Prompt Nine: Something That Scares You
Write something that scares you.
The form you’ve never felt confident enough to try out. The story you’ve never been able to capture. The topic you’ve always wanted to address. A conversation you’ve never had the words for. The opinion you haven’t felt qualified to give. Try something new. Go places you never have before.
Remember, no one has to see this unless you want to share it with them. But you might surprise yourself. Be brave*.
*(But also, make sure you protect your mental health. This is about surprising yourself creatively, not making yourself unhappy!)
Today’s prompt is from me.
As I haven’t had an opportunity to do so before, I thought I’d introduce myself and tell you a bit about my journey as a writer. My background is as a theatre producer, and I spent the first decade of my career working on all kinds of interesting, alternative performance projects (something I still do alongside my writing). I always loved writing but never found the right style for me. Then I discovered creative nonfiction and fell in love - the first book that really made me understand the possibilities of the form was Levels of Life by Julian Barnes.
I started posting my writing on a (now defunct) blog, and someone who worked at brilliant indie publisher Penned in the Margins stumbled across it and invited me to contribute an essay to their collection, Mount London. A couple of years later I had the idea of travelling around the country visiting unusual theatres and writing a book about my adventure. Even if the book wasn’t any good, I thought, I’d have learnt something useful for my day job and had fun doing it. I approached Penned in the Margins about it, they loved the idea and ended up publishing Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die. Fortunately people seem to like it. Now I’m working on my second book.
Writing often feels scary to me. I definitely get more rejections than opportunities, and there are times I question if I’ve made the right choice in shifting my focus from my theatre career to writing. But - to paraphrase something I heard on Louis Theroux’s podcast yesterday - not doing it is more scary than doing it. I want to write, always, and like all lifelong relationships there will be ups and downs: but the ups make it worthwhile.
As ever, you can share your writing in our googledrive, or send it to me: ambermblomfield@gmail.com.
Amber x