Turn Left Here
In today’s adventures in creativity, I opted to play with words and stories and characters, all new to me today.
I have two stories in the works that I’ve worked on regularly until about a month or so ago, and each has developed a promising story arc. Even better, the characters are directing the story at this point (my favorite part of writing). But because I haven’t spent time with either of those stories, or their characters, I thought it better to play with a story to which I have no commitment.
I find creativity flows more easily if I am not worried about the outcome of my creative efforts. Writing first drafts allows for that when I am showing up regularly.
That’s why an important part of this creativity adventure for me is to reignite that flow and freedom in my writing by nurturing the daily habit of creating space for myself.
Today, that space comes from a writing prompt on Writer’s Digest. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Complete the following sentence and write a scene or story that begins with it: “It’s strange to think that I never would have known about ____________ if I hadn’t taken that left turn.”
It’s strange to think that I never would have known about Lilac Lazenby if I hadn’t taken that left turn. I’d meant to turn around using that dusty deserted road until a morse code of light in the distance caught my eye. Was someone in trouble, I wondered. Dusk was closing in along the horizon and without thinking too long about it, I inched my Volkswagon bug along the narrow road overgrown with greenery, gravel grinding beneath the bug’s tires.
Now, you’re probably wondering why knowing Lilac Lazenby even matters, but honestly, it was the getting to know Lilac that mattered in the end. And it started with that left turn and that overgrown gravel road that led into a clearing miles from the main road. It turned out what I thought was a morse code signal for help was the glinting of a spotlight off the cracked mirrors evenly spaced along the top of a carousel turning slowly in the middle of the meticulously landscaped meadow.
A short distance beyond the carousel stood a small, ornate house, it’s wrap around porch dotted with similar cracked mirrors evenly spaced along the top overhang. Through the bug’s closed windows I heard a faint calliope music, it’s melody as equally haunting as it was dreamy, almost ethereal. Who lives in such a place as this, I said aloud to myself.
“Lilac Lazenby in your presence.” A woman with gray wild curls and jaunty hat atop her head appeared outside my bug’s window. And though her sudden presence gave me a start and I wondered where in the world she’d come from, I felt oddly at ease. Perhaps because she seemed an unlikely combination of Dumbledore and my grandmother — wise, endearing, and mystical in every sense of the word.
“What is it you seek here?” she asked me and her voice with its melodic lilt through the closed driver’s window was as clear as if she were sitting beside me in the car. I stared at her, my mind working to consider her.
“Come,” she said, and beckoned me to follow her to the carousel, which slowed to a stop as she approached it. “We shall endeavor to discern it together.”
