Quote for the day

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

- Pearl S. Buck

Quote for the day

“When we read, we stat at the beginning and continue until we reach the end.  When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out.”

-Vickie Karp

Writing Prompt: Letting the chips fall

Two friends are fighting and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have an opinion, sure, but I can’t interfere and the discord is killing me. Although this is something I know they have to sort out between themselves, knowing that there is nothing I can do hurts. In the meantime, I sit back and wait. I’ve considered all of the angles, who’s right, who’s wrong, what I would say to try to patch things up… The truth is, I have to accept that there are some times when I need to stay neutral. Between you and me, I hate neutral. Sometimes if I’m in limbo about anything, I push chess pieces around just to force a resolution. I tend to say the hard thing and let the chips fall where they may.  Sitting still and keeping my mouth shut is something that has never come easy to me. I’ve always felt that sometimes you just need to talk things out, no matter how difficult. Some people don’t react well to that.

I guess the truth is, the single most painful, torturous thing in the world to me, the thing that will send me into an complete and total emotional tailspin, is the idea that there is something negative between me and the people I care about.

 So, have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between neutrality and a potential fight with your friends? Which did you choose? If you had it to over, would you choose differently?

Draft the scenario. The impact on friendship one way or the other. How did you feel? What was the impact on the relationship?

Writing Prompt: Letting the chips fall

Quote for the day

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning:  I wanted to know what I was going to say. 

~Sharon O’Brien

Quote for the day

Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man’s life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible. 

~Leo Tolstoy

 

Writing Prompt: Here comes the sun…finally…

I wandered through Stockbridge this morning, dodging prams and toy dogs on leads, joggers and people strolling by. The sun was out, clear skies and 21 degrees. It’s been the nicest day we’ve had all year. Some builders had the radio on in their van and as I walked passed I heard the news say it was as warm as San Francisco and Tenerife. The clouds floating by are fluffy and form shapes resembling Volkswagen beetles, a giant goose, a dragon, a fox.

Pick a cloud. Find a shape. Describe it. Does the shape spark off a memory or inspire a story? A poem?

Find inspiration in the sky above your head. Write about anything that springs to mind when you look up. Try to write at least 500 words, keep the pen moving, don’t edit. Enjoy the lovely weather.

Writing Prompt: Here Comes the Sun…

Quote for the Day

Writers are just people who have a whole lot on the inside that they need to get to the outside, with pen and paper as their preferred method of transport.  Same with dancers, artists, and singers - all the same urges with differing transportation. 

~Graycie Harmon

Writing Prompt: Dead by Dawn

When I emerged from the Filmhouse at 3am, I was a twitching little wreck. Three nights and days of horror films had exposed me to the sick and twisted possibilities of the human mind and I was left fascinated by what I had seen. Eye-puncturing acts with a paper clip, a child decapitated by a witch in a cabin, people turning on each other with knives and handguns in a disaster-scenario, transvestite narcissists stomping on puppies in pillowcases and 53 school girls in Tokyo joining hands and jumping in front of a train in unison. That was the mild stuff.

What got me thinking was that someone had to sit there, think this stuff up and commit it to film. So, here’s a rather macabre prompt. Look around the room. Pick three common objects and devise a scene that would feel comfortable in a horror film. Stay away from the usual stuff, knives, potato peelers, (anything obviously sharp, otherwise it’s cheating) and write to the limits of your twisted little mind.

Enjoy and let the nightmares begin (mine haven’t stopped. Can’t wait until next year!)

Writing Prompt: Dead By Dawn

 

Quote for the day

Without a pen I feel naked, but it’s writing that is my exhibitionism. 

~Carrie Latet

Words to live by…

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

 

- Henry David Thoreau