When I envisaged this blog about addiction and recovery I had a list of nevers. I decided to never write about writing, never write about suicide using a comic, unreliable narrator, never invoke profundity or conclude with a message, never create bulletpoint lists, among others (including the three-item sentence list, dream explication, and a general tone of dad joke).
This morning, the writing prompt is on my mind. It featured heavily in a recent nightmare wherein I played a copywriter in a spitball session. That’s all I remember. It took place in the dusk, dusk in the dream and dusk in my bed, the forgettable hour, and it sort of set the tone for an awful night. Nothing is required of the work dream except that it feels like work to have dreamed. You don’t have to remember a thing if you wake up sweaty or sore.
The writing prompt, like the breathing exercise, is something I’ll never use. I’m sure it works for a lot of people, but not me. I’ve composed some prize-winners, too. The secret to a long, happy life is frequent bowel movements and cold showers. Every drunk over thirty has a fiancée at the time. If I’m going to finish Shakespeare or the bible I have to skip some chapters. Have you ever taken your dog’s medication is poorly worded. When’s the last time you took your dog’s medication?
It’s too much pressure. You recognize at time of writing that you can’t meet the moment, thanks to insufficient time, muzzy focus, fierce cocaine relapse, avid bipolar depression, so you save it for later. Will you have what it takes then? Have you ever?
I reached out for writing prompts, once, in a bcc email to a number of friends and friends of friends. Correct, I was working my way down from a painstaking, five-day drunk and I emailed more than once. Bedtime was imminent, so I had no intention of using their prompt replies, then or later. But that’s not the reason I went knocking on their doors. You can’t just show up in someone’s inbox, all breathless punctuation and missing words, with only a concise I need help I think I’ll my life today.
The responses shone a bright light on two realities: my friends don’t notice anything or my friends don’t care. The latter I felt was the strongest point and one I took with me into step four (of the famous twelve). I lied a lot in those lists, did you? I didn’t harbor many resentments toward others, only empathy. I wouldn’t waste a first sentence on me, either.
todd of tacoma 