Tag: writing prompts

writing prompts

Second Weekly Writing Prompt for March

carolyncordon

So after my Fabulous February month, of a brand new writing prompt every single day, things have calmed down a bit, and I can rest some more. Unfortunately though, as I am resting, other people are resting too, and the numbers of visitors to this blog have also calmed down and not in a wanted way.

I want lots of people to come along to my writer site, to show off what I’ve done, and what I can and will do! So if you come here, take a look around, check out what I’ve written before, maybe take on some of the writing prompts from the previous month, after all, there were 29 of them there for the taking!

And if you like what you see here, or think something else might be interesting, tell me! I will respond to whatever you might write, in an intelligent and friendly way. Unless I think what you’ve written is spam in which case I will delete it. I’m not friendly to mindless spam.

So, March … there is a new writing prompt today, and that prompt is this –

Unfamiliar places

So write about places that are unfamiliar to you, that you may like to explore perhaps, or write about places very familiar to you, but unknown to many others. Write about weird and wonderful places from yesteryear, from science fiction – books, TV, film, just write!

What unfamiliar place has this fellow been to?
Photo by Lenin Estrada on Pexel
I’ve certainly never been there, nor would I want to be, I don’t think!
Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

So there are two ideas about unfamiliar places, but others might be homes that you would never live in – up in a tree, or down in an ant’s nest …

Oh, up a tree, how cool would that be? Unfamiliar to me in my adult years, but I’ve been up a few trees as a kid, for sure!
Photo by Jozef Fehu00e9r on Pexels.com
You can’t actually see them in this photo, but there are ants there. The round holes are entries to the ant nest.
my photo

So there are a few ideas, and here are some more ways to consider the writing prompt. I’ve never been to Darwin, but my husband has been, and he’s never been to Alice Springs, but I have been. I’ve never been to a sauna, or to a church during a normal service, only for weddings or funerals. I’ve been to Beijing and walked on the Great Wall of China, as well as walking around Tiananmen Square, that felt like very unfamiliar territory to us Westerners, for sure.

Writing prompts are only prompt ideas and thoughts, you don’t have to slavishly follow what the prompts are, the brain likes to wander off along quite different paths at times, and that is fine. It’s all a part of the creative process, to consider as many different options as you have time for. If creative writing isn’t like that, if it is constrained by many rules and boundaries, then it stops being creative, doesn’t it?

Now that’s possibly a thought for another blog post! I’ve been looking at and writing about creative writing earlier today, and was enjoying the process very much. Thinking about writing creatively. Is it a worthwhile thing, or is it yet another way to procrastinate instead of write, I wonder … I suppose it depends on whether or not the thinking actually leads to words being written, and put ‘out there’, which surely is the main role of a writer, in whatever kind of writing they do.

Writing kept only in a notebook, and never shared in any way, or leading to things that can be shared, hmm, that’s not very useful. No-one ever sold a scribble in a notebook, unless they have lots and lots of actual books written and sold!

So the prompt for this week is Unfamiliar Places, and there will be another writing prompt next week, out on the Monday, and my plan is to go on with that for the rest of the year, a new prompt every Monday morning. Unless, of course, something happens to stop it happening …


Leave me a message, let me know what I’m writing is worth reading

Cozy Mystery, New Ideas, poetry

Prioritising Your Writing Tasks

carolyncordon

OK, that mad but fabulous month of daily writing prompts is over now, so that means I’d better get stuck into doing some proper writing, I think. And in fact, today I’ve produced some more words to go into my most important work in progress, the first of my Cosy Murder Mysteries. Or is that actually the most important? Maybe the poetry collection is more important? Oh dear …

Actually, it isn’t an either or thing at all. The two different things are different genres of writing, and are both at very different stages of completion. One is almost ready to hand out for possible first reading, and feedback, the other is barely begun, and many, many months from having anything to give to others for a first read. I can work on both of these things, one in the morning, the other later in the day, perhaps.

Books, books and more books!

I have almost enough poems written for the poetry collection, because February was a full on prompt wriitng and responding to prompts month. I intend going through the list of prompts I posted on this blog every day in February, and I will write new poems, for any of the prompts I haven’t yet written anything in response to.

If I was asking others to respond to my prompts, I should put my money where my mouth is and respond too, shouldn’t I? Yes, I think so! And for anyone interested, this is the full list of my Fabulous February Writing Prompts. If you missed it last month, you can have a look, and use it as a resourse the next time you need a writing prompt!

My Fabulous February Writing Prompts
(one for every day of February 2020)

1st Rush

2nd Star

3rd Maybe I will, or maybe not …

4th Next

5th Never

6th After

7th Yesterday

8th Because

9th When the time is right …

10th Mine

11th Asleep

12th Trees

13th Superstition 

14th Some things I love … 

15th Knowing is one thing …

16th Senses

17th Could you ever?

18th Friendship

19th It’s getting closer! Are you ready?

20th Underneath

21st Philosophy, finding meaning for being

22nd Vision – looks can be deceiving

23rd Inklings – much in small hints, and intuition ? maybe  …

24th Reasonable action, beats thoughtless reaction

25th Lies

26th Open or shut

27th Worthy or worthless?

28th The American Sentence – read about it for this day –

29th Prove it!

So I thoroughly enjoyed February, with the fun of the prompts, but I’m going to get some real writing done in March, in both my Cosy Murder Mystery series – (the first book), and my next poetry collection. If I keep on with as much passion and effort for these two things, as I put into the Writing Prompts in February, there’s no telling, what I can achieve! Good things though, I’m sure about that.

And about the Cosy Murder Mystery series, I was listening earlier today to a webcast seminar thing, which indicated there was no point talking to an agent about a piece of fiction, a book, until you had written it, and tidied it up and made it as shiny and bright as you possibly could. That kind of put a dampener on my enthusiasm, but not for my book, but for the thing I was watching and listening to.

If I have to get the book written, I was wasting my valuable time, listening, and instead I actually wrote a bit more of that Cosy Murder Mystery book. This felt like exactly the correct way to spend my valuable time! So from now on, every morning after breakfast will have some time put toward one or the other of my book projects, and all will go well. That’s how it feels to me, anyway!

Do you have any thoughts about any of this? Feedback is always welcome, that way I don’t feel like I’m talking to no-one! I love receiving comments!

Uncategorized

Prompt for the 1st week of March

carolyncordon

The prompt for this first week of March is actually the choice of two words, similar looking words, but quite different things. Or you could put the two different things together and write something a bit ‘quirky’ and fun!

There’s only a letter difference between these two words … So what are these words? The words are ‘Desert’ and ‘Dessert’. Interested? I am, I’m thinking about the difficulties of keeping icecream from melting in the hot sun, and keeping dust out of the icing on cakes …

How about something like “Pavlova, Queen of the Desert”? Fabulous fun! But just focusing on one or the other of the prompts would be fabulous too. Deserts bring to mind lack of water, no trees, animals hiding from the blazing sun, scaled back everything, looking for shade, death for the unwary …

Photo by Ihsan Aditya from Pexels

Desserts, on the other hand bring ideas of opulence, joy, celebration, plenty of everything glorious, and a full tummy of yummy food!

photo from pexels by Suzy Hazelwood

So I hope you have some ideas for writing happening now, and I’ll be back with a new prompt in the second week of March. I’m thinking about silly ideas of desserts in deserts – Sundaes on the sands …

Cozy Mystery, writing exercise, writing prompts

What Comes Next?

carolyncordon

So February is over now. I no longer ‘have to’ post a new writing prompt on this writer blog of mine, and instead I will be actually writing some prose of my own, primarily. Sure, some poetry will be written, because I can’t help myself. I’m addicted to those stripped back words, I admit it!

I will be doing the weekly writing prompt thing that I’ve written about previously though, so new writing ideas will still be emanating from this blog, as well as other writing related things. It would be good if I can get a decent bit of my first Cosy Murder Mystery story written, so I can post an excerpt of it here … 

I learned a number of useful things in February, as I posted the daily writing prompts, and responded to them myself. I learned that having a daily program of writing, every single day, makes it a habit, and the writing simply comes along, because that’s what I now do after breakfast, every day.

I also learned that if you post every day, you definitely increase the number of readers you get to your blog! I sort of knew that, and now have the proof, right there in my blog stats. And I’m getting more likes, and a couple more people are writing a comment here and there, in response to what I’ve written, or the fact that I’ve written something.

Connections are always good, for writers! People interested in the written word, who like what you’ve written, great! And I’ve been expanding what I write, exploring things, doing new things, and that’s gone well too.

I’ve found also, that having prompts, leads to the feeling that what I will be writing has some kind of purpose, and so I put more of my attention into getting it right, as well as getting it written. 

And putting the word out about the writing prompts made it feel like it was something I had to do, so I kept it up, easily, it was just what I had to do in the morning, once I’d finished having my breakfast. Get up from the table, go to laptop, switch it on, and post the writing prompt. Done.

Yes, I’ve enjoyed this, but my next writing mission is to actually get a much larger prose piece written, an actual book, in fact a series of books. And once that first book in the series is written, time to get onto (or back onto) the second book in the series. And get feedback on the first book, edit in response to feedback, and then work at getting it published, another form of writing-related fun!

And then theres that new poetry collection … I have nearly seventy poems for it, I think, and I have a few of the prompts from February that didn’t end up with poems written, so I’ll have to get that all done. A job for later on today, I think. I have time for that right now, so I’ll get it done, right now.

I am going to post a new writing promt still, but it will be happening only once a week, probably on Monday, so this isn’t the end really, it’s the beginning of something easier, and less of a ‘burden’. Not that it was actually a burden to do these prompts, I enjoyed it. But my prose didn’t happen, when I want it to get going … Poetry/prose. Prose/poetry … I can do both, if I give myself the necessary time for both, which is why the once a week prompts are happening instead of daily ones. All good!

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Fab Feb Writing Prompts – Day Twenty-nine

carolyncordon

So today … the twenty-ninth of February, the final day of this fabulous month of a new writing prompt a day … I’ve enjoyed posting a new prompt every single day, and the couple of times I did it incoreectly it didn’t matter there was a prompt there, a new one for every day in February.

And speaking of writing prompts, here is the prompt for today, the final prompt of Fab Feb Writing Prompts. The writing prompt is: Prove it!
How’s that for a challenge?! Call yourself a writer, prove it, and write!

I like to be called an inspiration, by people – it seemed a little odd the first time it happened, but when I think about it, it makes sense. I’ve had some challenges in my life, and have got through them, and come out smiling at the end. I still have some challenges, but I’ve thought about them, and found the best ways to work with those challenges. I don’t personally go with the idea of ‘fighting’ against my problems, they are there, and fighting something with no cure is senseless, so I work at ‘living with’ rather than ‘fighting’ my Chronic Illness.

I pace myself, write fun things, look at what I know, and write about that, and I use humour when I can! Life is a journey, I want to enjoy the trip!

So yes inspiration and being inspirational are things I know a lot about, I am living them, and living a fine life with them. One of the things I an do, is help other people to use their writing ability, and bring creative words into the world. I do it, I’ve been doing it all of February, with people coming along to my writer blog here, and they read my prompt, and write something, or at least they think about writing something, and that is enough.

Responding to a new prompt every single day has been a big challenge, and I have to admit, I haven’t got a new poem for every single day of February, but I’ve been doing a lot more creative writing than I usually do, and I’ve written more poems than usual, and have in fact added some new poems to the poetry collection I’m putting together to get feedback on, with a view to submitting it to a publisher this year, to get it published.

I’m happy with how the collection is looking, everyone I’ve tested the title on has loved it, and I feel positive about the collection, really. Some of the poems may be weaker than others, but I have enough that I can delete them before submission time, and still have a good sized collection. I’ve done this before, and I’ve learnt more and more every time. This will work, and if my selected publisher doesn’t want it, I have back up plans. The collection will become a book, this year!

And because this writng prompt thing on my writer blog has been a postive thing for me, and for other writers, I’ve decided to continue doing it, but will scale it back, doing a new one every day has been a bit testing … So once a week seems a much easier way to go, it will give more time to get a response to the new prompt done, before the next prompt comes along.

Every Monday, before lunchtime (South Australian time), I plan to have the writing prompt for the week on this blog. I’ll be putting other things here too, and because I’ve become accustomed to doing writing related things just after breakfast every single day, I plan to get writing on my Cosy Murder Mystery books! I really want to become known as a poet, which I already am, and a writer of Cosy Murder Mysteries. And if I wish to become known as the latter of those things, I have to write them, and get them published, to prove that’s what I am!

So think about yourself, what you believe in, what you say you are, and what you can do, and prove it!