Where readers, writers, and stories meet.
Picture it: A dead body. A seemingly open-and-shut case of robbery and murder. And then… A body camera, hidden in the victim’s lapel pin. Newly discovered video reveals that the victim was handing out blankets to the homeless on a bitter cold night. Who would kill this do-gooder? And why? Continue reading “Wednesday Writing Prompt: Whodunit?”
Hello again. In case you missed it, last week I posted part one of a writing prompt inspired by Joanne Karpinski’s essay, “Discerning Diversity in America” from Teaching Life Writing Texts (286-291). Today’s writing assignment consists of revising your original essay from last week. If you are just now joining us, please feel free to complete last week’s writing assignment prior to reading the rest of this post.
“Revise [your] initial essay by establishing a social context for [your] personal narrative about food. How do the preparation, presentation, and consumption of food reflect larger value systems? How do attitudes toward certain foods connect to overall values—are they consistent or contradictory? How can food be used as metaphor in [your] expanded piece of life writing?” (289-290). Continue reading “Wednesday Writing Prompt: Food, part 2”
While reading an article in Teaching Life Writing Texts for class, I came across an interesting writing prompt that I thought I would share with you. I’m going to present this in two parts: the first will probably be one of the easiest writing assignments you have ever been given, while the second will require some thought.
“Describe a cuisine experience that was personally significant to [you]” (288).
This should be an easy assignment, don’t you think? Just reflect on a significant experience in your life that was in some way connected to food. Write an essay about this experience, share it on your blog (or in the comments below), and post a link to your blog post below. Then come back next week for part two of the assignment. Continue reading “Wednesday Writing Prompt: Food, part 1”
Lately, I’ve been working my way through the manuscript I started for my creative master’s thesis in an attempt to finally finish the novel already and get it published. As I am working my way through the novel this time, I am struck dumb by the lack of description in these first 90+ pages that are supposedly polished to the point of being publishable.
Two questions come to mind: first, how did this happen? And second, what the heck am I going to do about it?
I have gotten far enough away from the actual writing of this project that I feel as though I am seeing it through my “reader’s lens,” and I am really not happy with what I am reading. Sure, my dialog is awesome (I ROCK at dialog!), but there’s not a whole lot going on around that dialog. Continue reading “Why is descriptive writing so hard?”
What do you do if you want to participate in NaNoWriMo this year but you don’t know what to write and trashy romance novels just aren’t your thing? Why not try a writing prompt? I came up with one this morning that is completely different than the romance novel prompt I gave you a few days ago. If you like zombies, this one might be right up your alley! Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Writing Prompt: Rock ‘n Roll Zombie”
Tonight – August 10th – is seemingly the largest full moon of 2014. Be sure to check it out!
Continue reading “Tonight’s supermoon and thoughts on perspective”
This morning I decided to write a brief “Leaving” essay in response to a writing prompt from The Write Practice:
My ex-mother-in-law would leave town for the weekend, stumbling out of her house with an armload of disorganization, oblivious to the pile of stinking, half-washed dishes sitting in cold, slimy dishwater in her kitchen. She would walk away from the overflowing garbage as though she expected cleaning elves to take care of it while she was away.
She used to ask me to water her plants while she was gone, and I always wondered if she expected me to morph into a cleaning elf in her absence. Um, yeah. I didn’t. I just avoided the kitchen, filling a pitcher with water from the bathtub, and watered her flowers as fast as I could so I could escape the stench as quickly as possible. Continue reading “Leaving: A writing prompt from The Write Practice”
The Chuck Wendig/TerribleMinds writing exercise for today is to describe one thing in ten different ways. I decided I needed to attempt this one since description is NOT my strong suit. I chose to describe description:
Writing description, for me, 1) is like pulling teeth. Yes, cliché is often my go-to strategy. Don’t most of our brains take the path of least resistance most of the time? It’s 2) like a traffic jam when I’m already late (HA!)
Okay, now that I’m done dating myself, let’s proceed, shall we?
Writing description 3) is hard for me. Once in a great while, 4) it pours out of me as though someone has turned on the rusty description faucet in my head, full-blast, if only for a few minutes. Continue reading “Describe something in ten different ways”
I don’t know about you, but I get far more novel ideas than I could ever hope to write in one lifetime. I get so many story ideas, sometimes I just let them fly by and disappear into the never-written without ever bothering to stop and write them down. This morning, while reading a blog post on generating story ideas, I couldn’t help wondering if someone out there might one day be interested in taking one of my extra ideas and running with it.
Right now, I have four different novels in progress that I am determined to complete before starting any new projects. My notebook of new ideas is filling up as fast as my novel notebooks are. I couldn’t possibly write all of these novels, even if I lived three extra-long lifetimes. So, why not share some of my extra story ideas? Continue reading “Free novel idea: Three-Quarter Classified”
Halloween is coming. Spooky tales abound as the veil between this world and the next one thins. In my mom’s family, visiting ghosts are a yearlong occurrence. Several relatives insist my late aunt still hangs around my grandmother’s house. Although she has never made her presence known to me, I have been warned not to mention the ugly bathroom tiles she picked out before departing for the other side. Apparently, that’s still a sore spot with her.
In the early days of my ex-marriage, I lived in an apartment in Hawaii that I am pretty sure is haunted. It was just the two of us, with baby #1 on the way. We slept in the master bedroom and cluttered the second bedroom with junk. For some reason, that second bedroom gave us the creeps. If I needed the vacuum cleaner while my husband was out, I would run into the spare room as fast as I could, grab the vacuum cleaner, and fly back out, slamming the door behind me. It never occurred to us to start setting the room up for the baby, because our sixth senses told us we didn’t want our baby sleeping in there. Continue reading “Writing prompt: Tell me a Halloween tale”
Write on the World 