Blog
Mystery – July 11
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” -Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, published on this date in 1960. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist begins a project s/he knows will fail.
read moreSciFi/Fantasy – July 11
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”- Elwyn Brooks White, born this date in 1899. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s plan to take advantage of weather to accomplish a goal fails.
read moreLiterary – July 10
“There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.” -Marcel Proust, born this date in 1871. Writing prompt: Write a scene from your protagonist’s life that s/he would rather forget.
read moreBig Questions – July 10
Of what opportunity did you take advantage yesterday? Journaling prompt: Spend 15-20 minutes writing your answer in the spirit of exploring yourself and the world around you. If you can answer with a simple “yes” or “no,” explain the sources or implications of your response. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene that forces a character in your story to answer the question, or spend 15-20 minutes answering the question in the voice of a character you want to know more about. Photo from Unsplash, the internet’s source of freely usable...
read moreJournaling + Fiction – July 10
“A quiet conscience makes one strong!”Anne Frank Journal prompt: Spend at least 20 minutes writing about a strength of conscience others do not notice in you because it’s so quiet. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist refuses to go along to get along without explaining why.
read moreRomance – July 10
“Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories — and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.” -Alice Munro, born this date in 1931. Writing prompt: Write the story of your protagonist’s first kiss as s/he tells it to her/his best friend, and then write the same story as your protag tells it to her/his mother.
read moreMystery – July 10
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” -Sir William Blackstone, born this date in 1723. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist must choose between letting a person your protag knows to be guilty go free or implicating a person your protag knows to be innocent.
read moreSciFi/Fantasy – July 10
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success…. Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”- Nikola Tesla, born this date in 1856. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist realizes that the people for whom your protagonist long endeavored to create a thing will ignore that thing and all its potential.
read moreLiterary – July 9
” ‘Dangerously well’ — what an irony is this: it expresses precisely the doubleness, the paradox, of feeling ‘too well’.” -Oliver Sacks, born this date in 1933. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s sense of feeling too well causes her/him to end up feeling not very well at all.
read moreBig Questions – July 9
Can single people be as happy as people in a romantic relationship? Journaling prompt: Spend 15-20 minutes writing your answer in the spirit of exploring yourself and the world around you. If you can answer with a simple “yes” or “no,” explain the sources or implications of your response. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene that forces a character in your story to answer the question, or spend 15-20 minutes answering the question in the voice of a character you want to know more about. Photo from Unsplash, the internet’s source of freely...
read more
David B. Schlosser is an author of award-winning fiction and non-fiction, and an editor of award-winning fiction and non-fiction.
Read More...