Writing Prompt - The Eyes Have It!

The eyes have been called the window of the soul. We use our eyes not just to see and perceive others, but also to express ourselves to others. Depending on how we look at others, they may see anger, withdrawal, sadness, happiness, or affection, for starts.

When I am writing a scene and I think of how my main character perceives another, I think about how I can reveal emotion in the other character’s eyes and face. Their eyes may shine with happiness or they may arch an eyebrow when questioning or numerous other things. These aren’t the most original examples, but you understand what I’m getting at no doubt.

My writing prompt for you this week is to look at eyes, whether in a picture here
or someone in your house, even a pet. (My cat knows just how to cock her head to
the side and giving me the cutest look with those big green eyes when she wants
a treat. I inevitably fall for her tried and true method.)

Now take the expression or emotions which you believe can be seen in the chosen person’s or animal’s eyes and think of a unique way to write about this, rather than cliché. Take a few minutes and have some fun!

Come back tomorrow for July's Monday Motivation . . . on Wednesday! I'll be writing

about writer's terror-- oooh, scary!

Giving away a copy of Brave New Century with its new cover this week. Please leave a

comment or follow to qualify for the drawing this week.

(All image in this post from imagbase.net and free for public use.)

Monday Motivation - Spectacular Simplicity - My 100th Blog Post!

When my husband, Jack, handed me the comics and pointed out “Monty” from a couple of weeks ago, he said, “Here’s you and your writer’s block.” Okay, but it really isn’t that bad! However, I did get a chuckle out of the comic.

Of course, the humor is really in the irony. Monty is looking around for inspiration for his future screenplay masterpiece, when behind him a very interesting situation is taking place. He looks out the window and sees a taco vendor stepping in a puddle of slosh. Isn’t it really a matter of genre though?

Monty may be missing a chance to write a science fiction thriller about an android changing his head! Is he a robot spy putting on a new disguise? There are lots of questions to answer there. On the other hand, he writes about the guy he sees through the window.

Monty Comic Strip, March 16, 2014 on GoComics.com

The beauty of stories or even memories can be found in the simplest things. I wrote about finding writing prompts in a snowflake back in December. I might have a blind spot to something seemingly amazing, but what if I see something as simple as a disheveled young woman stepping into a puddle, wearing boots that look too big? I may write something like this: Amanda didn’t care as the water sloshed up over her feet. She wiggled her toes in the dry warmth of the cast off boots she found in the dumpster. Even better, there was room for socks if they were giving them away at the homeless shelter. But if she went back there, she might run into him again. She wasn’t ready for the way his piercing blue eyes studied her from across the dark, crowded soup kitchen.

It’s not the most literary piece of writing, but you get the point. I’ve introduced a protagonist and set her in a difficult situation and planted questions. What seems small and unexciting can turn into an interesting story. The limit is only in the writer’s imagination. 

Take a few minutes to watch the simple or spectacular. Write a paragraph of your thoughts. What are some ways you recommend finding new or different ideas to write about?

This week I’m celebrating my 100^th blog post! Follow or leave a comment or both, each for a chance to win a $15 Amazon gift card. Follow and/or leave your comment by Sunday, April 13^th and leave your email addy in the form of name[at]domain[dot]com to qualify for the drawing.

Monday Motivations - Writing Prompt

Find a Writing Prompt in a Snowflake!

The snowflake images posted here are microphotographs taken by Wilson Bentley, aka “The Snowflake Man,” taken many years ago. He began perfecting his method of photographing individual snowflakes as a teen in 1885. He was the first to discover that each snowflake was an original in its design and left behind 5,381 images of them!

It’s amazing how God gave us the wonderful gift of creativity, too. Each writer has his or her own original stories to tell, even if they write about the same thing! As the snow swirls and gently collects, against the backdrop of evergreens in my backyard, I thought, what a perfect writing prompt: SNOWFLAKES! 

What do they make you think of? Childhood, when you caught the fresh, icy crystals on your tongue? Christmas time? Driving in a snowstorm? Or would you just write about its crystalline elegance? The challenge is to take five or ten minutes of free writing about what these beautiful little creations make you think of!

Please leave a comment or follow the blog for a chance to win our Christmas gift basket this month! It will be filled with coffee, tea, chocolate, books and other fun things. You have until Dec. 23^rd to enter!

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)

Monday Motivation - Think about what you see . . .

Monday Motivation - Think about what you see . . .

Well, I told you I would reveal the secret location of last week’s writing prompt photo this Monday. I took the picture next to the historic site of Tom Walker’s Grist Mill, now known as the Parshallville Cider Mill, at the millpond. Parshallville is a little town tucked between Hartland and Fenton, Michigan. If you blink, you might miss it! Here’s another photo I took, looking in the other direction the same day. 

Stories can spring from what may seem the most mundane things. I picked up a catalog I’d received from L.L. Bean the other day. On the cover, a couple sat on the back end of a pick up truck in an idyllic autumn scene. With a lake and evergreen trees in the background, as well as crisp brown leaves around their feet, they looked like the perfect couple to star in a contemporary romance novel. I started to think what conflict could come into play to start things out right.

What if they were being watched and an SUV speeds into view. The intruders kidnap the guy at gunpoint and knock the woman out. But why? What had he been involved in? What did he know? Was he in the witness protection program? And how would she ever find him again? Voila! My imagination was off and running with the beginning of a romantic suspense novel. (Either that, or  I've been watching too many Castle episodes lately.) I’m going to keep that catalog cover with a few lines about my ideas, tucked away for possible future use. Sparking the imagination is always good
exercise for the creative side of the brain!

Writers: Your challenge this week is to keep an eye out for pictures that inspire your creativity. Write down your ideas. Save the pictures.

Has a picture ever inspired you to write a story? Please share your thoughts about this week’s post or about creative inspiration in general. Or follow to be entered in this week’s drawing for a chance to win a paperback edition of Brave New Century, which includes my debut novella, The Pocket Watch, and a package of assorted Lindt Lindor Truffles.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Monday Motivation - What's a Picture Worth?

What’s a Picture Worth?

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, it is cliché, but photographs can make great writing prompts.

Most of the trees have lost their leaves by now, but I captured this peaceful autumn

scene last year. While the image is limited to the camera lens, what you write about the picture is only limited by your imagination. The photo I’ve included could have been taken in many different locations and lead to various stories. It can evoke a river in an old-fashioned American village or across the ocean on property at an estate in England. The water could be a meeting place for WWII Resistance spies who must cross a border to escape their enemies. Or perhaps, it’s the setting of a romantic rendezvous. What does it make you think about? Write about it for five to ten minutes. Next week I’ll tell you where the photo was taken!

Please share your thoughts in a comment below for a chance to be in this week’s drawing for an ebook copy of Brave New Century and a $10 gift Amazon gift card!

MONDAY MOTIVATION

The Write Prompt

From last week’s writing prompt: the last car.

The last car I had was a green Aerostar. Call it the Mom-mobile or as we sometimes referred to the car as the green bomber, which we “bombed” around town in. It was my first vehicle with a cup holder, albeit, a not very good one. Any sharp turn would send a large cup careening onto the floor mat, invariable dousing all in its path with liquid contents. Not a good thing if it was pop or a mocha, more tolerable if it was just water. That minivan saw several trips up north and one trip east, including Gettysburg. It went from containing baby seats to carrying young men, who learned to drive behind its steering wheel.

When I use a writing prompt, I usually like to include as many senses as I possible, but the above piece turned into more of a quick visual history of what went on inside my last car. However, that’s the fun thing about writing prompts. You can interpret them any way you like! The last car could be the last car you drove in, rode in, the last one your grandma bought or the last car of a train, also known as a caboose. There isn’t necessarily a right way. The prompt is just there to get you going. 

I found an interesting post on the Tweetspeak blog, a resource for writers, which likened finding writing prompts to a method of reading and responding. Isn’t that essentially what we do as writers? As we read books or articles, we often think of what our response would be to the words we’ve just taken in. The world around us is filled with writing prompts as we take in sights, hear sounds, smell scents and odors or taste the savory and sweet. The prompts surround us. We just need to take the initiative and write about them!

What’s your favorite way to find writing prompts?

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MONDAY MOTIVATION

Life and Scene Scraps

Our lives, no matter how long or how short are made up of pieces. We may relate each part of it specific events, which divide the timelines of our lifetimes. Like scenes in a story, they could also be likened to pieces of a quilt, sewn together by threads of events, relationships and places and times. Depending on the pattern, quilts are made up colorful scraps of fabric, which people have saved or chosen carefully to match.  Some scraps vary in color, others in shade, size or shape. But there’s an order the sewer uses to put them together.

Such is the life of a story, especially that of your main character(s), for the duration of your novel manuscript. While it’s easy to look at writing as linear, since that’s how we have to deal with time, there are other ways to look at your manuscript. If you’re stuck at a certain point in your story, look at your outline. Is there another section of your story you would like to write about? Is there a scene you’ve been thinking about, a place your character wants to go?

We can’t jump ahead like that in life and in a perfectionist mindset this almost feels like cheating—what? How can I write out of order? For the seat of the pants writer, this may seem even harder, but this can also help build the world of your story as you explore those scenes that have planted themselves in your mind, for future use and to build your roadmap. For the outliner, it’s easier to think about what point on your timeline has been niggling at your brain.

If you go ahead and work with what is going on in your imagination, it can help fuel your creativity and give direction for that earlier part in your story, where you were stuck. After all, what your character is doing will help build a foundation for his future. In real life, only the Lord knows what’s coming. However, the imagination can put together an original story with the scraps of scenes from anywhere in the life of your character, just as the sewer uses different scraps of fabric to craft a beautiful quilt.

Writing prompt, pulled from Mom’s sugar bowl: the last car

MONDAY MOTIVATION

The Distraction Factor

When I sit down to write the next scene of a story I’m working on, I know where I’m  going, but sometimes I’m not sure how to begin where I left off and my mind wanders. It’s not so much a case of writer’s block, but more of an easily distracted state of mind. Suddenly, I remember that cobweb in the family room or the dust bunny next to the washing machine. If I go into the other room, to take care of the problem, I remember there’s laundry in the dryer to be folded that somehow can’t wait. Or perhaps, as long as I’m in the family room, I might as well look for that cookbook I needed to make dinner.

Here are a couple of ways to manage distractions, before they take me away. I try to have a  pen and paper handy to make a list of things I should do later, so I don’t have to worry that I will forget about them. Another strategy I use is to end one day’s writing in the middle of a sentence, so that on the next I have to finish the sentence, which helps me flow into continuing the story before those other pesky thoughts can distract me!

Another distraction I may have is the rude character that intrudes into my mind and begs to written about. There’s only one problem: she is from a completely different story! If that character’s voice won’t leave me alone, I use it as a writing prompt. I take five or ten minutes to explore her thoughts in writing. Now, as I go back to the manuscript I was working on, the new character has to be quiet--at least for awhile. Also, I have another story idea brewing to begin after the current project is finished. Creativity breeds creativity.

What character is begging to get out of your head today and down onto paper?

How do you deal with distractions to your writing?

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Happy third Birthday, Prism Book Group!

More fun for writers: Check out Tom Threadgill's humorous post:

Highlights and Lowlights: The Truth About Writers (Remember

Goofus and Gallant?)