Today’s writing prompt is based on a well-known adage, “You reap what you sow.” What comes to mind when you think about that adage? Write about it. Keep reading to see the full writing prompt and my completed version of it.
Today’s Writing Prompt: You Reap What You Sow
Today, write a scene about someone who encounters the products of their labor or efforts. The “products” can be physical or more intangible, like a feeling of pride or justice. Try to write in the third person. And before you start writing, consider what the adage “You reap what you sow” means to you.
Completed Version of Today’s Writing Prompt
You Reap What You Sow, by K.E. Creighton
The sound of the tractor in the distant field woke Ned up this morning, not the rooster. And the sound made him perk up with a hint of anxiety until he realized his son, Vic, must already be out there tilling the soil for this year’s crops. Just as Ned had taught him how to do his entire life.
How had he overslept again? It was the second time this week he had missed the rooster’s crow. Though he was proud to have a son who didn’t wait for him to do what needed to get done.
Since Vic’s mother passed away last year, he started stepping up around the farm in a way Ned had never imagined. With such calm tenacity and vigor. Vic was only in his mid-twenties but determined, now more than ever, to keep his mother’s family’s farm out of the grasp of Big Agriculture. He was determined to keep the family’s legacy alive and intact. Even if he had to do it alone for a while.
Ned’s health was failing, and he wasn’t sure how long he had left. He knew Vic knew too, but they never talked about it. They just worked and sat together in comfortable silence during supper each night. Ned sometimes wondered if it had something to do with this land, which had been in his wife’s family for over 150 years. No one who lived here made it past fifty-five. But he didn’t wonder for long because he had work to do. Vic had the responsibility to carry on the legacy one day, but that day was not today.
[All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton and Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. All names and locations referred to are the product of the author’s imagination and are used entirely for fictional purposes. Any similarities to real-life persons or places are purely coincidental.]
Notes on Completing this Writing Prompt
Today, I wanted to mix the literal with the figurative— the potential to reap crops, as well as reap a family legacy that was sown along with crops on the land a long time ago. And while the “You reap what you so” adage is typically used within negative contexts, I wanted to try and use it in a more positive context this time.