Big 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...

Romance – 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.

Mystery – 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 protagonist knows to be guilty go free or implicating a person your protagonist knows to be innocent.

SciFi/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...

Literary – 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.

Journaling + Fiction – July 9

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building on the new.”Socrates Journal prompt: Spend at least 20 minutes writing about where you should be focusing your energy instead of where you are focusing it. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist squanders all his/her energy on an old fight and has nothing left for the new one.

Big 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...

Romance – July 9

“After forty a woman has to choose between losing her figure or her face. My advice is to keep your face, and stay sitting down.” -Barbara Cartland, born on this date in 1901. Writing prompt: Write the scene in which your protagonist first realizes that age is happening to her/him, too.