Today’s writing prompt: Write about a strong feeling or attachment you had when you were young.
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Play with anaphoras. Prompt #38
Anaphora: Repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect. For example: Abraham Lincoln’s speech, “We cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground.” — Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous 1963 March on Washington speech, he repeated the phrase “I have a dream” at the beginning of his sentences.
Prompt: Using Lincoln’s speech or King’s speech as inspiration, incorporate anaphora in your next story, poem or essay.
Repeat a statement or idea that drives home the core message of your narrative. — except from January 2014, The Writer magazine.
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Focusing the camera. . . Prompt #37
Write about an incident that happened between you and another person from your point of view. Write for about 20 minutes.
Move the camera lens, focusing on the other person, write about this same incident from the other person’s point of view.
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What happened, from your point of view. . . Prompt #36
Today’s writing prompt was inspired from the January 2003 issue of The Writer magazine, ”On Writing Personal Essays,” by Barbra Abercrombie.
Make a list of issues and experiences, important and trivial in your life right now.
What frustrated you in the past month?
What made you laugh or cry?
What made you lose your temper?
What was the worst thing that happened?
The best?
The most disturbing and weird?
Write: Choose one thing from your list and write about it. Write whatever comes to mind. Write what you would really like to say to the other people involved.
Write what happened from your point of view.
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Fantasize for a moment. . . Prompt #35
Fantasize for a moment. Money is no object. Time and place are no object. Give yourself an imaginary gift. What would it be?
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Twelve years old . . . Prompt #34
Write about your favorite thing to do when you were twelve years old.
You can respond from your personal experience, or answer as your fictional character would answer. -
What surprises me . . . Prompt #33
What surprises me . . .
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What games did you play? Prompt #32
Today’s prompt is from To Have Not, a fascinating memoir by Frances Lefkowitz.When us kids used to walk down 16th Street to the schoolyard or across Sanchez to the corner store, we’d keep a lookout for cool cars. When one drove by – a red mustang convertible, a tiny MG, a black Jag with the silver cat ready to pounce off the hood – whoever saw it first would point and say, “That’s my car!” We could play this game anywhere, my brothers and their buddies and I, shouting the words loud and fast to drown out anyone else who might be thinking about claiming the same car. You could even play it alone, whispering the three magic words while walking home from school or sitting in a window seat on the bus, leaning your drowsy head against the sun-warmed glass. Then the car would speed through traffic, carrying your dreams out of sight. You’d covet, grasp, and lose, all in a few quick seconds of shiny colored metal whizzing by.
Frances blogs about writing, publishing, and footwear at PaperInMyShoe.com.
Prompt: What game did you and your friends or siblings make up? What does this say about your childhood?
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An illusion . . . Prompt #31
Write about an illusion you had, or maybe something that you know is an illusion but want to believe anyway.
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Forgiveness – Prompt #30
The 2009 movie, Invictus, featuring Matt Damon, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman is about how Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, initiates a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
As you probably know, Mandela spent 27 years in prison. After he was released and elected as South Africa’s first black president, he preached reconciliation. When he decided to support the country’s rugby team — long a symbol of white oppression — his countrymen were stunned. “Forgiveness liberates the soul,” Mandela explains to a crowd. “That’s why it’s such a powerful weapon.” — Parade Magazine, December 2009
Prompt: Forgiveness. Write about the concept of forgiveness, or write about someone you could forgive, or someone who might forgive you.
