Romance – September 11

“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle. What do I care about knowledge. All I want is to answer to my blood, direct, without fribbling intervention of mind, or moral, or what-not.” – DH Lawrence, born this date in...

Romance – September 10

“Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride, married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. Instructions for living a life: pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” – Mary Oliver, born this date in 1935. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist must make an...

Romance – September 9

“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.” – Leo Tolstoy, born this date in 1828. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is tempted to leave a satisfactory relationship by a person who promises a more interesting one.

Romance – September 8

“Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.” – Ann Beattie, born this date in 1947. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s first love shows up out of nowhere seeking a reconciliation.

Romance – September 7

“I am not an eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people.” -Edith Sitwell, born this date in 1887. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is shamed into being less alive by a romantic partner who thinks s/he is an eccentric.

Romance – September 6

“Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.” – Frances Wright, the great red harlot of infidelity, born this date in 1795. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s unconventional beliefs about relationships shock his/her family.

Romance – September 5

“How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?” – Boris Pasternak in Dr. Zhivago, published in the United States on this date in 1958. The book was banned in his home country even though Pasternak won — but was forced by Soviet authorities to refuse — the Nobel Prize that year. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist is prevented from seeing a romantic suitor...

Romance – September 4

“True friends share everything, except the past before they met.” -Mary Renault, born this date in 1905. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist learns of an event in her/his best friend’s life that is a deal-killer for your protag.