Weekly Writing Challenge: A Few of My Favorite Things

For some of us, blogging is personal. Others are trying to educate or entertain; many more are hybrids. Yet we’re all storytellers. We all want to feel confident in what we’re offering when we hit “publish.”

No matter what your blogular target is, we want you to hit it, which is why we’re serving up Weekly Writing Challenges. Once a week, we’ll post a creative writing challenge to help you to push your writing boundaries and show off your writing chops among the WordPress.com community.

How it works: Every Monday, we lay out a different challenge along with tips on tackling it, useful resources, and example posts. You read, think, ask questions (we’ll be here!), and get to blogging, tagging your posts with “DPchallenge.” We keep an eye on the tag and highlight the week’s best posts on Freshly Pressed each Friday.

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Things, stuff, gizmos, whatchamacallits, items, objects; call them what you will. Material items play an important part in our lives. Some people believe that people with lots of “stuff” are money-hungry, gadget-obsessed, must-keep-up-with-the-Joneses types. For those who prefer the simpler life, there are still many possessions we have that mean more to us than their perceived purpose. Instead, items and objects can have seriously meaningful memories attached to them.

My great-grandfather’s trusty ol’ coffee maker.

My coworkers at WordPress.com love their coffee, and we’ve had many a conversation about the best coffee maker out there. While I’ve bought some of the recommended brewing machines, I have a standard fall back that never goes out of style: my great-grandfather’s drip coffee machine. It has dings and scratches from generations before me who used it as a spontaneous percussion instrument, and it lost its sheen a long time ago, leaving it a dull, Crayola-colored silver at this point. However, each time I participate in the ritual of brewing coffee, this coffee machine reminds me of my great-grandfather and his habits, his loves, and his daily rituals. It’s more than just a coffee pot—it’s a connection to my past.

For this week’s writing challenge, tell us about your most meaningful possession. No, the laptop that you’re blogging on doesn’t count. Instead, let us know about the heirloom ring that is passed on from woman to woman in your family, or the house you live in that has belonged to your family for generations. What’s important are the memories and people that these objects symbolize, not what they’re actually used for.

When writing, transport us into the past by telling us about your favorite “thing.” What is it? What does it look like? What memories of people or things or events does it conjure? Details are key for giving a clear picture of both why this item is so meaningful for you, and how that meaning has transformed the appearance of the object.

Need some inspiration from other WordPress.com bloggers? Check out these posts for inspiration:

• A Piece of (Personal) History
• A Sprinkle Donut
• My Grandmother, Back in the Day
• It Was a Very Good Year – 1975-1981
• Boxfuls of History