I had surgery earlier this week. I can’t drive (or walk, for that matter) until at least February 27.

Great! (I thought.) With all the commute time I’ll be saving to work, I can get more writing done.

And then my laptop broke.

I’m stuck using a crappy little mini (I actually used to be fond of) to do my writing. The keyboard is super-tiny, and it’s considered QWERTY, but the apostrophe/double-quote key is in the wrong place. I keep hitting returns when I punctuate my dialogue. (Bad, very bad for a writer.)

It’s slow going.

Like a character in one of my books, I’ve been stymied. (Although I have to admit, I do much worse things to my characters.)

The point is, this is creating some drama in my life (and the lives of the people very close to me) because it starts to spill over.

And life doesn’t stop. I’ve got commitments I need to take care of, so I have to work around the impaired walking and non-driving and crappy tech.

Just like a character.

Here’s Your Prompt

• In your next scene, make your character work for what he wants or wants to accomplish. Take away something important. Be devious about it: if you don’t want your character driving, don’t just take his license away, make them have foot surgery. 🙂 Make the stakes higher; take away something that not only your character needs, but what others depend on him for.
   
• If you journal, write about a time you were stopped in the pursuit of your goals by the loss of something (you missed a deadline, you failed a test, or lost something tangible) and how you worked around it to accomplished your desires. [This should not be a story of “oh, well, it was meant to be” or “I was better off not doing it!”]

Good luck!