The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

Author: mcullen

  • Teleportation . . . Prompt #800

    If you had a working teleportation device, where would you go?
    Why?

    What would you do there?

    #justwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting

  • Carousel . . . Prompt #799

    Today’s Writing Prompt: Carousel

  • A box, at a bazaar . . . Prompt #798

    You walk into an outdoor bazaar. Tables are filled with everything imaginable.

    The sun is bright. Large colorful umbrellas shade the goods displayed on tables.

    A box calls out to you, beckons you to come closer.

    You pick it up.

    Is it heavy? Light? What is made of?

    You lift the lid, and . . .

    #justwrite #iamwriting #iamawriter

  • BEE-ING

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    BEE-ING

    By Su Shafer

    I have become a stone.

    A gemstone. Labradorite

    Or Moonstone maybe.

    No – an Orca Agate

    From the Earth, with an affinity with water.

    I am a stationary object.

    My unruly legs have taught me

    The power of stillness,

    How motionlessness invites presence

    In each moment.

     

    Today I watched a bee visit

    All the flowers in my patio planter.

    Her tender attention to each one

    The pollen pantaloons on her legs

    The song of her wings, 

    Humming as she went from floret to floret

    Trailing in the air behind her as she flew off.

     

    Her busy work reminds me

    There are no small lives.

    I think of her and her sisters

    Bustling about in the hive,

    Content in their purposefulness.

    Unlike my quiet house

    There is no stillness in a hive

    Even when they pause for a brief repast

    Of bee bread and honey.

    Su Shafer is a creative crafter, fabricating bits of writing in poetry and short stories, and other bits into characters that appear in paintings or sit on various bookshelves and coffee tables. She lives in a cottage on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where the tea kettle is always whistling and the biscuits freshly baked. One never knows who might stop by to share a rainy afternoon. And all are welcome!

  • Boys are . . . Girls are . . . Prompt #797

    “Boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

    Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”

    What are you made of?

    What do you think of this saying?

  • Transportation . . . Prompt #796

    Photo by Elviss Railijs Bitāns

    Write about using public transportation, or private:  

    A bus, a train, a plane, subway, a boat, a ship, a rickshaw, a bicycle, Lyft, Uber, taxi cab, etc.

    #just write #amwriting #iamawriter

  • I am

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    I am

    By Patricia Morris

    I am made of rich black soil that grows corn and soybeans and wheat and oats and vegetable gardens.

    I am made of love showered upon me by parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles.

    I am made of tallgrass prairies and mighty rivers.

    I am made of grief and loss.

    I am made of Midwestern college campuses, of thick gray and dark green law books.

    I am made of courtrooms and jails, prisons and government office buildings.

    I am made of curiosity and wanderlust, of courage and manners.

    I am made of blood and bone, atoms and molecules, hair and cartilage.

    I am made of brain synapses and aching joints, smiling eyes and laughing mouth.

    I am made of love.

    Who is this “I” I am describing? I learn in Zen that there is no “I.” “I” am a figment of “my” imagination. I am nothing without everything.

    I am nothing without everything

    I am nothing without

    I am nothing

    I am

    I

    Patricia Morris lives in Northern California and writes on Monday nights at Jumpstart Writing Workshops. She loves road trips, the Grateful Dead, and reading Dogen.

    Her writing has appeared in Rand McNally’s Vacation America, the Ultimate Road Atlas and The Write Spot anthologies:  “Possibilities” and “Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year,” edited by Marlene Cullen.

  • Introvert? Extrovert? . . . Prompt #795

    Are you, or is your fictional character, an introvert or an extrovert?

    Do you know the difference?

    It has been explained to me this way:

    An extrovert is energized being in a crowd.

    An introvert is drained of energy being in a crowd.

    What is your definition of introvert and extrovert?

    Write what it’s like being an introvert in an extrovert world.

    Or, what is it like being an extrovert?

    Are the people you spend time with mostly extroverts or introverts? How does that work for you?

  • Jobs . . . Prompt #794

    Write about your favorite job . . . paid or volunteer.

    Or: Your first job or first volunteer work

    Or: Write about a job you would never want to do.

  • Writers: Open doors to flights of imagination

    “. . . the urge to be a writer is a generous act at its core: we want to share our story with others, to give them a world that will open doors to insights and flights of the imagination.” — Grant Faulkner

    Excerpted from “Sharing stories, sharing yourself,” from Grant’s Substack newsletter on writing and creativity, “Intimations: A Writer’s Discourse.”

    Grant:

    As a boy, I spent my allowance on all sorts of pens and paper, so there was never much question I would become a writer. I received my B.A. from Grinnell College in English and my M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

    It seems like I should have other degrees, such as an MFA in Novels about People Doing Nothing But Walking Around, a PhD in Collages and Doodles and Stick Drawings of Fruitless Pursuits, or a Knighthood in Insomniac Studies, but I don’t.