why I write for challenges

I enter challenges that inspire me. For example, the asylum challenge stuck in my mind because I kept thinking about the two almost warring definitions: asylum as in seeking asylum, like refugees do when they enter the US, and asylum as in an insane asylum, somewhere people cannot necessarily leave when they want to, although that’s also true of asylum seekers of the refugee sort. The prompt called to me because both definitions brought out thoughts of desperation, which was an emotion I was also already experiencing. Question challenges are motivating because they are easy to write responses to in either prose or poetry, whereas quotes I find more difficult to write about, and I generally avoid prompts that give me a plot to follow. I’d like more prompts that start with characters (write about someone who…) although I guess that’s somewhat counterintuitive given what I just said about plots. I appreciate all the challenges, whether I write for them or not.