’t she have any direction like the people outside? Surely they weren’t walking aimlessly, like she was writing.
Gwen had today embraced her natural look, in the hair department anyway. Her hair many shades of blonde, ginger and brown flowed wavily down her back and onto her shoulders; the odd lock curlier than the rest from her fingers becoming intertwined with it during the odd daydream she got lost in.
To someone outside of the room, it would sound as if her fingers were typing, but she was actually just tapping away to the rhythm of a song blasting from the speakers either side of her. It’s her speciality to get lost in music; it hadn’t crossed her mind that maybe if she turned off the music, the thoughts she desperately needed may just pop into her mind. Not that she cared. “Self-care!” She told herself after every dance break she took.
“Why is this so difficult?” She allowed herself to feel slight anger, “It’s not usually this hard!” Expecting the anger to expel words from her fingertips as if magic; but sadly, no magic happened.
Her lips touching her cup of tea, hoping the magic may be swimming in there instead, she left a lipstick print in her favourite nude shade on the rim of the cup. A sigh blew the steam away from the boiling drink, she put the cup down, and picked up a book of writing prompts, hoping the answer would lay within.
Each page turned and still nothing leapt out at her, nothing sparking that excitement to write. Slamming the book closed, she declared to herself that maybe today was the day for neither personal writing, nor creative writing – maybe today is the day to escape into someone else’s world for a change.
The bookshelves that stand behind her, now look as though they all beam smiles her way.
Her shoulders relax, the anxiety of having to create a small world of her own for the week fell from her. Gwen closed her laptop screen and grabbed a book that had been calling her name for a while, covered herself with a throw, and settled in for an afternoon of escape.
*
Okay, so the prompt book actually wasn’t put away. I actually really fell in love with this prompt, and so I described my own difficulties with trying to figure out what to write this week. It’s hard to write about yourself, and imagining yourself from someone else’s view, or even your own, but writing about yourself as if you’re a character is actually strangely enjoyable.
Now to get comfortable and escape to that book I spoke about, because sometimes it better to retreat to someone else’s world, than to sit and sulk in your own.
Gwen Richards 