Friday Writings #92: Triumph or Disaster?

Hello again, dear Wordsmiths!

India’s recent moon landing not only succeeded, it became the first ever landing at the moon’s South Pole. What a triumph, eh?

Well, it inspired in me the following:

A new moon landing.
I think of the debris
littering Everest.

I posted that to my Facebook page and the responses included considerable understanding and agreement. I learned that I was far from the only one to have such a reaction to the news. And yes, I do see that there are pros and cons, one of the pros being how much we are learning about the moon from this particular expedition. It’s not just about conquest, as the Everest climbs often seem to be.  My little verse was not a thought-out argument so much as a spontaneous knee-jerk.

Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash

It got me thinking about different ways of seeing the same event, according to one’s perspective, so many times in the course of our lives. I remembered, too, how often in my own life an apparent disaster has turned out to be a blessing in disguise – but it usually takes some time for that to show up: we see it in hindsight.

The words from Kipling’s famous poem, If, started repeating in my brain:

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same …

(You can read the whole poem here. The crux of it is that If you can do all the things Kipling lists, … you’ll be a Man, my son! He meant, of course, ‘you’ll be a worthy human being.’ Forgive Kipling; he was of his time and didn’t know not to be patriarchal – had no concept of that, let alone what was wrong about it.)

So, for this week’s optional prompt, I thought you might like to consider the phrase, or question, ‘triumph or disaster?’ and respond to it in whatever way occurs to you. Or you may choose to ignore the prompt and share any other piece of your writing.

Guidelines:

Required:
Post the response to your blog, and provide us with a link to that post in the Mister Linky space below. One post per person, please, 369 words maximum (excluding title).

Optional:
You may share old or new pieces, in poetry or prose, and you may write to the prompt or ignore it.
To say hello, or anything else on your mind, you may leave a note in the comments section below.

Requested (not compulsory but strongly recommended):
Do have a read of each other’s work and leave encouraging comments, when you can! 

Attention please!

(Yes, I’m posting out of our usual sequence, which is in alphabetical order of Magaly, Rommy, Rosemary. That’s because I’m officially Coordinator and get to be the one to make this big housekeeping announcement.)

Over the months we’ve tightened one of the guidelines and relaxed others. We didn’t make any big announcements earlier, thinking our wording each week would make it clear. But some people have been uncertain about what we’re asking, so –

We ask you to keep both poetry and prose to 369 words maximum. It’s a random number – we just happen to like the number 3 and multiples thereof. Setting a limit is so that asking you to read a number of pieces in a week doesn’t become an imposition. We used to say this only about prose, because most often it’s the prose pieces which can become lengthy. But some poems need to be long, too. We decided it was unfair to prose writers if we didn’t also put a limit on the poems linked to Friday Writings. (If you love someone’s work so much that you don’t want to miss out on their longer writings – which we know can be very rewarding – we encourage you to sign up to follow their blog.)

We used to ask for only new writing in response to the prompt. That’s because many of us like the impetus of responding to a prompt to get us writing new stuff. But I imagine we all know the experience of realising how beautifully a particular prompt may suit something we’ve already written. So we now make ‘old or new’ a general guideline, whether you’re responding to the prompt or not.

As for the non-compulsory request (which used to be stated as compulsory in the group’s past) –

1) We’re trying to build a sense of community here, not just a ‘show and tell’ site, and (for me at least) it does feel like that: a space both safe and welcoming, where also we have room to stretch our writerly muscles, and where over time the other participants come to feel like old friends.

2) I think one of the ways we learn and grow is by reading each other’s writing. To acquire a full appreciation of another writer’s voice can take time and repeated exposure.


3) However, we do lead busy lives, and some of us have serious health issues. It’s not always possible to look at what everyone else has written every week. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t – or if you get to something ‘eventually’ rather than rushing it. 

It’s always a sweet surprise for me when people comment on one of my pieces weeks after I’ve shared it here. It tells me they have made sure to get to it in their own time, rather than miss it altogether just because they couldn’t fit it into the same week.

I'm also aware that for some of us it's all we can do to write at all, even though we also very much need the fulfilment and release – and that this site creates valuable provision for that. And that's fine with me too. I'll read you even if you don't read me. (I see it as part of my job as Coordinator anyway, but also reading good poetry is one of my great pleasures.) Others feel discouraged if there isn't reciprocation and choose to structure their reading accordingly. It's a free choice; we all need to do what works best for us.

Now, in case you've forgotten the prompt after wading through all that, it's 'triumph or disaster?' Happy writing! And reading! May you triumph!

Next week, the sparkling Rommy will invite us to incorporate a description of a scent into our pieces.