Writing Prompt: Take your pen in hand and as you watch this amazing light show, describe what you see, using concrete nouns and as many active verbs as you can. Enjoy!
http://sorisomail.com/email/74120/mais-uma-projecao-3d-sensacional.html
Watch these amazing animal videos. Then choose one of these animals. What’s his/her secret career? Describe this animal with specific details.
What are his feelings and his thoughts?
Use dialogue with other animals to show his character.
Use your senses to draw us into his story.
What does he/she want more than anything in the world?
What stops him from getting it?
What is his weakness?
How can he overcome his weakness to get what he wants?
An Awesome Deer Doggie Video!
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Last night as I drove in darkness along a city street, two bright lights attached to a large vehicle turned directly into MY lane.
Holy hot fudge. My foot slammed onto the break.
Unwavering, the lights barreled forward, without slowing in momentum.
At my right, pedestrians walked. On my left, cars whizzed by. A head-on collision flashed before my eyes.
What was this driver thinking? Was he drunk? Drugged? Confused?
I leaned on the horn.
At the very last second possible, he turned into a driveway to his left leading to a church.
I gasped. Weakness spread me; my arms felt as though I could barely hold the steering wheel.
He saved himself a few minutes of waiting in traffic by driving on the wrong way of the street at night, in order to sneak into the church parking lot. If I hadn’t been paying close enough attention and braked I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now.
Writing Prompts:
1. As writers and readers and people of the universe, we need to pay attention to everything. Write about a time in your life where someone wasn’t paying close attention to their surroundings.
2. Write about a time where you weren’t paying close attention to what was happening to you or others around you.
3. Take 15 minutes of your day to practice “slow-down-the-moment.” Pay attention to every sense you experience. Walk outside into nature. What scent do you smell? How can you describe it with words on paper? What do you see? Hear? How does your skin feel in the weather at that moment? Touch tree bark, a plant, an animal or an object. How does the texture feel?
4. Practice gratitude. At the end of each day, think of three things you are grateful for in that very day. Had a lousy time of it today? Then think small. Did your breakfast cereal have a good crunch? Your teacher or friend give you a smile? Or think big. You had breakfast, unlike many homeless people. Write about the act of gratitude in a poem.
5. Ever have a heart-thumping life-threatening moment? Write about it or them in detail. Show how it made you feel. And make this moment a learning experience. How can it help you in your every day life?
Wow. In our wildest dreams, we are able to fly. And when you’re stuck in a traffic jam, you wish you and your car could fly above it all. Now one man has designed a car that can fly now.
http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=635469588001
Writing Prompts:
1. You are in this flying car. Write a poem or story with you in this vehicle. Use your senses to make us feel like we are actually with you on your adventure.
2. Invent an object to improve our lives. What will it be? Write its description. Create an ad campaign for it. Write a commercial advertising it. How will it change our lives for the better?
3. Take a person from the past and plop him into our world today. Write a story featuring him or her as a major character.
Can you believe it’s the end of the year already? The holidays have wooshed by and New Year’s Eve is days away. (Do YOU ever make up words like I do? Wooshed is only one of many of my typical words. Maybe I should create a dictionary?)
What are your best memories of the past year? What have been the incredible books you’ve read? The memorable movies you’ve seen? The most delicious meals you’ve eaten? An interesting person you’ve met? An animal that made an impression upon you? A funny moment that may have made you smile? A touching scene that brought you a sigh?
Writing Prompt:
1. Write for ten or twenty minutes quickly about one or any or all of the above. Next, review what has popped into your head. Now take time and choose the most vivid scene or anecdote of the year to recreate. Use your emotions and senses to write a story, essay or poem.
2. Share your writing with a friend. Share your other thoughts and ideas of the past year with your friend or a group of people. Other writing projects may occur to you as words fly by.
Here’s a great site to use for your writing and for geography!1. Place a character in a setting anywhere in the world.Have fun choosing a place!Research the location to discover the culture, foods, weather, styles, sounds, language and other details to enhance your scene.2. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would YOU choose to go? Why? Place yourself in this city and write a travel log of your trip.3. Write a poem based on one of the videos you see on this site.Around the world
In the large cities of Italy, high fashion is everywhere. Women wear lots of leather, fur, (No! Say it isn’t true!) many styles of boots, some past their knees and all the way up on their thighs. Women wear many scarves doubled and tripled around their necks.
In the area where I live I’m known as the scarf lady. (No, not because I eat a lot food fast, although that would be what my husband would say . . .) I wear scarves to keep my neck warm. Now I’m attached to them and wear them year-round.
I love people-watching in Italy, especially those well-dressed and high-society women who wear such expensive and fashionable clothes. Who are they? What do they do to afford such outfits? Where do they live? What do their homes look like if their clothes are so fancy?
Writing Prompts:
1. What clothes are hanging in your character’s closet. What is his/her favorite piece to wear? Why is it his favorite? Are their memories associated with it? Where did he get it? When does he wear it? Is there anything quirky/funny about it?
2. Write a story set in a clothing store.
3. Write a story where an element of mystery has to do with what someone is wearing.
4. Write a poem about color, lace, or a specific style of clothes. Remember to be a specific with your word choice and senses as possible.
5. How does clothing enhance a character? Write a scene where clothing helps show the character’s mood and personality.
We are at a lovely little outdoor Italian Cafe. Plates of pizza, pasta, and fish are on tables around us. I enjoy my favorite drink – – water with gas. (Mineral water) A woman walks by holding a basket with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread. Meanwhile, music drifts out of our restaurant. . .
“YYYYYYYMMMMMMMMMCCCCCCCCAAAAAAA!”
“It’s fun to stay at the YYYYYYMMMMMCCCCCCAAAA.”
My husband looks like he just swallowed his tongue. I’m sure I have a similar facial expression. Talk about horrifying. We’ve traveled miles to get Italian ambiance and we listen to American music from the seventies? To make it worse, it’s this music?
I shudder. Too bad I left my ear plugs from the airplane trip in the hotel.
Writing Prompts:
1. Write a scene where music is part of the plot.
2. Write a scene where a hint of music plays in the background.
3. In the another story you have written, check to see if adding music will enhance the story or a scene in some way. Have you included enough sound to put your reader inside your scene?
4. Write about your favorite music through a poem. Or your least favorite music!
We’ve been awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the scritchings in our walls that tells us we’re not the only ones living under this roof. As I have fed birds in our front yard for years, I’ve kept the bird seed in the garage with no problem until last week.
Yes. Bird seed scattered everywhere. My husband, Mr. Duct Tape, used his usual solution. I warned him the silver stuff over cardboard would hardly stop the huge rodents we had wandering through our walls and garage. But at the moment, neither of us had time or supplies for anything more.
Sure enough, the next day we had another clean-up.
“We need to get a metal garbage can,” I said. Years ago we used to keep the dog food out there in a plastic can, but the rats ate a huge hole right through it.
“No,” said my husband, refusing to give in to either me or the rats. I still am not sure which. “We don’t have room for yet another garbage can out here.”
Garbage.
Paper and glass recycling.
Aluminum.
I saw his point, but I wasn’t thrilled about moving the bird seed into the living room either. And no way would I give up my beloved hobby. We were at a stand still and the rats were winning.
Later in the day, I had to visit the jewelry store with a broken clasp on one of my cheap thrift store finds. An older silver-haired gent with a voice that surely came from a radio or t.v. station, stood leaning over the counter.
“What I love about buying jewelry for her, is these fancy boxes,” he said, the necklace in front of him glittering so much I needed my sunglasses.
Wow. I could hardly take my eyes off of him. Silver hair. Tan. Fit in his tennis outfit. Gorgeous. Seventy? Perhaps older, but he would have been a hunk when he was younger. Who was he buying the beautiful diamond necklace for? I could picture her. She’d be a younger woman, also very slim and tan.
“Hey, I gotta move my car, ” he said. “I don’t want to have any scratches on it from car doors opening. I’ll be right back.” He ran out the door.
“Wow,” I said to the women behind the counter and the other woman customer. “He must not be married.”
Everyone in the shop laughed.
“I mean, let’s get real. He buys jewelry for her all the time?”
“Yes, he does,” said the jewelery sales woman. “And you’re right. They’re not married.”
I sighed. “Gee, I wish I could just get my husband to buy the garbage can I want.”
The hoots calmed down in the store by the time the gent came back in the store to take his jewels to his lady-friend. He told me he’d call my husband to give him some advice, but I declined his offer, smiling.
I didn’t want any bling. This guy had an expensive sports car. You just know it. Mr. $.
I’m happy if I get a shiny garbage can.
And today I’m thrilled. Why?
Neither of us got much sleep last night. The rats were at it again. More garage-cleaning this morning.
I looked at my husband and raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll get it,” said my husband.
Can’t wait to tell the ladies at the jewelry store.
Writing Prompts:
1. People watch. Imagine the story behind the story of various people you see on the street. Who are they? What are their back stories? Who are their mates? Do they have children?
2. Use a person that you see during your wanderings as a focus for a story, poem or personal narrative/essay.
3. Take a paper and pen to a coffee shop or other public place. Glance up now and then without staring. That way people won’t know you are writing about them. Describe a person, animal or object you see physically. Then imagine their emotional life. Next, throw them into a story. What is their problem? Their goal? Who is their antagonist?
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=0k4lsi1dql
Watch the video of this incredible guy! Wow.
As writers, we should be noticing details during our daily lives. Pay attention to the sights and sounds around you. What does the air feel like against your skin? Notice all of your senses at various times and situations. Jot down notes when of fascinating moments that make you think, feel, or laugh.
Our memory may not be as acute as the young man in the video, nor will we be illustrating through drawing, but recapture specifics in words.
Writing prompt:
Today, take five minutes and notice details around you. Slow-down-the-moment. Describe every sense you have. Instead of describing LARGE (everything around you), try going small. Choose one specific item/object/animal/person to focus on.
1. Write all you can write about this tree/flower/dog/cookie/grandpa/etc. you can, using your specific senses.
2. If you have words like wonderful, nice, lovely, pretty, in your description, cross them out. Replace them with concrete nouns or active verbs.
You’ve celebrated Poetry Month by writing as specific as you can. You may use this to craft a poem or as a portion of another piece of writing.