Day 2 of the #Trust30 30-day writing challenge from ralphwaldoemerson.me begins with this prompt:

Today by Liz Danzico

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

(Author: Liz Danzico)

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Okay, this prompt is much less scary than yesterday’s prompt, but no less intense. There seems to be the beginning of a theme forming for me here, one of writing in a much more condensed version than I normally do; yesterday it was for 15 minutes and now I am supposed to encapsulate today in a single sentence. And I assume it shouldn’t be a run on. Okay here we go.

Today begins with sunshine, new growth in the garden, and a cat nesting in the papers on my desk, and hopefully those papers…

Sunshine, a napping cat, and multiple piles of papers filled with creative bits spread across my desk, creating comfort and possibilities for today…

Today begins with the warmth of the sun, the comfort of a napping cat, and endless possibilities hidden in handwritten notes spread across my desk.

Today begins with the welcomed warmth of the sun, the comfort of a napping cat, and endless possibilities just waiting to be explored in handwritten notes spread across my desk.

[Hmm… these seem to be getting a little long – more than a mouthful, if I am to “tell today’s sentence to another person”. Let’s try again:]

Today the papers strewn across my desk beckon with endless possibilities and…

My desk welcomes me with a napping cat and haphazard piles of papers filled with possibilities and…

[What if I drop the metaphors and symbols and go for a simpler response?]

Today is a day that anything or nothing at all could happen, and I will be content either way.

Today is filled with decisions and choices, as is every day, just some have more weight than others.

[Well, this isn’t going anywhere terribly insightful – ha!]

Describe today, describe today… Today is barely begun and yet it feels like a day rooted in comfort and filled with possibilities.

I woke up early and quite awake this morning, which is a rare occurrence, with my head filled with thoughts of the future and tasks of the present. Today will be a good day.

[Yes, I know, that’s 2 sentences].

Today is feels like there is only a few moments for all the tasks laid out before me, and yet there will still be time to look forward and revel in the endless possibilities of life and love.

[And with that said it really is just time to just get on with today].

How’s your day going?

I just signed up to participate in the Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson online initiative.

#Trust30 is a 30 day writing challenge. You receive a daily prompt and respond to it… in writing. So I sign up, THEN I check out the 1st prompt:

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

(Author: Gwen Bell)

So, um, ya. Just reading that scared the shit of me… that’s a response, right? Like I actually felt a shot of fear reverberate through my gut…that can’t be good. Now I am thinking, holy shit maybe I should have checked out the 1st prompt BEFORE I commitment myself. Why couldn’t we talk about our 1st childhood memory? Trust me that would have been hard enough. I mean, sure I write about death and destruction and heroes pulling the world back from the brink of disaster (etc) but I don’t really want to imagine myself dying, having only 15 more minutes with so much left undone, unsaid, unshared. The idea of it makes me all heavy and sad, and why go there, why wallow?

But that’s not the exercise is it? If I push past my initial reaction, I see I am suppose to focus my attention on the story that has to be written, that I only have 15 more minutes to get out into the world or, at least, out of my head. Well, that’s different, isn’t it? Though no less daunting, because I am not sure that in this particular moment I have any story locked in my head that can actually be told in 15 minutes. And any story I have that can be so concisely related? Well, I share those every day, as they occur to me. I guess I am just lucky that way…telling stories is like breathing for me. They would pour out of my head, or at least dribble out of an ear, the right one, I think, if they had actual mass.

Speaking of only having 15 minutes to live and write, more than a little part of me would die, if I couldn’t be a storyteller anymore.

What about you? 15 minutes to live: GO!