Writing Prompt Thursday

Today, a little something different. I went to my handy-dandy Field Guide to Weeds by Lawrence J. Crockett. Weeds can have picturesque names. Here are three to get you started:


Creeping Jenny

Cheatgrass

Devil's Bootjack


Really, I'm not making any of these up.

Writing Prompt Thursday

I feels the need to share some prompting joy. So here goes. Start with one of these. Give it at least 17 minutes. Why 17? 'cause I said so, that's why. (Yes, I am a mother.)

1. What's worse: public speaking or a chocolate shortage?
2. If you had to leave the country -- for good -- what would you pack in the one suitcase you're allowed to take with you? (You can do this one for a character.)
3. What if you (or your character) could save someone (stranger, friend or family member), but to do so would cause the saver to become disfigured in some way. Would you (or your character) choose the someone's life, or not?

Happy paper trails!

Writing Prompt Thursday

I'm inspired!

Check out the latest innovation (tongue firmly in cheek) -- Flutter!



Now write down one verb and one noun for each letter of the alphabet and execute a mix 'n' match. Or, try writing a story in just 26 words. Then tweet it (because, sadly, we can't "flap"). Too much challenge? How 'bout a Twitter tale? You can have 140 whole characters!

3 Writing Prompts

The Better Blog task for yesterday was to write a list post. (I signed up in the final hour, so I seem to be getting my tasks a day after the sell-by date. No matter.) I thought I'd start a little tradition and build on last Thursday's Writing Prompt post. So here are your Three for Thursday:

1. Write outside. Yes, go out into the great outdoors and do some scribbling. If it's cold where you are, how does that affect what you write?

2. Turquoise. Write about the colour turquoise. What do you remember that was turquoise? What smell do you associate with turquoise?

3. Tell the story of a painting. Check out that painting on your wall, get an art book from your shelf, coffee table, or library or look up artwork online. Choose a painting and write about what is happening in it.

Writing Prompts

It's Thursday, the sun is shining, and the phrase, "butt in chair" seems a bit menacing. Time for a few writing prompts to get those fingers tapping.

1. Try opening with this: "The last time I was here..."
2. Type with your eyes closed. Become one with your keyboard.
3. Write down the first line you wrote yesterday (or whenever you wrote last). Now continue, but turn a different corner. If your character turned down the job offer, let her accept it. If your character broke her arm, let her leg be broken instead. See where that line takes you today.

Keep writing for at least 15 minutes.

Getting Started

The blank page.

Those have to be the most beautiful -- and scariest -- three words in the writer's lexicon. Depending upon my mood, the blank page can be anything from a delectable expanse ready for creation to a very smooth, slippery wall of hard plastic that will not take ink no matter how hard I try.

Luckily, there are ways around the latter. Here are a few of my favourites (in random order, because I'm a random kind of gal):
a. Pick a colour. Write from the colour.
b. Snatch up a book like Room to Write: Daily Invitations to a Writer's Life by Bonni Goldberg. Find it here. It's stuffed from cover to cover with writing starters. Another of my faves is Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Find it here. (Why are they both Goldbergs? Is there a genetic predisposition to inspiring writers?)
c. Take the words out of someone else's mouth. Open a book you haven't read to a random page. Write down the first line. Then continue. You can start with this one: "It was even more money than he had delivered the time before." (Daughter of War, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, p. 56. Get it here.)
d. Take the words out of someone else's mouth, part two. Sit down in a coffee shop and write down the first sentence you hear. (Be sly about this one.)

Now, go fill a page!