Writing Prompts of the Day

Write about your dream job.

Write about your ideal vacation spot.

Write about your most memorable birthday.

Write about a person you’d love to confront and what you’d say.

Write about your all-time favorite book.

Writing Quotes of the Day

“The great thing about writing is that you can do all these antisocial things and you get paid for them and nobody ever arrests you because they're all make-believe. Then that way if you were actually ever driven to do any of those things, the pressure's off because you'd have already written them down. It's therapy.”
—Stephen King

*****

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
—Buddha

*****

“First sentences are doors to worlds.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin

*****

“Writing that springs from the surface of existence—when there is no other way and the deeper wells have dried up—is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes that surface shake.

"That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.”

—Franz Kafka

*****

“Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats. I read newspapers, textbooks on crime. I talk to private investigators, police officers, jail administrators, doctors, lawyers, career criminals. Ideas are everywhere.”
—Sue Grafton

Writing Promptly

Write about…

The character traits of which you’re most and least proud.

Your fantasy adventure.

What you’d like your last meal to be.

Your favorite hobby.

Your favorite line in a book or poem or song.

Your feelings on the war in Iraq.

The news coverage on TV, radio, and in newspapers.

Your dream job.

The worst mistake you’ve ever made.

The last time you laughed uncontrollably.

Affirmations To Write By

It’s perfectly fine if my draft isn’t terrific today. Tomorrow, I will fix all the weaknesses and make it as good as possible.

If I stay in the chair and stick with it, I know my writing will turn out right in the end.

My writing is strong enough to deserve high pay, or at least fair pay. I shouldn’t settle for less.

I should always trust my writing instincts and stop occasionally listening to that negative voice in my head.

I need to have discipline and stick to my writing schedule, doing it every day even if it’s only for 15 minutes.

Honoring Martin Luther King: Complete Video/Text of "I have a dream" Speech

The following is the exact text of the spoken speech, transcribed from recordings:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Writing Prompts of the Day

Write about when you first knew you wanted to write.

Write about your favorite cartoon character.

Write about the smell of your favorite flower.

Write about your first date.

Write about the perfect meal.

Writing Prompts of the Day

Write about…

Your favorite and least favorite news show.

Vice President Biden.

The best meal you’ve ever had.

The biggest risk you ever took.

Your favorite single line of movie dialogue.

Your best and worst indulgences.

The best gift you ever received.

The funniest joke you’ve heard recently.

What bothers you most about the world of politics.

Your favorite time of the day.

Affirmations to Write By

I can write. I know it. And I dare someone to convince me otherwise.

I will know more about the writing craft tonight than I did when I woke up this morning.

My writing voice is powerful and clear and has the ability to touch people.

The right words are all around me and I know I will find them within time.

Reading great writing is research. It’s also inspiration and motivation.

Knocking Their Socks Off?

Knocking Their Socks Off?
By Michael Levy

They say all that glitters is not gold, but in the writer’s world of Hollywood a few bags of gold can help put a writer into films...But, is that what the writer really wanted?

Many writers do dream of fame and fortune. Indeed, if they learn the tricks of the trade, even a mediocre writer can become well known with scripts accepted to make mediocre movies.

The methods suggested by “the experts” are to employ an army of assistants from agents, lawyers, researchers, personal managers and publicists and more. I guess that is where a few bags of gold to start with can come in handy... for they do not come cheap.

The writer is then required to become a social animal. Being seen at all the right parties is essential to become part of the big time scene. Image making is the order of the day and the writer has to become a part of the jigsaw, an integral piece that has always fitted into the correct space.

Of course, mixing with the creme-de-la-creme gives budding writers an excellent opportunity to *fall in love* with their beloved dream mate (one who can open all the doors of fortune) and you can't get more romantic than that ... can you?

Many writers have found their way into movies by letting the publicity machine do their walking and talking and I am not criticizing or condemning those folks who have walked this path. The question writers must ask themselves is, "What do I want out of life."

Does the writer want to put his/her energy into writing great works, or is it more important to brown nose the power brokers who make the decisions on who or what is accepted in the land of media mania?

Do writers come to terms with reality in today's hi-tech driven world and jump on the band wagon of hype... or, do they carry on writing and not prostitute their soul for a Beverly Hills mansion ?...The answers are blowing in the winds of time. Anyone who becomes endowed with the intelligence of a season’s breeze will find the authentic answers to the writer’s world of true prosperity.

There are no correct or wrong methods of gaining success, for being a writer is a personal quest. There are no real guidelines to true success as a writer that are written in stone. However, there is no doubt that any writer who has a significant, meaningful message to voice to the world ... will eventually be heard.

The more their intelligence and intellect are used for their correct purpose...... the more valuable their writing becomes.

So the question really boils down to ... does the writer want to produce great works of value, merit and virtue for humanity to savor, or is theirs a quest only to seek fame and fortune? Does the writer want Gucci shoes and Cartier diamonds?... or does he/she want to walk barefoot and *Knock their socks off?*

Who knows ... maybe they can have it all?

Michael Levy is the author of seven books. His inspirational poetry and essays appear on many assorted web sites, as well as in journals and magazines throughout the world. He’s an expert columnist for Positive Health magazine, the leading complimentary health publication in the UK, and has been published by The Royal Collage of Psychiatry many times over the past three years.

Poetry Quotes of the Day

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”—from the movie “Dead Poets Society”

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is a painting that speaks.”—Simonides

“Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.”—Jean-Paul Sartre

“Poetry is subconscious conversation; it is as much the work of those who understand it and those who make it.”—Sonia Sanchez

“The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.”—Allen Ginsberg

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.”—Paul Dirac

“Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.”—Plato

“Poetry is not sought but received. The puritan habits of hard work are not much help. Oh, they may help you get in the chair, keep you at the task, but the real lure is the gift of the word, the line that surprises.”—Donald M. Murray

“The poet knows that he speaks adequately then only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or ‘with the flower of the mind’... not with the intellect alone but with the intellect inebriated with nectar.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Poetry is being, not doing.”—E.E. Cummings

Great to See I've Already Fired Someone Up for 2010!

Check it out!

http://cs.writermag.com/forums/73325/ShowPost.aspx

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10 Ways to Stay Happy

I cannot stake claim to these - in fact, I couldn't find out who did write these - but I adore them!

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight, and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning: Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain get idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop."

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath, laugh until your last breath.

6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life is ourself. LIVE while you are alive.

7 Surround yourself with what you love: Whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.


9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

Writing Prompts of the Day

Write about…

Your favorite relative.

What inspires you.

Your favorite hobby.

The happiest day of your life.

A great trip to the park, the beach, etc.

Your view of sports in America.

The way you think about money.

Your favorite food (through each of your senses).

A great plane or long-distance bus ride.

Your favorite U.S. President (in your lifetime).

Chris Brogan: Overnight Success

Writing Ideas and Prompts for Sparking Poems

Writing Ideas and Prompts for Sparking Poems
By Sheila Bender

With poetry, we mourn the passage of time, celebrate connections, yell out at injustice, cry from the pain of unrequited love and exclaim our joy in love and gratitude. Over the years, I have known I would start poems because of seeing the wet outline of my husband's swimming trunks through his slacks as we drove after arguing; because of attending a traditional tea ceremony with my daughter as she was coming of age and the tea ceremony hostess' mother was dying; because of awe I felt at the fragility of human life after I drove along the Columbia River with my young son. I've written a poem because a blue moon in August made me sit down and consider the feelings I had when my daughter left our family to study in Japan. Usually, I have had only the feeling of needing to write and no knowledge of what I had inside to write. But as I wrote the poems, I began to understand poem-making in the way William Stafford describes it, as "a process that brought about new things" I would not have thought of if I "didn't start to say them."

The more I wrote, the more I read poems, and I found that reading other poets and absorbing their strategies for delivering perception always helped me find ways to explore my topics. This week, I offer exercises aimed at helping you notice more of what is around you and what you remember and at helping you write from all of your senses, use associations, and verify those moments that poets really see how they learn important lessons from small moments.

This month, you might consider keeping a special "inspired by poetry" notebook handy. It can be as simple as a fresh spiral notebook. Fill the notebook with your responses to the exercises below and with responses to poems you discover (Poetry 180, PoetryFoundation.org and Poets.org are good sites to access A LOT of poetry). Do the same exercises more than once and end up with different poems and passages or with several parts to a longer piece. In addition to finding lyric and prose poems inside what you freewrite, you may also find new ways into topics you have wanted to write about for years. This notebook of passages rich with imagery and quirky organizational strategies will be something you can mine for months to come.

****

Exercise One: Writing Thanks for True Wealth

In 1914 and 15, Carl Sandburg was writing poems against the emotional backdrop of World War I, in which men were dying at a higher rate and on a larger scale than in any previous war because of the new war technology of machine guns, tanks and barbed wire. Here is one of the poems:

"Our Prayer of Thanks"

For the gladness here where the sun is shining at evening on the weeds at the river,
Our prayer of thanks.

For the laughter of children who tumble barefooted and bareheaded in the summer grass,
Our prayer of thanks.

For the sunset and the stars, the women and the white arms that hold us,
Our prayer of thanks.

God,
If you are deaf and blind, if this is all lost to you,
God, if the dead in their coffins amid the silver handles on the edge of town, or the reckless dead of war days thrown unknown in pits, if these dead are forever deaf and blind and lost,
Our prayer of thanks.

God,
The game is all your way, the secrets and the signals and the system; and so for the break of the game and the first play and the last.
Our prayer of thanks.

I think Sandburg was thinking about the gentleness of a mother's arms over the brawn of a father's arms tanned from fieldwork when he wrote, "the women and the white arms that hold us." Today, we might praise a father holding his baby and think twice about the way the alliteration brings in the word "white" and excludes people of color. Still, we can learn from Sandburg's poem that we don't have to look too far for the material that helps us evoke our sense of life and extract wealth from our experience.

If you want to capture the mood of a day, a day when you received a meaningful gift or felt loved, saw the beauty in the world or amazed yourself with an insight or good deed, you can go about finding the depth of your experience by imagining yourself led in a spiritual meditation by Sandburg. What are the sounds, conversations, sights, textures, smells and tastes you experienced on the day you are capturing? What opportunities, no matter how small, have you had to learn something new? To think from a perspective that is a little different than the one from which you normally think?

After re-reading Sandburg, I wrote:

The Secrets and the Signals and the System
from "Our Prayer of Thanks" by Carl Sandburg

The temperatures are only a little above freezing
well past the first day of spring
in our usually temperate climate.

We pray for the roots of the newly planted
blueberries to stay warm in our garden's dark earth,
though we are thankful for last night's snow
brightening mountaintops we see from our window.

We pray that higher rivers will be there for salmon
in late summer when they spawn, after our berries show
their juicy blue and we gorge on thoughts of years to come.

Take a turn writing in response to this poem by Sandburg by saying what you give thanks for. Then, select a line that particularly resonates with you and use it as your title. You can do something similar with any poem you find that you enjoy reading. Pay attention to repeated phrases or themes and write what you have to say on the topic by using specifics from one of your life situations.

Exercise Two: Wake Up Cooing

Poetry relies on sound. Sometimes we forget that and use our academic language skills in a way that squelches the magic of one sound leading to another. The excitement and emotion of our insight vanishes under the heavy-handed exposition we have much experience writing for school and at work.

Imagine yourself cooing and shrieking and delighting yourself with your voice and the sounds you can make when you aren't trying for words. Write down a string of such sounds. Next, do a free write where you start with these sounds and free associate to images and memories:

Na-Na-Na-Na, Mum, Mum, Mum
Delicious morning. Sunlight streaming through the windows,
yellow stripes on the carpet. I drive to Shilshoe Bay, watch
cormorants on pilings spread their wings, dry them in the sun,
see a great blue heron cast its shadow over blue water
then dive for a fish. In the silver glimmer of the fish's belly
I catch my own life, startled and slippery.

Give this kind of freewrite a try. By using different sounds on different mornings, you can create a variety of meditations.

Exercise Three: Scandalous Pleasures

Now is the time for spring to burst from every branch and patch of soil. What has been bare for several months now shows tender green, colorful pinks, yellows, and purples. The sight of buds and shoots fills us with a sense of the miraculous bounty in the world and creates in us an awe of life's resiliency and quality of renewal.

Here is a writing exercise to make yourself aware of these feelings or to help you create them for yourself this spring:

Decide on a euphoric emotion or one of contentment. Give it a name: bliss, joy, satisfaction, completion, scandalous pleasure, for instance. Now it will be your writing assignment to describe a specific person or a specific place using details that will evoke the emotion you have chosen. In your writing, sprinkle in the word or phrase you are using to identify your emotion. For example:

In Early March

I walk along Island Crest Way
and see clusters of daffodils,
scandalous pleasure of a parade
on the meridian. The joggers are out
in shorts after winter rains, their dogs
beside them, tongues long like stamens.
Scandalous pleasures of March:
the daffodils' height after February's
low beauty of crocus. No need
for coats, okay with thin stockings,
and puddles all shrunk to button-size.

Whatever you are describing, use details, repeat the word or phrase you selected; insert it whenever you need help continuing. You can take out too much repetition later.

Sheila Bender writes content for Lifejournal.com’s journaling software for writers, as well as provides webinars and online classes for LifeJournal.com, Writers.com and The Freelance Editors’ Association of America. She has written ten books on creative writing, including Writing and Publishing Personal Essays from Silver Thread Press in San Diego.

A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief is just out from Imago Press in Tucson. Visit http://www.writingitreal.com/ Click here for information about the book as well as information about Ms. Bender’s online magazine for those who write from personal experience.

Writing Quotes of the Day

“It is not enough merely to love literature, if one wishes to spend one's life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk. It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery. It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possibility of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear.”—Harlan Ellison

“If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.”—Kingsley Amis

“In good writing, words become one with things.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”—Robert Frost

“Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.”—Paul Theroux

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”—T. S. Eliot

“Writing, I explained, was mainly an attempt to out-argue one's past; to present events in such a light that battles lost in life were either won on paper or held to a draw.”—Jules Feifer

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”—E. M. Forster

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug.”—Mark Twain

Affirmations to Write By

I am in charge of my own writing destiny. I know that if I work hard at the craft, put in the necessary hours, that I will succeed in reaching my dreams as a writer.

Creativity flows through me so easily, so effortlessly, so endlessly, that it makes me giggle sometimes.

I cannot only see stories in my head, but I can see them being written and being published in beautiful layouts.

I never talk about writer’s block or any such negative things. All is nothing but utter silliness, unnecessary man-made distractions. Instead, I talk about loving the adventure of the process, even if the terrain occasionally gets a little scary.

I am a talented writer. I know this. I know this without bravado or ego or self-delusion. But I do know this.

Writing Prompts of the Day

Write about…

Your favorite and least favorite news broadcaster.

Your most memorable dream.

Your views on the current state of politics.

Your last argument.

Your childhood crush.

Composer John Harbison: What sparks your creativity?