Saturday, May 31, 2008

Writing Prompt #3

This prompt came out of my own brain. Imagine that! Actually I was working on another Squidoo lens about creative writing and I gave one of the modules the title having to do with taking a vacation or going to a writing paradise. It got me thinking of this prompt. So here goes...


Writing Prompt #3:

If you had all the money and time that you needed for an extended trip anywhere in the world, where would it be and what would you write about while you were there?

I would like to take a trip to a lot of different parts of the world. I would like to see the lands of my ancestors first. There I would hopefully be able to do some genealogical research and I would write about the information I found and the people I met. I would journal basically the entire trip about everything I saw and did in each place. The biggest part of the trip would be photography. You know they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
I would also like to go to the lands that my children's father came from so I could see it from a different perspective than I can only have now by seeing it on the internet or hearing others from there speak of it. My camera and my journal would be my closest companions on this part of the journey as well.
After those two trips, I would just like to visit anywhere that offers unique photo opportunities, beautiful landscapes, animals I have never seen before outside of a zoo or in pictures, waterfalls, forests, architecture, and people of course. Then I would journal about everything again.

When I got home and relaxed, then I would edit the photos and any videos I took. I would reread the journals. I would have a weath of information to build all kinds of writing on. Since I have not had that opportunity at this point, and don't have those pictures, journals, and memories, I don't know what I would actually write. But I do think at least one of the things I would write would have to be a travel article or book.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Tissue Paper

The writing prompt I am using this post is also from www.creativewritingprompts.com and is as follows:

"List 10 things you can do with tissue paper.
Pick one from the list and write about it."

1. regular gift wrap
2. decorative stuffing inside a gift bag
3. tearing colored tissue paper into small pieces and using white glue thinned with water, brush onto glass bottles to make a stained glass effect.
4. wrap a boquet of flowers in to give to your favorite lady
5. blow your nose in--tissue paper is tissue paper, right?
6. use on your other end as needed--tissue paper is still tissue paper
7. make pretty paper flowers of all sizes
8. make larger items with the already made paper flowers
9. carefully push colored tissue paper into a bud vase and then fill with nice artificial flowers--or cut flowers as long as you don't push the paper down into the water.
10. crinkle it up into various size balls and dip in paint, then dab on objects or wall for unique effect.

In high school for prom, it was always the Junior class' responsibility to create the theme and plan the prom for both the Junior and Senior classes. When it was my class' turn to do this, our theme was American Pie...the song was American Pie by Don McClean. Of course this was back in the early 70's. I had learned how to make big tissue paper flowers and had taught some of my friends who took the idea further. Some made a huge full stage wooden frame with chicken wire over the entire thing. Others of us in the class had gone out and bought all the red, white, and blue tissue paper we could find anywhere and got together to make as many flowers as we could. Each flower was its own color, either red or white or blue, but not mixed. When the frame was finished and the flowers were finished, classmates gathered at the frame and twisty-tied all the flowers to the frame to make what ended up being a full stage size American flag. It was really cool. Extra flowers were used to decorate other areas of the gymnasium.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Experiment Begins Today

This blog is all about creative writing. This blog is about using writing prompts I find online and elsewhere, be it Writer's Digest Magazine ( www.writersdigest.com ) or other places. These past few days I have found several writing prompts online so I am going to try to choose one prompt a day at a minimum and come up with some kind of writing with that prompt. Maybe it will be a short story. Maybe it will be an essay, or a short memoir. Maybe it will be a poem. I have no idea what this experiment will end up with. What I am hoping it will do is bring this brain of mine back into thinking more creatively and see what I can actually do. I would appreciate your honest comments about what you read in these posts. Just remember that this blog is, as are all my other blogs, rated G and is safe for family viewing. If you post a comment that is offensive, it will not be published.
Be warned, I have a quirky mind sometimes, if not most of the time. So you can be sure that the writing prompts I choose will be quirky as well.

So...here goes...

Writing prompt #1:

"Write a story about an empty glass", (from www.creativewritingprompts.com )

There it sat on the end table. Empty. Once the glass was full. Once it held flavor. Taste. The glass had been sitting on that table for several days. It was hard to tell now what was originally in it. Was it milk? Was it fruit juice? Or was it just plain water? Now it was just dried up and dirty. It needed washed. It needed picked up and taken somewhere else where it would be taken care of. Cleaned up. Eventually refilled with something else having flavor and taste. Kara sat there in the dimness of the twilight staring at the empty glass. It was his glass. It was the last thing he had done before he walked out the door for the final time. She could barely see his fingerprints on the side and she could picture him sitting there drinking whatever it was he had been drinking. She couldn't remember that now, what he had been drinking. Why couldn't she remember? Hadn't she poured the glass for him and brought it to him?
Now she felt as empty as the glass. He was gone and he would never return. It was as though all the flavor of her own life had been drained from her just as the liquid had been drained from that glass on that last day. She couldn't bear to touch the empty glass, let alone carry it to the sink to be washed. It would wash away all his fingerprints and those were just about all she had left of him that was fresh. If she washed away his fingerprints it would be like burying him all over again and she just couldn't do it. Not yet anyway.
He liked Pepsi. Maybe that was what he had been drinking that day before he left for the game. He was late and he had to hurry to get to the ballpark before the coach penalized him for being late again. They said the sun must have been in his eyes and as he hurried toward the ballpark, he never saw the car coming at him from the right as he rode right out into the intersection without even slowing down. Death had come instantly. He didn't suffer. That's what they all told her. All she knew was that he would never be coming home again. How could she possibly wash that glass now?
Silently, a tear streaming down her cheek, she rose and walked to the other room. She couldn't look at the glass anymore today. Today the glass would sit there as it had been for the past week. Empty. Just like she was.