Prompts
Writing prompts for when you get stuck
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“Kindness is Never Wasted” — Anonymous
At this time of year, most people’s focus is on Valentine’s Day, and while romantic love is a valid point of interest, there’s another point I think makes a lot more sense for us to celebrate. February 17th is “Random Acts of Kindness Day”, and to my mind, is a much more relevant and valuable quality of being, as well as a better focus for our behaviour. In fact, why limit it to one day a year? Why not build a habit of doing one kind thing for others every day? Think about it…when we engage in an act of kindness, either as giver or receiver, we experience…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Productivity, Prompts, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
Less Is More
This morning, I went into my writing group completely unprepared to write. I had to show up at 11:00 a.m. and I’d been doing something else when the timer startled me with its petulant beeping, reminding me to get online immediately, if not sooner! Now, most times, when I go into the group, I know what I’m going to write — at least I have some idea or framework for the words I’ll be putting down — but for some reason, this morning I had completely forgotten that I had to write this blog post, so when one of my writer friends asked me what I’d be working…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Productivity, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons
Questions and Answers
How NOT To Write Your Memoir Most people, when they start to write their memoirs, think they have to stick strictly to the facts, that their story has to be a list of the things they did, in the order that they did them. This simply isn’t true. It leads to the belief that they have to write their entire history — an autobiography, which, for most people is messy, disconnected and hard to follow. This means that they end up with a list of dry, dull facts, like some kind of desiccated checklist that may reflect the events of their lives, but doesn’t say much about…
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Memoirs, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
The Significance of Memories
Every life has common themes that repeat themselves over and over. One of my own most common themes is a love of animals, so when my writers’ group chose Favourite Toys as their prompt this week, it got me thinking… What was my favourite toy as a child? Of course, there were many…the roller skates that repeatedly steered me towards every crack in the sidewalk, leading to skinned knees and copious tears; the pogo stick that bounced me straight into a pile of fresh dog poop; and the bicycle my parents bought for me — an unexpected gift and a total, wonderful surprise. But the…
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10 Memoir Prompts To Get You Started
What Should I Write About? Some of the first questions people ask when beginning a memoir are: What should I write about? How do I choose which events and incidents to include and which ones should I leave out? What’s Important? Sometimes a writing prompt or suggestion can help you to get your first words down and give you a sense of direction, but it helps if you have a clear idea of why you’re writing your memoir in the first place. Purpose And Theme Your subject matter should be determined by your purpose and your theme. These are the glue that holds your story together. Without them, your story…