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Wednesday Writing Prompt: Frustration

frustrationThere are just some days where everything feels like it’s working against you. Frustration is a powerful emotion — one that we don’t talk about very much because most of us try to bottle it up and not let anyone see it. It’s the sort of thing you vent to your spouse or friends, but only because you know they won’t judge you for sweating the small stuff.

I started thinking about what it would take to write about frustration in my own life, and how difficult it is to write about because most of the time frustration stems from mundane things going a little haywire. Big life events bring fear or pain or joy or anticipation or a host of other emotions, but frustration tends to come from a place that is much smaller and seemingly unimportant.

Our writing challenge today is to pinpoint a frustration, either one you’ve faced recently or one that stands out in your memory, and try to write about it as though it was as important as anything that has ever happened.

A quick example: Your pen ran out of ink in the middle of writing in a relatively expensive birthday card and you’d have to finish the message in a different ink color… Ugh, that’s pretty annoying.

Today, in the midst of inscribing a birthday card adorned with vellum and silk rosebuds, my elected pen’s black ink simply stopped flowing. Only half of my message was complete, and yet… no ink remained in the well of that fickle implement. 

See? Sounds completely ridiculous, but way more exciting despite the fact that it’s not much actually happening. Over-dramatizing something small can be either funny or engaging or both. Give it a shot!

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