Skip to main content

Writing Prompt Monday: Pictures of You

Prompt: A picture is worth more than a blank page. Take out those dusty photo albums. Pick out photo #14. Count however way you like, but make sure you stop at photo #14. Look at the photo for 2-3 minutes. Then for 10 minutes, write all the feelings that photograph made you feel. Don’t censor yourself. Just write.

Finding what fourteenth picture I was going to use was a bit hard. I have stacks of photo albums on my desk right now because my sister and I are putting together a video for our parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. After going through all the albums and of course digital albums on my computer I finally picked the fourteenth picture I would use out of twenty-eight fourteenth pictures. LOL.

While looking at the picture many memories flooded my mind. The first sadness of a young child missing her father and listening to him playing the piano. A sensation of joy overcomes me as I remember when he first saw the father’s day gift my mom and I had gotten him so many years ago. This was before the divorce, which the thought again brings back the sadness so deep in my heart. How I loved hearing my father making up songs for me as a little girl. Hearing him sing songs on love, joy, and just funny little songs to pass the time. My heart is again comforted remembering sitting next to him learning a new cord or him helping me practice my music before piano lessons. Tears slowing stream down my face again from the memory of watching my mother and father playing side-by-side. I can hear them singing together in perfect harmony bring back the memory of the tapes I have tucked away in boxes up in my closet. Then the feelings of grief overcome me when seeing the picture again. There he is in a new home playing on the piano we gave him. A home without my mother or me. The feelings of having to share my father come back to me as anger and jealousy courses through my veins with thoughts of my younger half sister getting to use the piano and not I. Then they are smothered out again by the love and joy my new family gives me. The memories of how my parents have worked to remain friends, how my broken family slowly mended and become a bigger family, with sisters and a brother. How I was able to once again live with my father and stepmother for a time before heading off to college. The love my family gives me everyday because we have moved past the pain. How the piano I gave my father so many years ago still sits in his home, where he plays songs from my past while I sit listening with my younger sisters and brothers.

Popular posts from this blog

Interview Friday with author Frances Pauli

Frances Pauli was born and raised in Washington State . She grew up with a love of reading and storytelling, and was introduced to Science Fiction and Fantasy at an early age through the books kept and read by her father. Though she always held aspirations to be a writer, she chose to obtain her Bachelor’s degree in visual arts. The stories, however, had other plans for her. By the time she entered her thirties, they were no longer content existing solely in her head. Compelled to free them, she set aside her easel and began to write in earnest. Her original love of Speculative fiction combined with her covert excursions into the Romance section led her into the realms of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, where she finds herself quite comfortable. Her fascination with Science Fiction and a growing passion for the NASA channel divert her happily into tales of the far future, alternate dimensions, and the wonders of space, usually with at least a touch of romance. Frances current...
Read more

World of Ink Interview with author Judy Snider and Illustrator Cady B. Driver

Judy Snider , Joan’s sister lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia with her husband, Gil, and two silly cats. She is the author of the CWA award-winning children’s picture book, Goldy’s Baby Socks , and on a team of authors of The Scared Purse . The Writing Mama Interview with author Judy Snider     VS: What do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Judy: It is easier now that my kids are in their 20’s and out of the home. I get up very early, and some of the best writing I do is in a sunny place with a glass of water or coffee and my silly cats nearby. When my oldest was a baby, I took a write-away-course, and would write when he took his naps. Some of my best writing was at a table while I waited in those days for them at parties, video arcades, etc.  I work out of my home on projects, so working with my sister on our latest book, and the phone usually did Cady Driver, our illustrator. VS: How long have you been writing? Judy: I wrote my...
Read more

What is Your Writing Priority?

Every New Year, people sit down and write out their resolutions on the things they want to happen over the next year. The lists can be long or short, it doesn’t matter. We all have done it, but how often do you complete the goals listed? Rarely in my case; so I spent all of January doing more than just writing my New Year Resolutions, I spent time thinking about what I really wanted to see happen in 2015 and then took it a step further by listing ways to make those things happen. I also looked long and hard at the things I have been working on and doing. I evaluated each of them and the ones that weren’t taking me where I wanted to be I dropped off my list of things to work on in the New Year.  Once I was happy with the list I had, I began looking at my time and seeing if there was enough time in my week and daily to work on each item. In some cases…I didn’t. I was right back to reworking my list and making sure I was putting goals in the right priority. A few things at ...
Read more