Sometimes writing prompts are a single word. Or a photo. Or both. You can alter the prompt to suit your mood. For example, today’s prompt could be container or containers. Or just look at the photo and write whatever comes up for you. Today’s Prompt: Container Join a variety of authors and bloggers for our St. Patrick’s Day Blog Hop. Francis H. Powell is our awesome host. If you click on Blog Hop, you will end up at his Landing Page. Click on a blogger’s name and, like magic, you will end up in a different realm. Bloggers: Tiffany Apan, Cheryllynn Dyess, Angela Chrysler, Roma Gray, Francis H. Powell and Marlene Cullen. We love visitors!
Author: mcullen
Marlene Cullen is enthusiastic about encouraging people to write, even those who think they can’t write. Her series of books, The Write Spot anthologies, features writing that entertains as well as inspires writing. Every story, vignette, and poem in The Write Spot books include writing prompts motivating readers to become writers.
Marlene hosts The Write Spot Blog, a treasure chest of inspirational gems for writers.
Fulfilling her passion for writing and sharing with others, Marlene has created unique writing environments such as Jumpstart Writing Workshops, where participants often experience transformational changes. Her workshops provide essential elements for successful writing.
Marlene is the founder of Writers Forum of Petaluma, a monthly literary event featuring presenters talking about the craft and business of writing.
Marlene's awarding winning short stories and essays have been published in literary journals, anthologies, and newspapers, including Tiny Lights, Building Bridges, More Bridges, Redwood Writers anthologies, and The Write Spot anthologies.
She is a member of the California Writer's Club.
Going to Solace – an engaging story of the human spirit
Today’s featured book is Going to Solace by Amanda McTigue. Reviewed by Gil Mansergh. “I read over a hundred books annually for my NPR affiliated radio show, and I selected Amanda McTigue’s Going to Solace as the best novel I have read this year [2012]. In the rural Carolinas of 1989, things move at a different pace and folks either know each other—or know of each other. In just five days (including Thanksgiving) first-time novelist Amanda McTigue lets us get to know and care about the people who work, visit and reside in a Blue Ridge Mountain hospice home known simply as Solace. The residents are mostly old and worn out, the visitors are on edge from the uncertain finality of what will come soon, and the dedicated caregivers may have seen it all before, but are still deeply involved. I know you will get involved as well.” Gil Mansergh is…
Bayou Magazine
Bayou Magazine is a biannual, national literary magazine published by The University of New Orleans. Bayou publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, including the winner of the annual Tennessee Williams One-Act Play Contest. Bayou‘s mission is to publish exceptional, exciting work by both established and emerging writers. Submissions accepted between August 1 and May 1, with a response time of 3 to 5 months. More information on their website, including Submission Guidelines. Note from Marlene: Good luck! “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” is a Cajun expression meaning “Let the good times roll!” I heard this expression often while visiting New Orleans. It may have nothing to do with Bayou Magazine. I just wanted to tack it along with my Good Luck wishes for you! I hope you are having a good time writing. And submitting!
What’s new? Prompt #236
Sometimes nothing is new. Sometimes there is no new. It’s all old. Other times, the new is so exciting, you just want to share the news. Prompt: What’s new? And if you have nothing to write about “what’s new?” . . write about . . . what’s not new? Photo by Jim C. March
Amanda McTigue Untethered
Guest Blogger Amanda McTigue . . . I’ll confess with some dismay that contrary to the many uplifting articles and memoirs I have read about the serenity of older age, it continues to elude me. Serenity, that is, not the march of years across my face, kneecaps and pelvic floor muscles. I’m looking forward to any later-in-life serenity that may come my way. Indeed, I practice all kinds of meditations and mantras and daily exercises, etc., to invite it in. But my emotional set point tends to be what it’s always been: low-level (self)doubt. That’s the place whence I write. If that’s true for you, let me offer some slant wisdom here from some fellow artists. Take Tatiana Maslany. You may have seen her in a futuristic TV show called “Orphan Black” in which she plays (gorgeously!) multiple clones of herself. She’s a hell of a young actor, and here…
Something you will always have. Prompt #235
Write about something you will always have.
The Marvelous Journals of Miss Virginia Pettingill by Gilbert Mansergh
The Marvelous Journals of Miss Virginia Pettingill, reviewed by Susan Bono: I expected to be charmed by the outgoing and adventurous Ginny Pettingill, a 7th grader who uses her journals to capture her own personal discoveries as well as portray life in Gloucester, MA, shortly after WWI. The fact that the narrator is fashioned after the author’s mother added extra piquancy to the read—did the real Virginia have the gift of sight? Was she really a witness to the dawn of the “talkies” and could she have organized one of the first beach cleanups? I loved how the delights of the past were brought to life, but I was also struck by the shadow side of this lull between wars. It was indeed a time of tremendous excitement and progress—automobiles and motion pictures, Prohibition and Women’s Rights. There were new inventions, like Kotex and electric Christmas lights. But the people…
Boulevard Magazine showcases new writers.
Boulevard Magazine “strives to publish only the finest in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. While we frequently publish writers with previous credits, we are very interested in less experienced or unpublished writers with exceptional promise. If you have practiced your craft and your work is the best it can be, send it to Boulevard.” Boulevard’s mission is to publish the finest in contemporary fiction and poetry as well as definitive essays on the arts and culture, and to publish a diversity of writers who exhibit an original sensibility. It is our conviction that creative and critical work should be presented in a variegated yet coherent ensemble—as a boulevard, which contains in one place the best a community has to offer. To get a feel for style, content, quality, and form of the work that Boulevard publishes try a sample issue or subscription. Boulevard accepts submissions from October 1 to May 1….
Your passion for writing. Prompt #234
It’s palpable. I see it. I feel your passion for writing. I know the feeling. . . You want to write, but you aren’t writing. Because . . . first, you have to do this Thing and that Thing needs to get done and this other Thing just can’t wait. I know how it goes. I know you really do want to write. And I wonder, if writing means so much to you, why aren’t you writing? Why do you ignore your passion? Let’s take a look at this. Whenever I have something I want to explore, I do a freewrite. Use the following questions as “writing starts.” Start each paragraph with a question. Then write. Just write. What do I want to do in my writing life? What do I want to accomplish? What is stopping me from doing what I want to do, whether it’s writing or something…
What do you keep that you have no use for? Prompt #233
Today’s writing prompt: What do you keep that you have no use for? Why do you keep it? Write your response. Post on The Write Spot Blog.