This month I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge, blogging every day of the month of April, except Sundays, on a topic from A to Z. I’m posting short-form topics meant to get you talking and sharing! Join the discussion in the comments.

Yes, I’m making you think about death, two days in a row. But as creatives we are the experts on the hard stuff, are we not? That’s what we’re here for, to look Death in the face and laugh at him. You can come for me, Grim Reaper, but you will never get my work.

I sometimes motivate myself to write by looking at the dishes and thinking, I don’t care to be remembered as the girl who always did the dishes. Who will care if my kitchen is spotless, at the end of days? And yet, if I write something, it just might make a difference, somewhere, to something, to someone. If not, it will at least make a difference to me.

I think about this, but it is not primary. It is the other thing.

It is true, I don’t want to die. With all the things there are in the world that I want to see and do, I do not imagine that the time I have left on the planet will be enough to fit them all in. I don’t want to die with things left undone.

I expect you know this feeling as well.

Yet, no matter what we do, no matter how wonderfully productive we are today, and tomorrow, and the next day, there will be things left undone when we are gone.

So we must choose. Which are the most important? What do we want to focus on?

I’m working on a novel about a girl named Eve who receives a mysterious package in the mail. Inside is a letter from a man who calls himself Prometheus, telling her she is in great danger. To save herself, she must agree to go on a journey of invitations to experiences. The journey will change her in ways she can’t begin to foresee … but it’s possible that her quest to discover Prometheus’s true identity may change everything she thought she knew.

It’s the most meaningful thing I’ve done, and I’ve put off working on it because it deals with deep ideas and difficult kinds of change and growth. Plus I’d like it to be illustrated …

But I’m ignoring that and forging ahead, because it’s also the most fun I’ve had writing anything, ever.

What’s your big project that you want to be part of your legacy? What do you consider your magnum opus? Do you have one yet? Are you planning one for someday? What will you leave us with?