I dream up some topic–a word, a phrase, anything will do. I announce the topic and write my own beginning on the topic. I invite you to use the comments to do the same.
Use the principles of writing practice according to Natalie Goldberg to write the first 50 words on the assigned topic. The principles of writing practice involve just writing without judgment or internal editing. Write anything, just write. Write fiction, memories, poems, thoughts, reflections, whatever the topic brings forth for you–just write it.
Please, if you get started on something and it’s going well, finish it on your own. Don’t put more than the first 50 to 100 words here. If you’re a blogger, and you finish a piece that you started here from one of my prompts, please leave the link to your blog so we can all follow to the end.
It is so much fun to read all the different things that writers come up with in response to a writing topic.
Thanks for writing!
thanks for your interesting posts
Can we only post for a topic on that same day like some of the other collaborative blog projects out there, or may we submit our writing at later dates than the posts?
Thanks.
You can look around and find any topic prompt that suits your fancy at any time. I don’t always post a new topic every day, but there are plenty of old prompts to stimulate your creativity. Please feel free to comment on any of the topics here.
I love this! What a fun challenge and such a good idea. I sent your link to my son who is also a writer. He and I have just finished our first books. Mine is now in the editing stage … his already has the distinction of some rejections.
Edna
http://grandmahenke.com
Congratulations on your book and your blog! I’ll be dropping in to see you there.
Virginia, are you at SXSWi?? Look for me, if you are. Were you at the Over 50 panel?
Claudia from Fried Okra Productions
I do not consider myself much of s writer, so only wish to show my appreciation to those of you who are, You bring joy into others lives and that seems to be what the world needs now.
Alice, you would be surprised at what you can put down on paper. I have published 18 novels. When I am stuck for a beginning but have the body and ending in mind, I will often write ‘Once Upon a Time” and that gets me started. Later I go back and edit that out and keyboard in a real beginning. Fred
I love the “Once Upon A Time” series on ABC. I don’t know if its the fact that our favorite fairy tales are retold for adults with crazy twist, or if its because the evil witch Regina be dressing her TAIL off! That show really inspires me every time!
A wonderful idea you have here. I’ll keep it in mind for more practice.
No time. No space. Einstein said that- and I use that to comfort myself these days, as esoteric as it sounds. It assures me that just because I cannot see it yet- in reality, it exists nevertheless- around some corner, waiting to be experienced in real time, in my then-current space. Good things- conjured from imaginings in this present…all that anyone really has.
The ego of ‘me’ flouders painfully these days, when I can no longer ‘support a starving child’ for $5.00 a week, or ‘donate to help in the fight for organic food’ or ‘buy a week’s meals for a homeless person’. I used to feel good about doing those things. Now I leave them to the Universe, abandon them to the care of others- those who have made better choices, planned more wisely, or are now coming into their best-dreamed ‘present’.
Just found your website…wonderful way to limber up before writing…Thanks
Carla
Crystals hanging on the porch were spreading rainbows on the walls of the bedroom. It past seven AM. I try to get the feel of the day before getting out of bed.. I couldn’t get the feel. I dyed my hair red that day, antidepressent red I call it.
Come in this house! Look at you, you’ve got grandma beads!
Grandma beads? Where?
There-under your chin, on your neck. You’re so dirty you got “grandma beads”!
Wow, how’d I do that?
Hot sweaty days of summer. All day long in a sandbox building a whole city. Twigs for trees, swimming pools made from tupperware bowls, a church with a steeple. A city I got lost in for hours And, I got “grandma beads”!