1,000 creative writing prompts: 6 of 1,000

Prompt 6
(from Chapter 1: Time and Place):

Why do you think some people only focus on their “glory days,” their great successes from the past? How might you keep yourself from looking entirely backwards in the future?

Answer:

This is a dumb question because the answer is obvious unless you deliberately want to obscure it up or unnecessarily dig deep into reasoning that is pretty apparent and doesn’t merit a lot of thought.

Why do some people focus on their glory days? A better question might be why is “glory days” wrapped in quotation marks? But the actual answer is because glory days implies a time in the past when someone had achieved more than in the present, perhaps a great deal more. One example would be an actor who had a string of hit films early on but whose career has fizzled out in middle age. When choosing what to focus on, what do you think this actor would prefer, his fantastic successes of youth or his dismal, mediocre slog into middle age (not to mention the fact that he’s also slower, older and not getting any younger)? That’s just human nature.

How might I keep myself from looking entirely backwards in the future? This is also easy: I never had glory days to begin with. Also, unlike many people, I’m actually healthier and in better shape now than in my youth, so in a sense my glory days are happening now. Also also I could keep myself from looking backwards by wearing blinders (surprise twist answer). Technically blinders don’t prevent you from looking backwards, they just make it more difficult, but it’s a better answer than wearing a bucket on your head. Or is it?

P.S. I’ll be glad when I get past all these time-related prompts. If I had a time machine I’d seriously consider moving forward just enough to achieve this.

[spoiler title=”Explanation of this exercise” icon=”plus-circle”]These are prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link). My intent is to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long, working through the prompts in order. When I am done I will perhaps have a party of some sort.

Sometimes the short stories will be longer and sometimes instead of a story I will answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).[/spoiler]