Today’s prompt. . . look at the photo and write whatever comes up for you.
Jiffy Pop!
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It doesn’t matter whether the story is set in the present day, 100 years ago hence, or in a place that has never and could never exist outside the pages of a book: The writer’s job is to present an utterly convincing and wholly seamless world
— Simon MordenSimon Morden, author of fantasy novel Arcanum. — The Writer Magazine, July 2014
Photo by Jim C. March
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“A lot of times I write these songs because I need to reinspire myself,” Katy Perry, in the July14, 2014 issue of People magazine.
“I need to find my voice again. I need to be heard.”
How about you? Are you writing to be heard? Is anyone paying attention? We are. . . here at The Write Spot Blog.
Choose a prompt and then write. Post your writing on The Write Spot Blog. Maybe the person who most needs to hear what you have to say will be reading.
“I just want to stay authentic and keep dreaming my dreams.” — Katy PerryMe too, Katy, me too~!
Let’s gather ’round the table, put pen to paper or fingers on keyboard and Just Write!
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Today’s writing prompt is inspired by Rebecca Lawton’s May 26, 2014 blog post, which begins:
“Candles of buckeye blossoms and their subtle fragrance have always confirmed the return of summer. Seeing them this week reminded me that certain sights, sounds, and smells trigger strong memories. The whisking sound of a broom on stairs recalls family vacations at the lake, where our host rose early to sweep fallen live oak leaves. The musky scent of open water reminds me of being on a raft enjoying the primal sensations of floating a muddy river. The first bars of a Beatles song bring back the excitement of junior high school dances. Sipping tequila reminds me of kayaking from Loreto to La Paz on the Sea of Cortez.”
Click here to read the rest of the post.
Writing Prompt: Stroll down memory lane . . . pause when a remembered event causes a visceral reaction: you might feel a sensation in your gut . . . write about that event, using sensory detail.
You can use the Summer Prompt as a starting place. Not the “how I spent my summer vacation” September school essay. Focus on detail . . . using sensory description in your writing. Capture that musky lake smell, the charred wood campfire smell. Go with tactile detail: the sticky marshmallows on your fingers, the feel of a rough floor on your bare feet, the bright sun fighting closed eyelids. Wake up! Go deep in your writing. Reach out and capture those feelings. . . whatever they are.
After you write, take a look at the responses to Prompt #77 (scroll down) . . . folks used wonderful detail writing about summer.Join us! Write your freewrite. Post your writing on The Write Spot Blog.
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Today’s writing prompt is inspired from the book, Write Free, Attracting the Creative Life by Rebecca Lawton and Jordan E. Rosenfeld
This writing exercise is called: I Spy
List a few things that happened this morning or yesterday. They don’t have to be big or memorable, just whatever falls into your mind.
The goal is to slow down and take stock of those things you do not normally notice.
Writing Prompt: Focus on one event and write how you felt about this encounter. Jot down your feelings and then do a freewrite.
Did the event make you think of anything else? Did it remind you of other events, experiences, memories or feelings? What were you thinking while it happened, or just before or after?Write your freewrite. Type your freewrite and save it. Log on and post your writing on The Write Spot Blog.
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Guest Blogger Adair Lara writes:
Voice in writing is my new obsession. I’ve been talking nonstop to my memoir students about it until they all look at me cross-eyed. “You must think of your experiences as material! And of yourself as a character!” Many of them have been taking the workshop with me for years, climbing the three flights of steps every Saturday to the redwood attic of the Victorian house I live in.
I was all about identifying the emotional beats of the arc when some of them started. They must have been sick of hearing me say, “What’s the beat?” (The wine Lee Anna brings helps). And they must have been surprised –why had I not mentioned this new approach before, if it was so important?
Well, I didn’t because even though voice is the most obvious thing in the world, we don’t see it.
It’s also all agents and editors care about in the memoirs they are sent these days. They’re looking for a vivid, quirky narrator with an engaging voice. The subject? Comes in second. You think you’re the only one who fell out of a prop plane in the Andes and captured by a lost tribe, and go online and find it happened to six other people, all of whom have written memoirs and already have agents. With a great voice, though, you can write about that or any other damned thing you please and get into print. For example, the agent who received a manuscript of a memoir called Candy Girl by a former stripper-for-a-year named Diablo Cody said:
“I wasn’t interested based on the subject matter alone. Stripping had been covered before (no pun intended), and I didn’t think the author was likely to add much to an already crowded market. But then there was the voice. After just one paragraph, I was a) completely convinced that stripping was the solution to all of her problems, b) laughing uncontrollably, and c) definitely interested in being along for the entire ride, or at least 250-plus pages.”
“Personality” is another word for voice, really. If you don’t like a person’s personality, you don’t want to hang out with them. If you don’t like a book’s personality, you don’t want to hang out with it, either. I know that the number one reason I pick up a book or put one down is because I like the voice or I can’t stand the voice. There doesn’t seem to be much in between for me. The subject is not a factor. I can happily read Anne Lamott talking about Jesus—not an interest I share –because she is so funny and smart and self-deprecating.
Note from Marlene: Adair Lara is also smart and funny . . . take a class with her to learn more about “voice in writing.” This post is an excerpt from Adair’s book in process. I’ll post a book review as soon as the book is published and I have read it. If you would like to be a Guest Book Reviewer for The Write Spot Blog . . . Let’s talk! Send me an email. mcullen@comcast.net
Adair and Bill on San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz in the background.
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Facebook is destroying small talk. You open your mouth, and they say, ‘I know, I read it on Facebook.
— Adair LaraThursday is Quote Day on The Write Spot Blog. I like to post something interesting someone has said, or pithy or memorable. Adair Lara’s writing matches all three.
Adair Lara comments, lifted from Facebook:
“Facebook is destroying small talk. You open your mouth, and they say, ‘I know, I read it on Facebook.’” — January 24, 2014
Adair on Passwords: “I recall, children, a time when you didn’t have to spend part of each day trying to remember passwords, looking them up in your password file cleverly called something else, like sammy’s dog, putting them in wrong, having to get the password from the site which entails remembering whether you said the name of your maternal grandfather was Tom or Thom, and then having your new password being called weak or strong, and capitalizing the “H” to please them (you’ve employed a variation of the same password since you were 36) and repeating this fricking exercise ten times a day, when who cares whether somebody can get into your toon photos account or not?” — February 6, 2014
Want Adair humor in person? Take her class, information posted on Facebook, May 8, 2014:
Shouldn’t you finish that book?
You put a lot of work in on it, and then laid it aside, or got too busy at work, or lost faith in it.
Before that, though, you put a lot of time and talent into it.
You might enjoy a day at my house entirely devoted to writers with stalled projects. I’ll help you decide whether to take it up again, and providing you by the end of the day with a specific plan for doing just that –and perhaps a writing partner, or writing group, to boot. You might decide to at least try to carve some sellable essays out of it.
Also I’ll give you some killer voice exercises I’ve been developing. You will certainly enjoy meeting your fellow writers. For those who have a completed draft, we’ll talk about publishing/self-publishing.
Get ready for the workshop by: a) assembling your manuscript and reading it b) researching the competition on Amazon.
Limited to 15. $175 Sunday June 22 9-4:30 45 minutes off for lunch
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In Naked, Drunk, and Writing, Adair Lara writes “I grew up in the San Geronimo Valley . . . a bookstruck little kid sitting on a stump writing stories.”
She continues with “Writing was easy then. I used my dad’s square carpenter pencil to cover sheet after sheet with stories of dogs that rescued families from a flood or a fire.”
Note the details: Can you see the carpenter pencil? I see a yellow pencil and I can see that little girl hunched over, earnestly scribbling.
Adair began her writing career as copyeditor at San Francisco Focus magazine. Her friend Cynthia, the production editor, also wanted to be a writer. They started partner writing, swapping freewrites and returning them with the good stuff highlighted in yellow. “That first writing club, as we called it, changed my life. It made me a writer by giving me the confidence to be one.”
Adair has published “some ten books or so, including several collections of columns.” Her work has appeared in many other magazines and newspapers, both in print and online. She is currently a columnist for Grandparents.com
Adair teaches writing workshops, which I had the good fortune to attend in the summer of 2009. What a treat!
How about you? Do you want to write but don’t know how to get started? You can join a writing group in your community, find a partner to exchange writing with, or join an online writing community like this one, The Write Spot Blog.
Just write!