Day 170 – Cliches and being descriptive

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Beyond the Overused: How to Breathe New Life into Your Descriptive Writing

We’ve all been there. You’re deep into a draft, the prose is flowing, and suddenly, your brain hits a wall. You need a phrase to describe something permanent, a moment of hesitation, or a sense of spotless purity.

Your fingers type out: carved in stone, test the water, pure as the driven snow.

Stop. Take your hands off the keyboard.

Clichés are the comfort food of writing—easy to digest, familiar, and everywhere. But they are also the fastest way to turn your reader’s brain to static. When we use a cliché, we aren’t describing a specific vision; we’re using a shorthand that has lost all its impact through sheer repetition.

If you want your writing to stand out, you have to do the hard work of observation. Here is how to swap those tired metaphors for something that actually sticks.

1. Ditch “Carved in Stone” (Focus on the Stakes)

Instead of telling us a decision is permanent, show us the weight of it.

• The Problem: “Our agreement was carved in stone.”
• The Fix: Focus on the consequence. “The contract sat on the desk, a heavy, irreversible anchor that would drag us into the next decade.” or “We had burnt the bridge; there was no walking back to the shore we’d left.”

2. Swap “Test the Water” (Focus on the Sensation)

“Testing the water” is a passive, vague way to describe hesitation. Get specific about the anxiety or the risk involved.

• The Problem: “Before committing, he wanted to test the water.”
• The Fix: Focus on the physical feeling of uncertainty. “He circled the perimeter of the room, gauging the temperature of the conversation before offering his own.” or “He stood at the edge of the decision, toeing the line, waiting for the first sign of cracking ice.”

3. Retire “Pure as the Driven Snow” (Focus on the Texture)

Clichés about purity are often lazy because they rely on abstraction. Instead, describe the quality of the image using sensory details.

• The Problem: “She was as pure as the driven snow.”
• The Fix: Think about how the object is clean. Is it sterile? Bright? Unblemished? “Her conscience was a blank, uninked page.” or “The kitchen was so immaculate it felt surgical; even the dust seemed afraid to settle there.”

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The “Senses & Specificity” Strategy

If you find yourself reaching for a cliché, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What does it look like? Don’t just say a room is “as quiet as a mouse.” Describe the sound of the quiet—is it a heavy silence, a buzzing, vibrating silence, or a thin, sharp silence?
2. What is the stakes-based emotion? If someone is “cool as a cucumber,” why are they cool? Is it because they are practised, dismissive, or genuinely detached? Use a verb that describes that specific emotion.
3. Can I use a “wrong” metaphor? Sometimes, the best way to avoid a cliché is to pair two things that don’t usually go together. Instead of “hard as a rock,” maybe it’s “as stubborn as a rusted bolt” or “as impenetrable as a vault of secrets.”

The Golden Rule: The First Choice is Almost Always the Worst Choice

When your brain offers you a cliché, acknowledge it, throw it in the trash, and force yourself to write three alternatives. They don’t even have to be good ones—just different ones. In that process of straining for a new image, you’ll eventually stumble upon something that feels fresh, sharp, and uniquely yours.

Your readers don’t want the same old metaphors they’ve heard a thousand times. Give them something they can see, hear, and feel for the very first time.

…

Day 170 – Cliches and being descriptive

…

Beyond the Overused: How to Breathe New Life into Your Descriptive Writing

We’ve all been there. You’re deep into a draft, the prose is flowing, and suddenly, your brain hits a wall. You need a phrase to describe something permanent, a moment of hesitation, or a sense of spotless purity.

Your fingers type out: carved in stone, test the water, pure as the driven snow.

Stop. Take your hands off the keyboard.

Clichés are the comfort food of writing—easy to digest, familiar, and everywhere. But they are also the fastest way to turn your reader’s brain to static. When we use a cliché, we aren’t describing a specific vision; we’re using a shorthand that has lost all its impact through sheer repetition.

If you want your writing to stand out, you have to do the hard work of observation. Here is how to swap those tired metaphors for something that actually sticks.

1. Ditch “Carved in Stone” (Focus on the Stakes)

Instead of telling us a decision is permanent, show us the weight of it.

• The Problem: “Our agreement was carved in stone.”
• The Fix: Focus on the consequence. “The contract sat on the desk, a heavy, irreversible anchor that would drag us into the next decade.” or “We had burnt the bridge; there was no walking back to the shore we’d left.”

2. Swap “Test the Water” (Focus on the Sensation)

“Testing the water” is a passive, vague way to describe hesitation. Get specific about the anxiety or the risk involved.

• The Problem: “Before committing, he wanted to test the water.”
• The Fix: Focus on the physical feeling of uncertainty. “He circled the perimeter of the room, gauging the temperature of the conversation before offering his own.” or “He stood at the edge of the decision, toeing the line, waiting for the first sign of cracking ice.”

3. Retire “Pure as the Driven Snow” (Focus on the Texture)

Clichés about purity are often lazy because they rely on abstraction. Instead, describe the quality of the image using sensory details.

• The Problem: “She was as pure as the driven snow.”
• The Fix: Think about how the object is clean. Is it sterile? Bright? Unblemished? “Her conscience was a blank, uninked page.” or “The kitchen was so immaculate it felt surgical; even the dust seemed afraid to settle there.”

---

The “Senses & Specificity” Strategy

If you find yourself reaching for a cliché, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What does it look like? Don’t just say a room is “as quiet as a mouse.” Describe the sound of the quiet—is it a heavy silence, a buzzing, vibrating silence, or a thin, sharp silence?
2. What is the stakes-based emotion? If someone is “cool as a cucumber,” why are they cool? Is it because they are practised, dismissive, or genuinely detached? Use a verb that describes that specific emotion.
3. Can I use a “wrong” metaphor? Sometimes, the best way to avoid a cliché is to pair two things that don’t usually go together. Instead of “hard as a rock,” maybe it’s “as stubborn as a rusted bolt” or “as impenetrable as a vault of secrets.”

The Golden Rule: The First Choice is Almost Always the Worst Choice

When your brain offers you a cliché, acknowledge it, throw it in the trash, and force yourself to write three alternatives. They don’t even have to be good ones—just different ones. In that process of straining for a new image, you’ll eventually stumble upon something that feels fresh, sharp, and uniquely yours.

Your readers don’t want the same old metaphors they’ve heard a thousand times. Give them something they can see, hear, and feel for the very first time.

…

Day 169 – Every character should want something

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The Simple Secret to Compelling Fiction: Give Your Characters a Glass of Water

In the world of creative writing, there is a tendency to mistake “complexity” for “grandeur.” We feel that to write a compelling story, our protagonists must be saving the galaxy, solving a decade-old murder, or undergoing a sprawling, life-altering metamorphosis.

But the late, great Kurt Vonnegut offered a piece of advice that serves as a necessary reality check for every writer, from the novice to the novelist:

“Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”

It’s a deceptively simple rule, but it cuts to the very heart of human motivation and narrative drive. Here is why this principle is the backbone of any story worth reading.

---

Desire is the Engine of Story

Think about your own life. You are never truly “at rest.” Even when you are sitting on the couch, you are likely wanting something—a snack, to check your phone, to be done with work, to feel relaxed, or to be somewhere else.

If a character has no desire, they have no movement. If they have no movement, they have no agency. Without agency, the story becomes a series of things that happen to a person, rather than a sequence of choices made by a person.

Desire is the engine. Whether the goal is to conquer a kingdom or simply to reach the kitchen for a glass of water, the desire creates a trajectory.

Scale Doesn’t Equal Stakes

Vonnegut’s specific mention of “a glass of water” is brilliant because it reminds us that the scale of the goal matters less than the intensity of the need.

If a character is trapped in a desert, that glass of water is a matter of life and death. If a character is in a tense, uncomfortable social situation and needs a glass of water just to escape the conversation and compose themselves, it is a matter of psychological survival.

The reader doesn’t need the world to be ending to care about the outcome. They need to believe that the character needs what they are chasing. If the character wants it, we start to want it for them.

Defining Your Characters Through Want

What a character wants tells us everything we need to know about who they are.

• A character who wants a promotion tells us they are ambitious.
• A character who wants to be left alone tells us they are guarded.
• A character who wants a glass of water in the middle of a heated argument tells us they are looking for a way to regain control or avoid confrontation.

By defining these wants, you move away from static, cardboard descriptions and toward dynamic characterisation. You show the reader their soul through their actions.

The “Glass of Water” Test

The next time you are stuck in a scene and feel the momentum stalling, ask yourself: What does my character want right now?

If your character is just standing around, waiting for the plot to happen, you need to give them a “glass of water.” Maybe they need to find their lost keys. Maybe they need to keep a secret from being revealed. Maybe they just need to say something they’ve been holding inside for years.

Once your character has a goal—no matter how small—they have a reason to move. And once they move, the reader will inevitably follow.

---

The Takeaway: Great fiction doesn’t always require epic quests or world-shattering stakes. It requires a human being who is striving for something. Give your characters a goal, give them an obstacle, and watch as your story begins to breathe on its own.

What is your character reaching for today? Even if it’s just a glass of water, make sure they’re thirsty.

…

Day 169 – Every character should want something

…

The Simple Secret to Compelling Fiction: Give Your Characters a Glass of Water

In the world of creative writing, there is a tendency to mistake “complexity” for “grandeur.” We feel that to write a compelling story, our protagonists must be saving the galaxy, solving a decade-old murder, or undergoing a sprawling, life-altering metamorphosis.

But the late, great Kurt Vonnegut offered a piece of advice that serves as a necessary reality check for every writer, from the novice to the novelist:

“Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”

It’s a deceptively simple rule, but it cuts to the very heart of human motivation and narrative drive. Here is why this principle is the backbone of any story worth reading.

---

Desire is the Engine of Story

Think about your own life. You are never truly “at rest.” Even when you are sitting on the couch, you are likely wanting something—a snack, to check your phone, to be done with work, to feel relaxed, or to be somewhere else.

If a character has no desire, they have no movement. If they have no movement, they have no agency. Without agency, the story becomes a series of things that happen to a person, rather than a sequence of choices made by a person.

Desire is the engine. Whether the goal is to conquer a kingdom or simply to reach the kitchen for a glass of water, the desire creates a trajectory.

Scale Doesn’t Equal Stakes

Vonnegut’s specific mention of “a glass of water” is brilliant because it reminds us that the scale of the goal matters less than the intensity of the need.

If a character is trapped in a desert, that glass of water is a matter of life and death. If a character is in a tense, uncomfortable social situation and needs a glass of water just to escape the conversation and compose themselves, it is a matter of psychological survival.

The reader doesn’t need the world to be ending to care about the outcome. They need to believe that the character needs what they are chasing. If the character wants it, we start to want it for them.

Defining Your Characters Through Want

What a character wants tells us everything we need to know about who they are.

• A character who wants a promotion tells us they are ambitious.
• A character who wants to be left alone tells us they are guarded.
• A character who wants a glass of water in the middle of a heated argument tells us they are looking for a way to regain control or avoid confrontation.

By defining these wants, you move away from static, cardboard descriptions and toward dynamic characterisation. You show the reader their soul through their actions.

The “Glass of Water” Test

The next time you are stuck in a scene and feel the momentum stalling, ask yourself: What does my character want right now?

If your character is just standing around, waiting for the plot to happen, you need to give them a “glass of water.” Maybe they need to find their lost keys. Maybe they need to keep a secret from being revealed. Maybe they just need to say something they’ve been holding inside for years.

Once your character has a goal—no matter how small—they have a reason to move. And once they move, the reader will inevitably follow.

---

The Takeaway: Great fiction doesn’t always require epic quests or world-shattering stakes. It requires a human being who is striving for something. Give your characters a goal, give them an obstacle, and watch as your story begins to breathe on its own.

What is your character reaching for today? Even if it’s just a glass of water, make sure they’re thirsty.

…

Day 168 – Facing that rejection slip

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The Art of Being Told “No”: Lessons from Rudyard Kipling

In the world of professional writing, rejection isn’t just a possibility—it’s a rite of passage.

Every writer knows the sting of the form letter. But occasionally, a rejection arrives that is so spectacularly wrong, so jarringly dismissive, that it drifts into the realm of legend.

Perhaps the most famous example involves Rudyard Kipling. Before he became the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Jungle Book, Kipling was a young journalist struggling to break into the literary scene. He submitted his work to the San Francisco Examiner, only to receive a rejection letter that read:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

If you’ve ever had your pitch ignored, your manuscript shredded by an editor, or your creative spark doused by a cold professional “no,” take a moment to sit with that quote. One of the greatest masters of the English language was told, in black and white, that he lacked the fundamental skills to use it.

So, how do you handle rejection when it feels like a total erasure of your talent? How do you keep going when the gatekeepers tell you that you don’t belong?

1. Separate “The Work” from “The Worth”

The editor at the San Francisco Examiner wasn’t critiquing Kipling’s soul; they were critiquing a piece of paper, filtered through their own subjective taste, bias, and likely a bad mood.

When you get a rejection, the immediate psychological reflex is to internalise it as a verdict on your identity. Don’t. A rejection is data, not a definition. It tells you that this specific piece of work did not fit this specific person’s expectations at this specific time. It is a localised event, not a reflection of your inherent value as a creator.

2. Recognise the “Gatekeeper’s Blind Spot”

History is littered with the corpses of “expert” opinions. J.K. Rowling was rejected by a dozen publishers who thought Harry Potter wouldn’t sell. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times.

Sometimes, what looks like a lack of skill is actually just a voice that hasn’t been categorised yet. Kipling’s style was bold, rhythmic, and unconventional. The editor who rejected him didn’t see “genius”—they saw a deviation from the norm they were comfortable with. Often, you are rejected because you are doing something new, and “new” is hard for people to recognise at first.

3. Use Rejection as a Refinement Tool (but stay selective)

Kipling didn’t stop writing. He didn’t take that editor’s advice to “learn how to use the language.” Instead, he kept writing in his unique, unmistakable voice.

There is a difference between constructive criticism and malicious dismissal. If 20 people tell you your plot is confusing, you might have a clarity issue. If one person tells you you “don’t know how to use the language” while you are actively crafting award-winning prose, you ignore them. Learn to discern between feedback that helps you grow and feedback that simply isn’t for you.

4. Let Your Success Be the Longest Game

There is a profound, quiet satisfaction in proving the naysayers wrong—not by screaming at them, but by moving forward until your work is so loud they can no longer ignore it.

Kipling didn’t need to write a scathing response to the Examiner. He didn’t need to post a “revenge” tweet. He just wrote Kim. He wrote If—. He wrote The Man Who Would Be King. He built a legacy that made that editor’s rejection letter look like a footnote in a history book.

The Takeaway

If you are currently staring at a rejection letter, take a breath. Know that you are in the best possible company. You are standing alongside Hemingway, Woolf, Dickens, and Kipling.

The rejection isn’t a wall; it’s a hurdle. It’s the universe’s way of asking, “How badly do you want this?”

Don’t let a stranger’s bad taste dictate your creative future. Pick up your pen, refine your craft, and keep going. After all, the best way to deal with the person who says you don’t know the language is to write something they’ll be forced to read for the rest of their lives.

…

Day 168 – Facing that rejection slip

…

The Art of Being Told “No”: Lessons from Rudyard Kipling

In the world of professional writing, rejection isn’t just a possibility—it’s a rite of passage.

Every writer knows the sting of the form letter. But occasionally, a rejection arrives that is so spectacularly wrong, so jarringly dismissive, that it drifts into the realm of legend.

Perhaps the most famous example involves Rudyard Kipling. Before he became the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Jungle Book, Kipling was a young journalist struggling to break into the literary scene. He submitted his work to the San Francisco Examiner, only to receive a rejection letter that read:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

If you’ve ever had your pitch ignored, your manuscript shredded by an editor, or your creative spark doused by a cold professional “no,” take a moment to sit with that quote. One of the greatest masters of the English language was told, in black and white, that he lacked the fundamental skills to use it.

So, how do you handle rejection when it feels like a total erasure of your talent? How do you keep going when the gatekeepers tell you that you don’t belong?

1. Separate “The Work” from “The Worth”

The editor at the San Francisco Examiner wasn’t critiquing Kipling’s soul; they were critiquing a piece of paper, filtered through their own subjective taste, bias, and likely a bad mood.

When you get a rejection, the immediate psychological reflex is to internalise it as a verdict on your identity. Don’t. A rejection is data, not a definition. It tells you that this specific piece of work did not fit this specific person’s expectations at this specific time. It is a localised event, not a reflection of your inherent value as a creator.

2. Recognise the “Gatekeeper’s Blind Spot”

History is littered with the corpses of “expert” opinions. J.K. Rowling was rejected by a dozen publishers who thought Harry Potter wouldn’t sell. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times.

Sometimes, what looks like a lack of skill is actually just a voice that hasn’t been categorised yet. Kipling’s style was bold, rhythmic, and unconventional. The editor who rejected him didn’t see “genius”—they saw a deviation from the norm they were comfortable with. Often, you are rejected because you are doing something new, and “new” is hard for people to recognise at first.

3. Use Rejection as a Refinement Tool (but stay selective)

Kipling didn’t stop writing. He didn’t take that editor’s advice to “learn how to use the language.” Instead, he kept writing in his unique, unmistakable voice.

There is a difference between constructive criticism and malicious dismissal. If 20 people tell you your plot is confusing, you might have a clarity issue. If one person tells you you “don’t know how to use the language” while you are actively crafting award-winning prose, you ignore them. Learn to discern between feedback that helps you grow and feedback that simply isn’t for you.

4. Let Your Success Be the Longest Game

There is a profound, quiet satisfaction in proving the naysayers wrong—not by screaming at them, but by moving forward until your work is so loud they can no longer ignore it.

Kipling didn’t need to write a scathing response to the Examiner. He didn’t need to post a “revenge” tweet. He just wrote Kim. He wrote If—. He wrote The Man Who Would Be King. He built a legacy that made that editor’s rejection letter look like a footnote in a history book.

The Takeaway

If you are currently staring at a rejection letter, take a breath. Know that you are in the best possible company. You are standing alongside Hemingway, Woolf, Dickens, and Kipling.

The rejection isn’t a wall; it’s a hurdle. It’s the universe’s way of asking, “How badly do you want this?”

Don’t let a stranger’s bad taste dictate your creative future. Pick up your pen, refine your craft, and keep going. After all, the best way to deal with the person who says you don’t know the language is to write something they’ll be forced to read for the rest of their lives.

…

Day 167 – Writing exercise – And the door stayed closed

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That was the thing about people who always said their door was always open.

It was, until it wasn’t.

And sometimes the reason why it closed was a misunderstanding piled on top of pride.

In a way, it cost me everything, but in another, I would not be the person I am now, with the people I know now, and those I had left behind were the poorer for it.

…

As doors went, I didn’t understand the metaphorical meaning until late into my teens.  I don’t think it really mattered, not until I discovered that my father had set goals for each of his children, and if they achieved those goals, they were rewarded.

My oldest brother, Rory, called it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

My eldest sister, Emma, called it the harbinger of broken dreams.

My next elder brother, Jack, didn’t care.  He had decided early in life that he was not playing the games our father set.  His joy was watching my elder brother try to meet that expectation and failing to quite make it.

I was the youngest, and as my father constantly pointed out, ‘the mistake’.  He said it so frequently that Rory just called me ‘mistake’ and rarely by my real name, William.

I was too young to understand, but my mother constantly warned me that my turn was coming, to get good grades and be a good son.

The reality was that the ‘mistake’ would never amount to anything, and therefore, my father just ignored the fact that I existed.  His only priority was the prodigal son, Rory, and he poured all his attention and resources into him, following in his father’s footsteps.

And up until Christmas, just before Rory was starting his graduation year at the High School, nearly the best quarterback since his father, ready to lead the team into the championships, the Broadhurst family were riding high.

…

Emma casually said morning, while she and I were shovelling snow from the front gate to the front door, “What could possibly go wrong?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

A month earlier, we had woken to the news that our grandparents on my father’s side had been killed in a freak road accident. 

It had shattered my father.  He had idolised his father, perhaps because, as my mother said, very quietly, that he had spoiled her husband rotten.

Or more to the point, she was secretly pleased after suffering the demise of demeaning comments from him.  His son had deserved better.

But it left us with good news: he had left the four grandchildren a college fund, the family farm to our Uncle Roy, my father’s only brother, and the rest to my father.  Reward, he said, for obedience and hard work.

There had been discussion at the dinner table, Emma saying that when she graduated, she wanted to go to college, study law.  It was no coincidence that her best friend had the same plan.

My father had laughed.  “Why on earth would you want to work?  Your role is to be a mother and look after your family.  Your mother never saw the need to go gallivanting off to college.”

I was going to add a few words of my own, like the time I heard her talking to one of her lady friends, that she resented the fact that she had got pregnant almost immediately after the prom, and took any chance of her doing anything with her life.

My father, in one version, had deliberately set out to trap her, leaving her no option but to marry him.

I thought it best to keep that gem to myself.

Emma saw the writing on the wall.  Not for the first time, he had intimated he would not support her if she did.  Now, there was the college fund, to her, that settled the matter.  She had been wise enough not to bring it up.

I answered her almost rhetorical question with, “Rory might actually do something completely stupid.”

He had before, messing around with his stupid friends, much to father’s dismay, because any injury could ruin his trajectory into the big league.  Like the last one, six months before, when he twisted his ankle.

But last night, the other contentious issue was that Rory wanted to go skiing with his friends after Christmas.

That was never going to fly.  Just the slightest error could ruin his career.  Of course, Rory was probably the best skier in the state, but that wouldn’t matter.

She shovelled the last scoop onto the lawn, now completely covered, and leaned on her shovel. It was Jack’s chore, but he simply shirked it, and it fell to Emma.  I always helped.

“What Rory wants, Rory gets,” she muttered, not for the first time. 

She was finally realising that our father’s world revolved around his firstborn son and heir.  Jack understood early and simply ignored his father.

“You have mom wrapped around your little finger, you know.  Perhaps your path lies there.  You saw how she glared at him when he gave his married with children speech.”

“I didn’t, but I’m not surprised.  His obsession with Rory is annoying her.”

I’d noticed that too.

Of course, my comment was not without merit.  Sneaky as I was, I managed to ‘infiltrate’ my eldest brother’s friend group, and overheard their plans for the skiing trip.  It was widely known that Rory’s father would ban him from joining them, but Rory had a plan.

It wasn’t going to end well.

…

Christmas Day was predictable.  As long as I could remember, it was held at the farm, presided over by the patriarch, Grandfather, at one end and our father at the other.

The old man ruled with an iron fist, leaving all the organising, cooking, and serving to the women, namely, grandmother, mother, and Emma.

This year, it all fell to our mother and Emma.  I helped.  My father was the patriarch, not Uncle Roy, whose place it was.  He didn’t get to sit at the other end of the table.  Rory did.  In the hierarchy, it was he insisted, father and son.

Roy wanted to argue the point, but he didn’t.  If he’d been married and with children, he might, but as a bachelor, he was simply relegated.

Christmas morning wasn’t the leisurely lie-in as it was for most people, followed by a leisurely breakfast and opening of presents before the arrangements for lunch began.

Presents took very little time.  We received clothing or something practical.  Everything else was deemed a waste of resources.  We had hoped that with the grandfather gone, the rules would change.  They did not, but for one exception.  Rory got a new pickup truck, and now he has a licence. 

In our family, it started at 6am.  It wasn’t just family attending, there were what mother called ‘the hangers-on’, grandfathers and fathers favoured few, driven by what the guests brought to the table.

The football coach was just one.

We were catering for 20.  Mother and Emma did the hard work, I did the table set-up and in the days before the decorations.  Roy had a farm to run.

Grandmother was finally at peace away from the man I felt she had come to loathe, loud-mouthed, autocratic, opinionated and outspoken.  Her opinion was his.  Publicly.  Privately, it was something else.

She had, in the last few years, been surreptitiously sowing the seeds of revolt in the Broadhurst women.  I heard a lot of cursing during prep.

Through good luck and better management, the food was on the table on time and ready for the patriarch to carve the Turkey.

After grace, the honour falling to the eldest son, the lunch continued along the predictable lines, my father controlled the conversation, about Rory’s coming year, and how Roy was going to need help on the farm, and it was up to the three other children to step up.

After all, we had nothing better to do, especially hanging out with the other good-for-nothings.  Neither Uncle Roy nor our mother had a say in the matter.

At the end of the day, I had that last look of the family united together in a family photo that Emma insisted on taking.

After everyone had scattered, I asked her why she had decided, this year of all years, she had taken the shot.

“To remember us all together in a semblance of unity, before everything changes.”

“You’re expecting trouble?”

“I had a dream last night.  Next year, Rory will be leaving, football and all, and Mother is not happy.  I woke up, and I was alone, in a very different place.”

I shrugged.  “Children get older and leave.  It’s what happens.

She didn’t seem convinced.  But later, wandering back to our house, I remembered that fateful statement Emma had muttered not so long ago, “What could possibly go wrong?”

The answer to that, of course, was quite simple. 

Everything.

…

Three days later, Rory disappeared, or, that is to say, he sneaked out of the house and went with his mates to the ski fields, completely ignoring his father’s strict veto.

Of course he did.

Rory rarely listened to his father’s edicts.

I overheard part of the conversation between father and Rory, and I counted at least ten death threats.  At the very least, given the propensity to injure himself, it was foolish.

His father had outright promised the coach on Christmas day that he would not allow Rory to harm his or the team’s chances of a championship and drafting.

Now he had egg on his face, and we suffered for it.

But as outrage goes, our father let him stay.

Until we got the call on New Year’s Eve.  The call no one wanted to get.

Rory had an accident. 

An accident.

No details, just get there.  Mom and Dad were in the car and gone.  It was like the rest of us never existed.

Emma and I watched the car head off, going faster than it should

“Told you,” she said.

“It’ll be nothing.  You know what his friends are like.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just being the idiots they are.”

“Rory knows better.”

“Rory, full of beer, is just as stupid as they are.  We’ll wait and see.”

She was sceptical, but it alleviated the anxiety that her dream might come true. 

…

Although we didn’t know it yet, Rory’s accident was like a seismic shift in the tectonic plates.  In other words, it was the beginning of the end.

Rory had sprained his ankle badly, the sort of sprain that, if not managed properly, could cost careers.  It’s why, for the next six weeks, we did not see Mom, Dad, or Rory.

They took him straight to a specialist clinic and stayed for the intensive treatment and recovery.  No one asked what it cost.

Emma was told she had to look after us, as well as herself, until they returned.  I took myself off to Uncle Roy’s farm and stayed there.  Emma had enough of her own problems with having worry about me. 

At least Jack finally took an interest in what was going on, and said, in his opinion, our parents had finally shown who the favourite was, and had gone on vacation without us.  He divided his time between home and the farm.

His assessment made sense. Emma wanted to believe otherwise, but I think in the end she finally realised that they were never going to let her follow her dream.

That’s when I noticed the change in her.

Diffident.  Preoccupied.  And not that I know what it was, but more grown-up. She had lost that girlish look and attitude, and had to ‘grow up’.

When our father and mother returned, with a very contrite Rory, our world had completely changed.  It was like three new people had come back, people we didn’t really know.

Our father had completely immersed himself in everything Rory.  Whereas he used to notice us, it was like we never existed.  It was more of Rory this and Rory that.

Rory lapped it up, played the part of the football star who was going to be the pride of the family.  And carry on the mantle of looking after us all.  None of us believed him.

They were empty words.  He’d always been selfish, always got the best of everything, and he would never change.

The biggest change was Mom.  She was perpetually angry, and where once she accepted she was the household slave, she started saying no, and no longer went along with whatever her husband said.

She had a voice, and she used it.  The arguments could be heard in the street.  We left when the skirmishes started to keep out of the firing line.

That continued through that fateful year, where Rory played the game, the team won game after game, and where in private I saw that pain and anguish of a son made to believe he was something her wasn’t.

That simple sprain, as he called it, was career-ending, but our father refused to accept it and, along with the coach, pushed harder and harder.

He needed discipline, our father said, and continually said ‘no pain, no gain’.  I knew he would push himself to win the championship, but after that, he would become a mental and physical wreck.

I said to him once, “You should not let our father live his dreams through you; the cost is going to be more than you can pay.”

He just smirked and said, “What would a mistake like you know about anything?”

That’s all I was to him.  A mistake.  I guess then better to be a mistake than a fool looking for something that was never going to happen.

Although I hated sports and watching them, I went to several of his games and watched him. He was the best, but there was something else, and I didn’t think anyone noticed.  When he forgot, there was a very slight limp, especially when he gave the ankle a workout.

Not so much flash, a yard or two slower, the expression of a boy who knows what he was about to do was going to hurt, and steeling himself.

He was heading for destruction.

After the summer vacation, Emma brought up the subject of going to college.  Never too early to start planning, she said.  This went on until Rory’s prom.

I remembered it for a long time, because we all knew by then Rory mattered, and none of us did.  Perhaps Mom cared, but she had long since surrendered to apathy.

We sent Rory off in his tuxedo and new car to collect his date, a girl were discovered that same night he had been dating since that Christmas skiing debacle.  Apparently, he had been showing off in front of her.

Typical Rory.

We also learned about the deal our father made with the school to keep him on so that he could finish the season in the football team. 

He was going to be Prom king and star quarterback, as his father had been before him.  His father had also been ‘chatting’ to the football scouts about Rory’s prospects.  It all seemed to me the act of a desperate man, and not letting the son prove himself

To me, that was a disaster in the making.

Emma, on the other hand, was moving forward with her plans to attend college and get a good job.  It was where she had started work in a cafe, earning her own money because we’d been told money was tight and there were no more handouts.

An edict that didn’t include Rory.

She had seen our father about the scholarship fund our grandfather had left us for a college education, a meeting that hadn’t gone well.

She had left his study way too quickly and in tears.  She ran out of the house before I could get to see her, so I finished what I had to do and went to find her.  It wouldn’t be hard; lately, she had been keeping the latest foal company

She had named her Maisie.

Her eyes were red and her cheeks flushed.  Angry and upset.

“What happened?”

“Rory happened.  I’m going to kill him one day.”

“You might have to get in line.”

“I just found that our father spent all of our college funds on the medical bills to fix Rory’s ankle.”

“All of it?”

“And mortgaged the house.  From a secure future to the rubbish tip in the blink of an eye.”

“And completely wasted.  Rory will never be able to pay it back.  His ankle may have been fixed, but some forgot to tell him to let it completely heal.  He’s not a hundred per cent, believe me.”

“Not what Dad says.”

“He’s delusional.  They all are.  He keeps going; there will be no future for any of us.”

She shrugged.  “I’ll find work, get enough to start and pay as I go.  It may take longer, but trust me, the moment I can, I’m gone.  Who does that, spending their money without even talking to them?”

“What would I know, I’m just the mistake.”

…

The fissures were there for all to see.  All it needed was a cataclysmic event to break them open.

That came at the big game, the one that was going to give Rory his claim to fame, and the story our father could relate for years to anyone who would listen.

Rory had put in a flawless game, and we were just ahead on the scoreboard with victory assured. There was a minute to go, and the other team were moving the ball.

In one tense moment when Rory launched himself to intercept the ball, we all saw it, and we all collectively groaned.

His ankle finally gave out, and he collapsed. The other side got the ball, and our defence was just a few milliseconds slow to stop them.

Had his ankle held up just one more time, we would have won.  The look on my father’s face was indescribable.  The look on the scout’s face was predictable.

In that single moment, our world as it was came to an end.

What was incredibly painful was how his father just ignored him, lying on the football field in agony, the medical people trying to alleviate the pain.

He simply turned around and walked away.

Disappointment was etched on the faces of everyone who came to see the team win.  Even the coach was so shattered he hadn’t noticed Rory was still on the ground where he landed.

I heard my mother utter four words very savagely in her husband’s direction, “I hope you’re satisfied.”

She then went to see what was happening with Rory. 

Emma gasped when she saw the event, and she glared at him while watching him writhe in pain.  Perhaps the resentment of seeing her college fund spent for nothing hurt even more.

My only thought was that it would never happen to me because I was never going to play sports.

…

I was thirteen, that awkward age transitioning into the teens. I’d seen how it worked for two brothers, and now I was hoping those years would bypass me.

I wasn’t old enough to run away.  Jack was old enough and did, making good his escape while we were all at the football match.  I don’t think anyone noticed for a week.

Emma got as far as the railway depot with her life packed into a small suitcase, with no idea where she was going, just anywhere but there, in a house where no one cared.

Rory was back in the hospital and would never really recover.  Any thought of the dream to become a star quarterback was gone, with no offers from any of the scouts.

The injury was too severe to mend completely, and he would be in pain from time to time, and he would have a permanent limp.  My unspoken question?  Who was going to carry the family now?

Our father retreated to his study and very rarely came out.  Why would he?  Our mother didn’t come home from the game, or that night.  Seeing that world she had created for herself crashing to the ground, there wasn’t anything left.

I was left there on my own until Roy came over to see how we were getting on, having heard what happened, and unable to talk to his brother, told me to collect my stuff and come with him.

His brother could sort himself out.

We went to the railway depot and rescued Emma from making a mistake, went to the sheriff’s to tell them Jack had run away, and then went to the farm.

Roy seemed to know our mother had gone, and as he said, “She should have done it years ago.”

…

Exactly thirty years later, I stood on the bottom step of the farmhouse entry and looked across the unchanged fields and the grey walls of the barn.

The tractor I’d broken was still sitting beside it, rusting away as a monument to my inability to heed simple instructions.

I had just come back from Uncle Roy’s funeral, old age, and perpetually being tired, finally taking him to heaven, where generous souls like his were welcomed with open arms.

Mother and Emma were inside getting ready for the wake.  Jack and my father would have been there, except they had gone fishing a few months back and got caught in a freak storm and drowned.

It was sad, but the hurt wasn’t as bad as that when Roy succumbed.

As for Rory, he never recovered, mentally or physically.  He shut the door on us, and in the end, the disappointment was too much.  Whether it was deliberate or not, he overdosed on morphine.

Emma went to college, got her law degree, met a nice boy, and after graduating, got married and ended up doing the one thing she said she would never do.  Become a wife and mother.

I discovered a talent quite by accident, waiting, and wrote a bystander’s view of a high school football match that I gave to the editor of the daily newspaper, who had been at the very same game, and he hired me.

I married a fellow reporter, Emma, and I had our weddings together.  That was when our mother returned, and we all lived on the farm.

Happily ever after?  Maybe.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 167 – Writing exercise – And the door stayed closed

…

That was the thing about people who always said their door was always open.

It was, until it wasn’t.

And sometimes the reason why it closed was a misunderstanding piled on top of pride.

In a way, it cost me everything, but in another, I would not be the person I am now, with the people I know now, and those I had left behind were the poorer for it.

…

As doors went, I didn’t understand the metaphorical meaning until late into my teens.  I don’t think it really mattered, not until I discovered that my father had set goals for each of his children, and if they achieved those goals, they were rewarded.

My oldest brother, Rory, called it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

My eldest sister, Emma, called it the harbinger of broken dreams.

My next elder brother, Jack, didn’t care.  He had decided early in life that he was not playing the games our father set.  His joy was watching my elder brother try to meet that expectation and failing to quite make it.

I was the youngest, and as my father constantly pointed out, ‘the mistake’.  He said it so frequently that Rory just called me ‘mistake’ and rarely by my real name, William.

I was too young to understand, but my mother constantly warned me that my turn was coming, to get good grades and be a good son.

The reality was that the ‘mistake’ would never amount to anything, and therefore, my father just ignored the fact that I existed.  His only priority was the prodigal son, Rory, and he poured all his attention and resources into him, following in his father’s footsteps.

And up until Christmas, just before Rory was starting his graduation year at the High School, nearly the best quarterback since his father, ready to lead the team into the championships, the Broadhurst family were riding high.

…

Emma casually said morning, while she and I were shovelling snow from the front gate to the front door, “What could possibly go wrong?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

A month earlier, we had woken to the news that our grandparents on my father’s side had been killed in a freak road accident. 

It had shattered my father.  He had idolised his father, perhaps because, as my mother said, very quietly, that he had spoiled her husband rotten.

Or more to the point, she was secretly pleased after suffering the demise of demeaning comments from him.  His son had deserved better.

But it left us with good news: he had left the four grandchildren a college fund, the family farm to our Uncle Roy, my father’s only brother, and the rest to my father.  Reward, he said, for obedience and hard work.

There had been discussion at the dinner table, Emma saying that when she graduated, she wanted to go to college, study law.  It was no coincidence that her best friend had the same plan.

My father had laughed.  “Why on earth would you want to work?  Your role is to be a mother and look after your family.  Your mother never saw the need to go gallivanting off to college.”

I was going to add a few words of my own, like the time I heard her talking to one of her lady friends, that she resented the fact that she had got pregnant almost immediately after the prom, and took any chance of her doing anything with her life.

My father, in one version, had deliberately set out to trap her, leaving her no option but to marry him.

I thought it best to keep that gem to myself.

Emma saw the writing on the wall.  Not for the first time, he had intimated he would not support her if she did.  Now, there was the college fund, to her, that settled the matter.  She had been wise enough not to bring it up.

I answered her almost rhetorical question with, “Rory might actually do something completely stupid.”

He had before, messing around with his stupid friends, much to father’s dismay, because any injury could ruin his trajectory into the big league.  Like the last one, six months before, when he twisted his ankle.

But last night, the other contentious issue was that Rory wanted to go skiing with his friends after Christmas.

That was never going to fly.  Just the slightest error could ruin his career.  Of course, Rory was probably the best skier in the state, but that wouldn’t matter.

She shovelled the last scoop onto the lawn, now completely covered, and leaned on her shovel. It was Jack’s chore, but he simply shirked it, and it fell to Emma.  I always helped.

“What Rory wants, Rory gets,” she muttered, not for the first time. 

She was finally realising that our father’s world revolved around his firstborn son and heir.  Jack understood early and simply ignored his father.

“You have mom wrapped around your little finger, you know.  Perhaps your path lies there.  You saw how she glared at him when he gave his married with children speech.”

“I didn’t, but I’m not surprised.  His obsession with Rory is annoying her.”

I’d noticed that too.

Of course, my comment was not without merit.  Sneaky as I was, I managed to ‘infiltrate’ my eldest brother’s friend group, and overheard their plans for the skiing trip.  It was widely known that Rory’s father would ban him from joining them, but Rory had a plan.

It wasn’t going to end well.

…

Christmas Day was predictable.  As long as I could remember, it was held at the farm, presided over by the patriarch, Grandfather, at one end and our father at the other.

The old man ruled with an iron fist, leaving all the organising, cooking, and serving to the women, namely, grandmother, mother, and Emma.

This year, it all fell to our mother and Emma.  I helped.  My father was the patriarch, not Uncle Roy, whose place it was.  He didn’t get to sit at the other end of the table.  Rory did.  In the hierarchy, it was he insisted, father and son.

Roy wanted to argue the point, but he didn’t.  If he’d been married and with children, he might, but as a bachelor, he was simply relegated.

Christmas morning wasn’t the leisurely lie-in as it was for most people, followed by a leisurely breakfast and opening of presents before the arrangements for lunch began.

Presents took very little time.  We received clothing or something practical.  Everything else was deemed a waste of resources.  We had hoped that with the grandfather gone, the rules would change.  They did not, but for one exception.  Rory got a new pickup truck, and now he has a licence. 

In our family, it started at 6am.  It wasn’t just family attending, there were what mother called ‘the hangers-on’, grandfathers and fathers favoured few, driven by what the guests brought to the table.

The football coach was just one.

We were catering for 20.  Mother and Emma did the hard work, I did the table set-up and in the days before the decorations.  Roy had a farm to run.

Grandmother was finally at peace away from the man I felt she had come to loathe, loud-mouthed, autocratic, opinionated and outspoken.  Her opinion was his.  Publicly.  Privately, it was something else.

She had, in the last few years, been surreptitiously sowing the seeds of revolt in the Broadhurst women.  I heard a lot of cursing during prep.

Through good luck and better management, the food was on the table on time and ready for the patriarch to carve the Turkey.

After grace, the honour falling to the eldest son, the lunch continued along the predictable lines, my father controlled the conversation, about Rory’s coming year, and how Roy was going to need help on the farm, and it was up to the three other children to step up.

After all, we had nothing better to do, especially hanging out with the other good-for-nothings.  Neither Uncle Roy nor our mother had a say in the matter.

At the end of the day, I had that last look of the family united together in a family photo that Emma insisted on taking.

After everyone had scattered, I asked her why she had decided, this year of all years, she had taken the shot.

“To remember us all together in a semblance of unity, before everything changes.”

“You’re expecting trouble?”

“I had a dream last night.  Next year, Rory will be leaving, football and all, and Mother is not happy.  I woke up, and I was alone, in a very different place.”

I shrugged.  “Children get older and leave.  It’s what happens.

She didn’t seem convinced.  But later, wandering back to our house, I remembered that fateful statement Emma had muttered not so long ago, “What could possibly go wrong?”

The answer to that, of course, was quite simple. 

Everything.

…

Three days later, Rory disappeared, or, that is to say, he sneaked out of the house and went with his mates to the ski fields, completely ignoring his father’s strict veto.

Of course he did.

Rory rarely listened to his father’s edicts.

I overheard part of the conversation between father and Rory, and I counted at least ten death threats.  At the very least, given the propensity to injure himself, it was foolish.

His father had outright promised the coach on Christmas day that he would not allow Rory to harm his or the team’s chances of a championship and drafting.

Now he had egg on his face, and we suffered for it.

But as outrage goes, our father let him stay.

Until we got the call on New Year’s Eve.  The call no one wanted to get.

Rory had an accident. 

An accident.

No details, just get there.  Mom and Dad were in the car and gone.  It was like the rest of us never existed.

Emma and I watched the car head off, going faster than it should

“Told you,” she said.

“It’ll be nothing.  You know what his friends are like.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just being the idiots they are.”

“Rory knows better.”

“Rory, full of beer, is just as stupid as they are.  We’ll wait and see.”

She was sceptical, but it alleviated the anxiety that her dream might come true. 

…

Although we didn’t know it yet, Rory’s accident was like a seismic shift in the tectonic plates.  In other words, it was the beginning of the end.

Rory had sprained his ankle badly, the sort of sprain that, if not managed properly, could cost careers.  It’s why, for the next six weeks, we did not see Mom, Dad, or Rory.

They took him straight to a specialist clinic and stayed for the intensive treatment and recovery.  No one asked what it cost.

Emma was told she had to look after us, as well as herself, until they returned.  I took myself off to Uncle Roy’s farm and stayed there.  Emma had enough of her own problems with having worry about me. 

At least Jack finally took an interest in what was going on, and said, in his opinion, our parents had finally shown who the favourite was, and had gone on vacation without us.  He divided his time between home and the farm.

His assessment made sense. Emma wanted to believe otherwise, but I think in the end she finally realised that they were never going to let her follow her dream.

That’s when I noticed the change in her.

Diffident.  Preoccupied.  And not that I know what it was, but more grown-up. She had lost that girlish look and attitude, and had to ‘grow up’.

When our father and mother returned, with a very contrite Rory, our world had completely changed.  It was like three new people had come back, people we didn’t really know.

Our father had completely immersed himself in everything Rory.  Whereas he used to notice us, it was like we never existed.  It was more of Rory this and Rory that.

Rory lapped it up, played the part of the football star who was going to be the pride of the family.  And carry on the mantle of looking after us all.  None of us believed him.

They were empty words.  He’d always been selfish, always got the best of everything, and he would never change.

The biggest change was Mom.  She was perpetually angry, and where once she accepted she was the household slave, she started saying no, and no longer went along with whatever her husband said.

She had a voice, and she used it.  The arguments could be heard in the street.  We left when the skirmishes started to keep out of the firing line.

That continued through that fateful year, where Rory played the game, the team won game after game, and where in private I saw that pain and anguish of a son made to believe he was something her wasn’t.

That simple sprain, as he called it, was career-ending, but our father refused to accept it and, along with the coach, pushed harder and harder.

He needed discipline, our father said, and continually said ‘no pain, no gain’.  I knew he would push himself to win the championship, but after that, he would become a mental and physical wreck.

I said to him once, “You should not let our father live his dreams through you; the cost is going to be more than you can pay.”

He just smirked and said, “What would a mistake like you know about anything?”

That’s all I was to him.  A mistake.  I guess then better to be a mistake than a fool looking for something that was never going to happen.

Although I hated sports and watching them, I went to several of his games and watched him. He was the best, but there was something else, and I didn’t think anyone noticed.  When he forgot, there was a very slight limp, especially when he gave the ankle a workout.

Not so much flash, a yard or two slower, the expression of a boy who knows what he was about to do was going to hurt, and steeling himself.

He was heading for destruction.

After the summer vacation, Emma brought up the subject of going to college.  Never too early to start planning, she said.  This went on until Rory’s prom.

I remembered it for a long time, because we all knew by then Rory mattered, and none of us did.  Perhaps Mom cared, but she had long since surrendered to apathy.

We sent Rory off in his tuxedo and new car to collect his date, a girl were discovered that same night he had been dating since that Christmas skiing debacle.  Apparently, he had been showing off in front of her.

Typical Rory.

We also learned about the deal our father made with the school to keep him on so that he could finish the season in the football team. 

He was going to be Prom king and star quarterback, as his father had been before him.  His father had also been ‘chatting’ to the football scouts about Rory’s prospects.  It all seemed to me the act of a desperate man, and not letting the son prove himself

To me, that was a disaster in the making.

Emma, on the other hand, was moving forward with her plans to attend college and get a good job.  It was where she had started work in a cafe, earning her own money because we’d been told money was tight and there were no more handouts.

An edict that didn’t include Rory.

She had seen our father about the scholarship fund our grandfather had left us for a college education, a meeting that hadn’t gone well.

She had left his study way too quickly and in tears.  She ran out of the house before I could get to see her, so I finished what I had to do and went to find her.  It wouldn’t be hard; lately, she had been keeping the latest foal company

She had named her Maisie.

Her eyes were red and her cheeks flushed.  Angry and upset.

“What happened?”

“Rory happened.  I’m going to kill him one day.”

“You might have to get in line.”

“I just found that our father spent all of our college funds on the medical bills to fix Rory’s ankle.”

“All of it?”

“And mortgaged the house.  From a secure future to the rubbish tip in the blink of an eye.”

“And completely wasted.  Rory will never be able to pay it back.  His ankle may have been fixed, but some forgot to tell him to let it completely heal.  He’s not a hundred per cent, believe me.”

“Not what Dad says.”

“He’s delusional.  They all are.  He keeps going; there will be no future for any of us.”

She shrugged.  “I’ll find work, get enough to start and pay as I go.  It may take longer, but trust me, the moment I can, I’m gone.  Who does that, spending their money without even talking to them?”

“What would I know, I’m just the mistake.”

…

The fissures were there for all to see.  All it needed was a cataclysmic event to break them open.

That came at the big game, the one that was going to give Rory his claim to fame, and the story our father could relate for years to anyone who would listen.

Rory had put in a flawless game, and we were just ahead on the scoreboard with victory assured. There was a minute to go, and the other team were moving the ball.

In one tense moment when Rory launched himself to intercept the ball, we all saw it, and we all collectively groaned.

His ankle finally gave out, and he collapsed. The other side got the ball, and our defence was just a few milliseconds slow to stop them.

Had his ankle held up just one more time, we would have won.  The look on my father’s face was indescribable.  The look on the scout’s face was predictable.

In that single moment, our world as it was came to an end.

What was incredibly painful was how his father just ignored him, lying on the football field in agony, the medical people trying to alleviate the pain.

He simply turned around and walked away.

Disappointment was etched on the faces of everyone who came to see the team win.  Even the coach was so shattered he hadn’t noticed Rory was still on the ground where he landed.

I heard my mother utter four words very savagely in her husband’s direction, “I hope you’re satisfied.”

She then went to see what was happening with Rory. 

Emma gasped when she saw the event, and she glared at him while watching him writhe in pain.  Perhaps the resentment of seeing her college fund spent for nothing hurt even more.

My only thought was that it would never happen to me because I was never going to play sports.

…

I was thirteen, that awkward age transitioning into the teens. I’d seen how it worked for two brothers, and now I was hoping those years would bypass me.

I wasn’t old enough to run away.  Jack was old enough and did, making good his escape while we were all at the football match.  I don’t think anyone noticed for a week.

Emma got as far as the railway depot with her life packed into a small suitcase, with no idea where she was going, just anywhere but there, in a house where no one cared.

Rory was back in the hospital and would never really recover.  Any thought of the dream to become a star quarterback was gone, with no offers from any of the scouts.

The injury was too severe to mend completely, and he would be in pain from time to time, and he would have a permanent limp.  My unspoken question?  Who was going to carry the family now?

Our father retreated to his study and very rarely came out.  Why would he?  Our mother didn’t come home from the game, or that night.  Seeing that world she had created for herself crashing to the ground, there wasn’t anything left.

I was left there on my own until Roy came over to see how we were getting on, having heard what happened, and unable to talk to his brother, told me to collect my stuff and come with him.

His brother could sort himself out.

We went to the railway depot and rescued Emma from making a mistake, went to the sheriff’s to tell them Jack had run away, and then went to the farm.

Roy seemed to know our mother had gone, and as he said, “She should have done it years ago.”

…

Exactly thirty years later, I stood on the bottom step of the farmhouse entry and looked across the unchanged fields and the grey walls of the barn.

The tractor I’d broken was still sitting beside it, rusting away as a monument to my inability to heed simple instructions.

I had just come back from Uncle Roy’s funeral, old age, and perpetually being tired, finally taking him to heaven, where generous souls like his were welcomed with open arms.

Mother and Emma were inside getting ready for the wake.  Jack and my father would have been there, except they had gone fishing a few months back and got caught in a freak storm and drowned.

It was sad, but the hurt wasn’t as bad as that when Roy succumbed.

As for Rory, he never recovered, mentally or physically.  He shut the door on us, and in the end, the disappointment was too much.  Whether it was deliberate or not, he overdosed on morphine.

Emma went to college, got her law degree, met a nice boy, and after graduating, got married and ended up doing the one thing she said she would never do.  Become a wife and mother.

I discovered a talent quite by accident, waiting, and wrote a bystander’s view of a high school football match that I gave to the editor of the daily newspaper, who had been at the very same game, and he hired me.

I married a fellow reporter, Emma, and I had our weddings together.  That was when our mother returned, and we all lived on the farm.

Happily ever after?  Maybe.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 166 – Perfection might just be impossible

…

The Beautiful Surrender: Why Perfectionism is the Enemy of Creation

“With each project, you eventually have to surrender the perfect version of the work to make room for what you actually create.”

When I first read this quote by Leslie Jamison, it felt like a gentle exhale. As creators—whether we are writing, coding, painting, or strategising—we spend an exhausting amount of time living in the “Perfect Version.”

The Perfect Version is that pristine, shimmering ghost of a project that lives in your head. It is the version where the prose is flawless, the code is bug-free on the first run, and the design captures the exact emotion you intended without a single misplaced pixel.

But there is a problem with the Perfect Version: It doesn’t actually exist.

The Trap of the Platonic Ideal

We often treat the “Perfect Version” as a gold standard. We think that if we just push a little harder, work a few more nights, or refine one more sentence, we will finally bridge the gap between that mental ideal and reality.

But as Jamison suggests, holding onto that perfection isn’t a pursuit of excellence; it’s a form of obstruction. The Perfect Version is static and sterile. It is a monument to what could be, but it prevents the birth of what is. By obsessing over the ideal, we stifle the messy, human, and surprising elements that make a project truly alive.

Why We Must Surrender

To “surrender the perfect version” sounds like giving up, but it is actually an act of bravery. Here is why it is the most important step in any creative process:

1. Reality is more interesting than abstraction. The Perfect Version is safe because it hasn’t been tested. The work you actually create, however, is shaped by your limitations, your constraints, and the real-world feedback you receive. There is a jagged beauty in the edges of a real project that a perfect, abstract idea could never replicate.

2. Perfectionism is a form of procrastination. It is easy to stay in the “planning” or “polishing” phase because that is where the work remains safe from criticism. To release a project into the world is to risk being judged. Surrendering the perfect vision is the only way to move from “dreaming” to “doing.”

3. The work needs room to breathe. A piece of art or a professional project is not a static object; it is a conversation. It needs to breathe. When you surrender your rigid expectations, you allow the project to evolve. You allow it to be better than you initially imagined because you are no longer forcing it to conform to a pre-defined mould.

How to Practice the Surrender

If you’re currently stuck in the grip of the Perfect Version, try these three shifts in perspective:

• Define “Done” before you start. Perfection has no finish line. By setting clear parameters for completion (e.g., “I will spend four hours on this draft, and then I will send it off”), you force yourself to prioritise the work over the fantasy.
• Embrace the “First Draft Energy.” Recognise that the first iteration is meant to be a rough sketch. If you treat it as a sandbox rather than a masterpiece, you remove the pressure to be perfect and open the door to being authentic.
• Focus on the “What” rather than the “How.” Instead of obsessing over whether the work is perfectly executed, focus on whether the work effectively communicates your message or solves the problem.

Final Thoughts

The next time you find yourself stuck, replaying the same project over and over in your mind, remember Leslie Jamison’s words. Your desire for perfection is a barrier.

Give yourself permission to let the ideal version die. It is only in that surrender that you can reclaim the space to create something real, something tangible, and—most importantly—something done.

What project have you been holding onto because it wasn’t “perfect” enough? Maybe today is the day to let it go.

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Day 166 – Perfection might just be impossible

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The Beautiful Surrender: Why Perfectionism is the Enemy of Creation

“With each project, you eventually have to surrender the perfect version of the work to make room for what you actually create.”

When I first read this quote by Leslie Jamison, it felt like a gentle exhale. As creators—whether we are writing, coding, painting, or strategising—we spend an exhausting amount of time living in the “Perfect Version.”

The Perfect Version is that pristine, shimmering ghost of a project that lives in your head. It is the version where the prose is flawless, the code is bug-free on the first run, and the design captures the exact emotion you intended without a single misplaced pixel.

But there is a problem with the Perfect Version: It doesn’t actually exist.

The Trap of the Platonic Ideal

We often treat the “Perfect Version” as a gold standard. We think that if we just push a little harder, work a few more nights, or refine one more sentence, we will finally bridge the gap between that mental ideal and reality.

But as Jamison suggests, holding onto that perfection isn’t a pursuit of excellence; it’s a form of obstruction. The Perfect Version is static and sterile. It is a monument to what could be, but it prevents the birth of what is. By obsessing over the ideal, we stifle the messy, human, and surprising elements that make a project truly alive.

Why We Must Surrender

To “surrender the perfect version” sounds like giving up, but it is actually an act of bravery. Here is why it is the most important step in any creative process:

1. Reality is more interesting than abstraction. The Perfect Version is safe because it hasn’t been tested. The work you actually create, however, is shaped by your limitations, your constraints, and the real-world feedback you receive. There is a jagged beauty in the edges of a real project that a perfect, abstract idea could never replicate.

2. Perfectionism is a form of procrastination. It is easy to stay in the “planning” or “polishing” phase because that is where the work remains safe from criticism. To release a project into the world is to risk being judged. Surrendering the perfect vision is the only way to move from “dreaming” to “doing.”

3. The work needs room to breathe. A piece of art or a professional project is not a static object; it is a conversation. It needs to breathe. When you surrender your rigid expectations, you allow the project to evolve. You allow it to be better than you initially imagined because you are no longer forcing it to conform to a pre-defined mould.

How to Practice the Surrender

If you’re currently stuck in the grip of the Perfect Version, try these three shifts in perspective:

• Define “Done” before you start. Perfection has no finish line. By setting clear parameters for completion (e.g., “I will spend four hours on this draft, and then I will send it off”), you force yourself to prioritise the work over the fantasy.
• Embrace the “First Draft Energy.” Recognise that the first iteration is meant to be a rough sketch. If you treat it as a sandbox rather than a masterpiece, you remove the pressure to be perfect and open the door to being authentic.
• Focus on the “What” rather than the “How.” Instead of obsessing over whether the work is perfectly executed, focus on whether the work effectively communicates your message or solves the problem.

Final Thoughts

The next time you find yourself stuck, replaying the same project over and over in your mind, remember Leslie Jamison’s words. Your desire for perfection is a barrier.

Give yourself permission to let the ideal version die. It is only in that surrender that you can reclaim the space to create something real, something tangible, and—most importantly—something done.

What project have you been holding onto because it wasn’t “perfect” enough? Maybe today is the day to let it go.

…