Literary – September 25

“Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.” -William Faulkner, born this date in 1897. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist uses facts to disguise the truth.

Literary – September 24

“In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, born this date in 1896. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist awakes at 3:00 for the seventh straight morning.

Literary – September 23

“Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.” -Walter Lippmann, born this date in 1889. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is the only person willing to challenge conventional wisdom.

Literary – September 22

“I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.” -Fay Weldon, born this date in 1931. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist commits a grievous error because s/he confidently  and erroneously predicted what was going to happen next.

Literary – September 21

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings — words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.” -Stephen King, born this date in 1947. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s words are too...

Literary – September 20

“Every good thing that comes is accompanied by trouble.” -Maxwell Perkins, born this date in 1884. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist rejects something good because s/he fears the trouble that might accompany it.

Literary – September 19

“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.” -Michael Chabon in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, published on this date in 2000. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist finds something her/his family considered irretrievably...

Literary – September 18

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” -Samuel Johnson, born this date in 1709. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist spends a night in anticipation of a certain reckoning.