I used to write writing prompts and writing exercises daily and weekly for my site, Word Grrls. These are my posts from that site. I will add fresh writing inspiration now and then.
There are 1,760 posts filed in Writing Exercises (this is page 1 of 176).
Interactive writers are the men and women who come up with the stories and write the dialog and even the text messages seen in a range of interactive media from games to apps. Often working in a team, they may find brainstorming and mind-mapping skills just as important as old-fashioned writing skills. Rather than a novel, what they produce is closer to a film or TV script.
via How Writers Can Work with Games Developers | Publishing Perspectives.
“Definitions are boundaries, and boundaries are anathema to Webloggers. Moreover, the best Weblogs are always shifting and evolving, always on their way to being something else.” – Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune
via blogs by women.
9. Orphan pages. Memorize this: Every page in your site needs a readily seen link back to the home page. Why? Sometimes users will forward a URL to friends, who may visit and may want more information. But if the page they get is a dead end, forget it. Always put a link to “Home” on every page, and make your site logo (usually found near the top left side of the screen) link back to your home page–that will quickly solve this problem.
via The 10 Most Deadly Mistakes in Website Design | Entrepreneur.com.
Create a story, with some element of horror. An even that would give you nightmares, if it happened to you.
Don’t start with a family photograph. I think that would be a bit creepy, for you and your family. Find an old photograph, black and white works well for the dramatic effect. Also, anyone in the photograph is likely no longer living, if it really is an old photo.
Build a life for a person, or people, which could be real, but might not be. If you want to work on it, look into history for the local area. Find real stories which you can link to the people in the photograph.
Make a mix of non-fiction, possibility, and your worst nightmares.
Writer/Director James Marsh’s first feature, WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP, is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the final decade of the 19th century. The film is inspired by Michael Lesy’s book of the same name which was first published in 1973. Lesy discovered a striking archive of black and white photographs in the town of Black River Falls dating from the 1890’s and married a selection of these images to extracts from the town’s newspaper from the same decade. The effect was surprising and disturbing. The town of Black River Falls seems gripped by some peculiar malaise and the weekly news is dominated by bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the town are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists.
Source: Wisconsin Death Trip – About
See also: Dakota Death Trip – Site by Derek Dahlsad. (Archived, but still online).
Could you go this far and make a site about your own town? It would be tricky, the mix of real stories, real people in photographs and the addition of speculation.
Can you thank your body?
I’d thank my body but I don’t know if it can communicate enough to understand it. I guess having the gratitude is enough, or will have to be.
The idea of writing a letter to your own body is off putting. Speaking in thoughts or out loud doesn’t seem as odd.
Not that I don’t appreciate it being there, I just don’t know if it can understand anything I think (say or write) without my brain. Do you include your brain as part of your body. Probably, its part of the hardware. But, the software part, isn’t that not quite included.
Autonomy – does your mind have independence from your brain? Thinking of the mind as the software, not something tangible and physical like the brain. Without your brain your mind couldn’t really do much. Is there some kind of line between the mind and brain, where they connect but are individual too?
Anthropomorphism – is your body an inanimate object which you have feelings for due to your close association? Does that make it real, or do you make it real by existing inside of it and using your brain to make it move?
Pareidolia – Not the same as feeling connected to inanimate objects, this is seeing faces in them. Different and yet a lot of fun. I thought it was worth mentioning.
Thoughts inspired from Pieces of K Blog, writing prompts:
Write a love letter to your body thanking it for carrying you and keeping you alive.
Do you know what a white elephant is?
A white elephant is something you’d like to get rid of, its not useful and usually too expensive to use or keep. People sometimes have white elephant gift exchanges, like re-gifting, presents they have been given and would like to get rid of, graciously. The idea is to try finding someone who will love, or at least like, the extravagant, and not useful to most people, gift.
What would you bring to a white elephant gift exchange? Coffee table books, they look nice, they tend to be big with a lot of photos but almost no one actually reads them. Trendy gifts often become white elephants when the fashion turns out to be a fad. There are a lot of small kitchen appliances created for very specific things which are otherwise useful and just taking up space. Or, things which could have been useful if they weren’t too exotic, or embarrassing to use. Things which are personalized, too exclusive to be re-gifted and not likely to be accepted for resale at most stores.
My white elephant, from years ago, came with good intentions and thoughtfulness. It was an espresso machine from people who knew I enjoyed coffee but didn’t know I had no idea how to get an espresso machine to work. All my attempts ended in kitchen clean ups, not too many steam burns luckily. I never got the hang of it. But, I appreciated the thought.
Not the entire list but a few I picked from: 34 Best White Elephant Gift Ideas – FudgeMyLife.
I found a 53 word short story contest. I like limited word story writing. You need to consider each word, work with the order of your words and still have it all make sense and be a good story. Short stories are very under appreciated.
This is the story I wrote. It’s based on an idea I had very early this morning. A longer version would give details and explain everything. But, I think this short version gets the idea across.
I hadn’t planned to spend my night waiting with the Witch and spoiled Asian cuisine in the abandoned restaurant.
“Bad business plan, cursing their annoying customers.” The Witch toys with her magic glass jar.
A tiny Oriental doll in the jar, screams, unheard. Creepy. Will my bitchy little sister even say thank you?
Three Word Wednesday was another writing challenge I had linked to in my bookmarks. Sad to see yet another site closed. Here is the last post, and a description about the project, taken as a screenshot from the site today.
