The Bohemian invites you to “Step Up to the Mic.” The Bohemian is “an award-winning alternative newsweekly serving Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties [in Northern California].” However, you don’t have to live in Northern California for this challenge. The Bohemian wants to hear from you! From The Editors: “Ah, the Open Mic. This is the one space in the paper, besides the letters section, where we don’t just want your input—we rely on your input. It’s a space we leave open and free to all comers, where a fiery and well-turned argument will always find a home. Please don’t take this as a threat, but—you really do not want the Bohemian staff to start filling the Open Mic with half-baked opinions about everything and everything.” Click here to read the challenge from the editors in its entirety. The Bohemian wants to “hear from our readers—all of our readers—who have an…
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.
Own up to it. Prompt #135
Write about a time you swallowed your pride and admitted to something you did that you regret. . . or a time you wish you had spoken up. You did it, now feel free to own up to it. . . . you don’t have to actually tell anyone what you did or didn’t do . . . just write about it here and now.
Special object to give. Prompt #134
Walk through your house, apartment, garage, barn . . . look at your knick-knacks, trinkets, souvenirs, keepsakes, treasures. . . pick one item to pass on to someone, perhaps a grandchild, or great-grandchild, or a beloved friend. Write about a special object you want to give to someone in the future. You can respond to this prompt as your fictional character would respond, or write as if you are going to give this item to someone.
Roseanne Cash—feeling alive when immersed in her work
” . . . [my] profession, like anyone’s, requires constant innovation if it is to remain fresh. I feel alive when I’m immersed in my work—when I’m fully employed, as Leonard Cohen says, as a songwriter, ‘You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself. ‘” —Roseanne Cash in an interview by Geoffrey Himes, “The Long Way Home, Smithsonian, November 2014 Note from Marlene: How about you? What keeps you immersed in your work? If your writing has hit the doldrums, how about mixing it up? If you usually write memoir, try fiction. If you are a fiction writer, try poetry. If you want ideas for freewrites, click here for writing prompts.
What does your character want? What gets in the way? Prompt #133
We’ve been working on character development on The Write Spot Blog. Your character could be fictional, based on a real person or someone in your memoir. Kurt Vonnegut says to “make your character want something.” There are several ways to go about this. Have your character do something unexpected . . . something that surprises everyone and weave in a problem. You can put your conservative character in an improv situation where he/she has to rap or act in a scene. Your male character might find himself on stage, learning how to hula or belly dance. Your female character might find herself in a lumberjack contest. Have your wild character volunteer to help with bingo in an assisted facility. Have your character do something unusual. Remember these are freewrites, where you write freely for 12 to 15 minutes. This doesn’t mean you have to use these character vignettes in your…
“The key to a good essay is conflict, and . . . Victoria Zackheim
“The key to a good essay is conflict, and the story’s (and character’s) arc. People have to change during the story, whether fiction or non-fiction. — Victoria Zackheim, interviewed by Chris Jane in JaneFriedman.com. Victoria Zackheim is the author of the novel The Bone Weaver and editor of six anthologies: He Said What? Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed The Other Woman Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance The Face in the Mirror Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and the Reality of Age Exit Laughing: How Humor Takes the Sting Out of Death and the upcoming FAITH: Essays from Believers, Agnostics, and Atheists (Feb. 2015). Victoria’s play, The Other Woman, based on her first anthology, will be featured in OneNight/OnePlay, and her play Entangled, an adaptation of the memoir Entangled:…
Guest Blogger Jane Merryman titillates with ‘What’s in a Title?’
What’s in a Title by Guest Blogger Jane Merryman Naked Lunch A Crack in the Edge of the World The Borrowers Book titles. Delicious. They provide entertainment in themselves, never mind what’s between the covers. The words on the front offer promise, titillation, or confusion. Of course, some titles are strictly workaday: Wildflowers of North America; The History of England from the Accession of James II; Math Formulas and Tables. But other titles are delightfully misleading, some are curiously ironic, others are satirical or even nonsense. A Moveable Feast Fezzes in the River Manhattan Transfer The title may or may not be an exact pointer to what’s inside, but it’s definitely a label that fixes itself in mind and memory. Take Pride and Prejudice—it has a lilt to it. But do you really want to plod through several hundred pages of unillustrated text enumerating the consequences of a couple of…
Character development – discovering characters. Prompt #132
For this two-part prompt, we’re going to develop a character, either fictional or based on reality (especially if you are writing memoir). How do writers develop characters? How do you get to know your character beyond their looks, their desires and where they went to school? Step One: Give your character a hobby or an interesting job. The more unusual, the better. Bee-keeping? Needlepoint for a man. Bucking horses, art aficionado, chemist, skywriter, laundromat manager, tornado chaser. You can look up unusual jobs that pay well by clicking here, such as: Cruise ship entertainer, ice cream taster, human statue, hot dog vender, dog groomer, personal shopper, funeral director. Sketch how your character might spend an hour of their work day, or hobby time: gathering honey, purchase yarn and patterns, ranch and corrals, visits to art galleries and museums, mixing potions in the basement. You might paint a picture what an…
Make characters want something right away . . . Kurt Vonnegut
“Make characters want something right away — even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. … When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do.” — Kurt Vonnegut
Modern Love, The New York Times
Modern Love is an essay column in The New York Times. “Modern Love is an ideal place for beginning writers to break in with a piece written from the heart.” — February 2015 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine. Click here for how to submit essays to Modern Love.