Superstition . . . write about a superstition you have, or superstitions in general.

Congratulations on being here, taking time to do something for yourself.

Sometimes the writing prompts on The Write Spot Blog are serious, sometimes fun, and sometimes instrumental in learning something about writing and learning about ourselves.

You are always free to write whatever you want. The prompts are just ideas to get you started.

If you are writing and run out of things to say, either repeat the prompt, or write “what I really want to say.” And go from there.

When you read the prompt, write it down, and just start writing. Get rid of the editor that sits on your shoulder. Don’t think. Don’t overthink. Write whatever comes into your mind.

The writing prompts are meant to encourage you to write what you really want to write (no judgement on good or bad, nice or not nice content).

But what if what you really want to write isn’t very nice?

I say . . . go for it. You can burn your writing or delete whenever you want. No one ever needs to see it. You are writing this for yourself. Not to entertain others.

Is it okay to write about anger and being angry?

This is from my friend Lizzie, who is a hypnotherapist:

Anger is good because it’s energy IN MOTION.

Depression is stuck energy and we rarely take action. We become bound to “this is how it is.” 

Back to me: The opposite of being allowed our anger feelings . . . we’re taught to be nice.

So, yeah, write about your feelings . . . anger, being too nice, or the fine balance of “just right.”

From The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron:

“I got a lot of mileage out of being nice,” says Benjamin, a composer. “Whenever I felt angry, I ate to stuff my feelings. I never expressed how I really felt. Instead, I used comfort foods to console myself. When I began using a journal, I found I could calmly and maturely express my anger. I may not be quite as ‘nice’ anymore, but I am a hell of a lot thinner.”

Back to me: Anger is a spark that can be used as creative fuel. We can take our anger to the page and write our emotions. We write to tell ourselves the truth, and the truth may be that we are angry.

Prompt: Write about being angry. Write about being nice. Write whatever comes into your head. Just Write!

If your life was surrounded by a frame, what would the edges look like?

Sharp, soft, curvy, plain, straight?

Brightly colored, small, large?

Dull, deep, shallow?

Stand out?

Plain, simple, fancy?

Blend in?

Fierce?

Protective?

Describe what the edges of your life’s frame would look like.

Does your frame help you or hinder you?

What kind of edge does your life hold?

Write about a frame that borders your life.

I’m spending this summer re-reading Elizabeth Berg’s books. Perhaps I’m trying to recreate the summers of my pre-teen years. After morning chores, afternoons were mine to do what I wanted. I walked to the library every Saturday and checked out an armload of books. Starting with the letter A in the children’s section, I worked my way around the room. I don’t remember what letter I was on when I abandoned the children’s section for adult fiction, upstairs in the grand and austere room, seeped with old-world charm, burnished wood stair railings, mahogany wainscoting, heavy oak chairs, and of course stacks and stacks of books. Those were the days of hushed voices and the librarian whispering shhhhh, pointer finger over pursed lips.

This summer, I’m enjoying the cool breeze from a portable fan while Berg’s characters march and dance through my head.

Here is an excerpt from Tapestry of Fortunes from pages 7 and 8:

{The main character, Cecilia Ross, is a motivational speaker. She is Atlanta in this scene, at the Oshaka Women’s Club.)

“I’m standing at the window in the speaker’s room and looking through the slanted blinds at the women gathered on the lawn, chatting amiably, laughing, leaning their heads together to share a certain confidence. They’re pretty; they look like so many butter mints, dressed in pastel greens and pinks and yellows and whites. It’s a warm spring day after a rainy night, and the women who are wearing high heels are having trouble with them sinking into the earth.

A fifty-something woman wearing a yellow apron over a print dress comes into the room holding a little gold-rimmed plate full of food: tea sandwiches, cut-up melon, cookies. ‘I have to tell you, I am really looking forward to hearing you speak. I hope you won’t mind my telling you this, but you said something in your last book that truly helped change my life: Getting lost is the only way to find what you didn’t know you were looking for.’”

Prompt: Write about something you have looked for.

Or write about getting lost in order to find what you were looking for.

Or write about a warm spring day.

Links to “Lost” writing prompts on The Write Spot Blog:

Write about a time you were lost. Prompt #60

Something lost or stolen from you or from your fictional character. Prompt #321

Something that was lost or stolen. Prompt #326

You can also write on any of the photos that accompany these writing prompts.

Comfort zone – write about a time you were out of your comfort zone.

An article in the Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon, September 14, 2006 described how Betty Henshaw wrote about her childhood in the Oklahoma hills and her family’s move to California. 

Author Sandra Scofield read a collection of Betty’s work and said her history needed to be in the hands of a university press. Texas Tech University Press published her story and Betty did a book tour in 2006.

Here’s an excerpt from that newspaper article.

“The family hired an auctioneer and sold their cows, horses, pigs, chickens, farm tools, the potatoes in the barn and the home-canned fruits and vegetables. Mama kept her sewing machine.

The next morning I helped herd the younger children into the truck before first light.

Daddy and Robert had placed a feather mattress on the pickup bed. The babies crawled to the back, grabbed a pillow each, and rolled up in quilts.

Sadness washed over me when we drove past the high school that morning.

There’s an old tradition that Okies were supposed to sing and holler when they came over the 3,793 foot Tehachapi Pass near the south end of the Sierra Nevada.

Mama said we were too tired to holler.

It was a hardscrabble life. Laundry was done with a washboard after heating water in a kettle, and hung on an electric fence to dry. Sunday dinners might be beans and cornbread and fried green tomatoes. My sisters and I wore dresses Mama made of flour sacks on her Grandma Bristol’s old Singer sewing machine.

Mama and my grandmother picked cotton to buy that machine.

Today the machine sits in a place of honor in my living room, a piece of the past contrasting with the computer on the desk at the other end of the room.

“It was hard,” Betty says, of leaving Oklahoma, “I left behind a part of myself.”

Prompt: Write about your history, either fact or what you imagine could have happened. Or write about a something you inherited.

A flashback is a scene set in a time earlier than the main story.

Sometimes when you are telling a story, or writing a story, you need to backtrack and tell what happened previously.

A flashback is a shift in a narrative to an earlier event that interrupts the normal chronological development of a story.

From Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld: “With flashback, you want to focus on action, information, and character interactions.”

Flashback can also be thought of as backstory.  

Use flashbacks to explain, enlighten, and inform.

An example is What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg. The story takes place during a woman’s travels to meet her sister and mother. We learn what happened thirty-five years prior through flashbacks while the woman travels in space.

Other examples of using flashback to tell a story:

To Kill a Mockingbird: The whole story is a flashback told by Scout a few years after the scenes take place. The first sentence of the book indicates the timeframe. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

Saving Private Ryan: The movie starts out with an elderly man walking in a cemetery in Normandy. He then has a flashback of WWII.

Titanic is told from an elderly lady’s point of view. We move from present time of her telling the story and the resurrection of the ship to what happened years previously.

Think for a moment about a movie or story you have read where flashbacks are used to tell a story.

How to incorporate flashbacks into your writing: Use past tense. “She revealed . . .”     “We had just gone to . . .”

Prompt: What is the most fearless thing you have done?  But . . . here’s the twist. . . start your story in the present time period. Then, go back in time to tell what happened.

For example: Today, I’m afraid of spiders because of the time . . . 

OR:

I know I can accomplish such and such because when I was . . .  

Go for it! Just write!