Tag Archives: writing prompts

Writing Prompts — 1/26

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These are fragments of other writers’ responses to prompts in my workshops. All used with permission.

Feel free to pick one and write for thirty minutes with the words as a starting place.

Things were popping off outside. OV

Grief is for amateurs. CC

She thought of herself as alluring. MT

I hate games and the wine was terrible. MR

before all the trouble started… MT

We were worried she might come undone. LT

Perhaps your scars define who you are. OV

I guess anything can be professionalized. CC

The emptiness of the streets surprised me. SH

I want my own climate zone. CC

Some ugly quilt fabrics hurt the eye, even hurt the soul. OV

… all the things you need to do to get out the door… MT

_____________ makes me feel normal again. I am not normal. SH

Everything fluctuates — markets, marriages. CC

… and then I learned baker’s math. LT

Amherst Writers and Artists Checklists

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As a new cycle of workshops gets underway, it’s helpful to review the AWA method.

Also, enjoy some images from the clip file of my sister. Feel free to use as prompts.

From the Amherst Writers and Artists website:

The AWA affirmations

These affirmations rest on a definition of personhood based in equality, and a definition of writing as an art form available to all persons.

Everyone has a strong, unique voice.
Everyone is born with creative genius.
Writing as an art form belongs to all people, regardless of economic class or educational level.
The teaching of craft can be done without damage to a writer’s original voice or artistic self-esteem.
A writer is someone who writes.

Essential Practices

The following practices establish a safe environment where everyone is free to explore within their own writing and listen to each other with respect.

Everyone’s writing, including the leader’s, is treated with equal respect and value.
Writing is kept confidential and treated as fiction.
Writers can refrain from reading their work aloud.
Responses to just-written work reflect what is strong and successful.
Responses and exercises support the development of literary craft.
When listening in an AWA workshop we enter the universe that the writer has created and leave our assumptions behind. We are asked to leave behind our own expectations and experiences. In an AWA workshop we listen for and notice what works. We listen for and notice the choices a writer has made that help to create success in the writing. We listen without preconceived ideas about what the story should be about, how the poem should sound, or what we might do differently.

Positive feedback teaches participants about the craft of writing without hurting them. The pairing of harsh criticism with intelligence is a false pairing. Similarly, the idea that one must hear what’s wrong with one’s writing in order to improve is just plain not true.

Here are some elements of writing that can be commented on:

Point of View: it’s strong, it’s consistent, it’s original
Dialogue: it’s believable, it offers nice changes in rhythm from the prose
Descriptions of place: vivid, sensual, offering a sense of scene
Descriptions of character: complex, makes the listener curious, credible
Structure: clear, original, telescoping (in or out), linear or non-linear, circular
Literary techniques: metaphor, simile, allusion, alliteration, irony, hyperbole
Word choice: what words pop? what words linger? any word choices that really seem original?
Symbols, motifs, or themes: any immediately apparent?

A nice compendium of literary techniques can be found here.

Birch bark

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Enough writers enrolled for the fundraising workshop that I’m hosting on May 24, Bringing the Body to the Page, for it to be a go. (Fundraising for Amherst Writers and Artists). There is still room if you’re interested. 10 – 12. It’s a Friday.

Looking at these photos that I took of the birch out back this morning caused me to ask, who says the body has to be yours, or even human? That trunk has stories to tell!

I’m clearing out the freezer a little by making stock — using up stowed chicken carcasses and vegetable bits.

Now I’m off to straighten one of the boys’ bedrooms for the dog sitter. Funny how they become like closets, those vacated bedrooms.

Poem and Writing Prompt

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From the Atlantic

NOON

A poem for Sunday. By Li-Young Lee

a sheer curtain with a blue night seen through it — Photo: Brea Souders

APRIL 28, 2024

The tall curtains billow
with presences coming and going, impossible
to confirm.

Whispered voices congregate at noon.

Is there any word from the Lord?
Is there any word from the dead?
Is there any word from the dying?
Is there any word from the living?

The curtains rise and fall like wings.
Is the room about to lift off the earth?

Noon is crowded with voices.

Is there any word from the Lord?

You were born speaking the language of the dying:
I want. I need. Not enough. Give me.
When will you learn the language of the living?

Is there any word from the dead?

You haven’t changed at all, says my father.

When you were little,
each time you learned a new word
you couldn’t wait to repeat it to me.

Now you’re old
and you still can’t wait to talk to me.

Tell me, has your love of the world survived
your knowledge of the world?

You’ve changed so much, says my mother.

When you thought no one was listening,
you used to sing.

A lot of wind

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Muggy air continues. Gusty wind all day and in the last hour, rain.

Finished this. A little press will tidy the edges a bit. The fabric for the moons was dyed with indigo in South Carolina. The woven sections came after a class with Jude. I just couldn’t stop making woven rectangles for a while. The crab was stitched down a lot of years ago. It’s good to finish things, isn’t it?