The perfect book to live...
Today’s post is based on a writing prompt I shared in a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post: A Book’s World. Keep reading to see what I wrote, and to access more writing prompts.
What I wrote below is based on the following writing prompt: Write a fictional scene in which you are living inside a book. Or write a journal entry about your favorite book and why it’s your favorite book.
The perfect book to live…
I want to live inside a book that illustrates how we’re going to get out of this mess, so it will likely be a hodgepodge of books I’ve already read. But this book, the one I want to live inside to crawl along its lines like a sacred cocoon, hasn’t been written yet, I don’t think. Maybe that’s why it’s my favorite? Because it remains in my head like a returning childhood dream, a fantasyland, free from manmade monsters and worldly criticisms of jaded adults and their draining dread.
I mean, it makes sense that all the answers I seek, we seek, for the perfect book to live, are in books underneath my, our, noses and fingertips— though most of them are left undervalued or neglected. So why wouldn’t my dreamworld belong there too? Somewhere outside the margins of the pages and lines memorized and alive inside my mind and psyche and being, waiting to be brought to life, revived, with a bit of language magic.
We’ve been here before in another place and timeline, haven’t we? All we need is open eyes and pages and minds, but to write a different ending perhaps? Or is it the middle of the narrative we struggle with most as adults, when the heroes and heroines of the story need to put up a fight without sacrificing what’s ‘right’?
There are tons of books about our suffering and demise, but not enough about how we should thwart or overcome it. (At least, that’s the case once we grow up.) But there are lessons to take from those too: Dictator Behavior=Bad. Hatred=Bad. Integrity=Good and Productive. Love=Worth It. Caring About Life=Necessary for Prosperity and Future Life. Etc. Etc.
So, what if we reread all the books that have already shown us how to be strong and hope again and revisit the lessons we’ve already learned, to write the book worlds we actually want to breathe life into and exist in? What if we resurrect our childlike starry eyes and tales to see the world as an empty canvas we can paint however we see fit? A world in which there is no predetermined Armageddon or things we can’t overcome. A world in which we can thrive and continue to safely dream.
In this unwritten book I want to live inside, no one wakes up hungry or falls asleep in the unhoused blistering cold or heat. Children can play and be curious and productive and learn freely. People have jobs that contribute and align with their natural and practiced talents. There are no haves and have-nots, because that dynamic only ever exhausts resources and livelihoods anyway. And in this world, everyone has the chance to be their own heroine.
Now is the time to write those lines and scenes into life.
To be continued…
I might revise, edit, or add to this draft in the future. Stay tuned.
Leave a comment to start a dialogue, or keep scrolling to see today’s writing prompt.
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Utopia
Write a poem or journal entry about your version of Utopia.
Writing Tip:
Before you begin writing, close your eyes and envision yourself standing in the middle of your version of Utopia. What does it sound, feel, and smell like there? Who is there? What time of day is it? Etc.
