April 30, 2009 at 11:10 pm (Announcements, Weekly prompt, Writing Challenges)
Tags: Fiction, flash, four words, headline, Poetry, prose, strange occurrences, theme
Now that the April poetry blitz is over (and what a month it was), we’re going to be dedicating the month of May to creative prose, specifically short fiction. We’re expanding the umbrella of short fiction to include flash fiction, prose-poems, excerpts, and the classic short story. If you’re primarily a poet, this might give you an opportunity to stretch those writing muscles a bit. If you’d prefer to stick to poetry, that’s okay too; you can still feel free to play with the prompts each week, and post links to your latest creative endeavour. Without further ado, here are this week’s writing prompts:
Theme: Strange Occurrences
Words:
stray
warbled
rotating
flick
Bonus prompt – Headline:
Fighting crows halt trains
As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.
1 Comment
April 23, 2009 at 11:21 pm (Poetry, Weekly prompt, Writing Challenges, national poetry month)
Tags: challenge, four words, NaPoWriMo, need, poems, rain, theme, twinned
Theme: What we need
Words:
rising
rain
sugar
deep
Bonus Challenge: Twinned Poems
For twinned poems, the challenge is to write two poems that can stand alone, but are also somehow thematically linked. You can do the two poems side-by-side, so that they could potentially be read as one poem (like this one here), or they can be linked in some other way. You could even make the connection be that the poems are polar opposites of each other.
NaPoWriMo participants can feel free to post links to their poems here, whether they relate to the prompts or not. Prose and other forms of creative writing are also welcome, regardless of the source of inspiration.
As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.
7 Comments
April 14, 2009 at 9:54 pm (Being a Writer, Famous Writers, Writing Quotes, Writing is...)
Tags: e.b. white, fuentes, kafka, latet, quotes, renard, Writing is...
Writing is a product of silence.
~ Carrie Latet
Writing is a struggle against silence.
~ Carlos Fuentes
Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
~ Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895
Writing is both mask and unveiling.
~ E.B. White
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
~ Franz Kafka
2 Comments
April 9, 2009 at 7:06 pm (Poetry, Weekly prompt, national poetry month)
Tags: NaNoWriMo, national poetry month, theme, three words, writing prompt
Posting the prompts early this week; got an early start tomorrow so I’m hoping to hit the sack before midnight for a change.
Theme: The air we breathe
Words:
overcome
chimera
canopy
NaPoWriMo partcipants: feel free to post links to your daily poems in any of our April posts, whether they follow the prompts or not.
As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.
7 Comments
April 8, 2009 at 12:22 am (Poetry, Writing Challenges, national poetry month)
Tags: challenges, impossible, NaPoWriMo, national poetry month, Poetry, words
…And other ridiculous challenges for bored writers.
I’ve been collecting random words from friends as part of an ongoing poetry challenge (for NaPoWriMo over at ReadWritePoem). The goal was to get at least 50, and I’m up to 144 so far.
Naturally (what with my friends being the kind of over-educated, overly-imaginative geeks that they are), some of the words I’ve been sent are pretty hard to imagine appearing in a line of verse. So I’ve started up a challenge on one of the writing boards, to take three impossible words and weave them into a short poem, or bit of flash fiction (a minimum of two lines or the equivalent of one sentence, and not longer than 5-6 lines, or a few sentences tops for a story). Anyone who manages to wrangle the words into something creative gets to pick the words for the next person.
Here was the first (rather horrific) attempt, based on three of the words my friends sent me:
Aristotelian, flugelhorn, soporific
With inevitable Aristotelian logic
that each of the four worldly elements
will eagerly seek each other’s company
the flugelhorns, tubas, French horns and trombones
have gathered together to form a soporific symphony
the audience snores in harmony – oh, if only they were in tune!
(The Vogons would be proud, they would.)
If you’re feeling a strong urge to procrastinate, and you want to spread the evil virus around, here are some more impossible words that my (so-called) friends sent me, to get you rolling:
artichoke, fez, zygomatic, replicator, cholesterol, fatuous, regulator, sorghum, undercarriage
(..and those are but a few..)
4 Comments
April 5, 2009 at 1:10 pm (Poetry, national poetry month)
Tags: national poetry month, poem a day, Poetry, random words
Find a new poem in your inbox every day for the month of April. A great way to celebrate National Poetry Month. If you haven’t already signed up, you can do so here:
http://www.poets.org/poemADay.php
On a random note, ReadWritePoem had a great idea to collect 50 random words from other people to help jump start your creativity. I decided to poll my friends for however many random words they could think of on the spot (via email). At this rate, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up with more than 50 – and it’s already inspired one poem for today!
1 Comment
April 1, 2009 at 1:58 pm (Announcements, Poetry, Writing Challenges, national poetry month)
Tags: NaPoWriMo, national poetry month, National Poetry Writing Month, poem a day, poems, poets
What better time of year than spring, to kick off a month-long celebration of poetry around the world? You can find out more about National Poetry Month over at poets.org. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can also join the other National Poetry WRITING Month (NaPoWriMo) participants who have committed to writing a poem a day for 30 days. More info (including daily prompts for inspiriation) can be found over at Read Write Poem.
We’ll be starting up the regular weekly writing prompts again this Thursday, in case you need that little extra nudge of inspiriation.
If you’re part of NaPoWriMo this year, feel free to post links to your daily poems in the comments section of any of our April posts. I’ll be participating in NaPoWriMo over on the Mimosa Effect. Happy poeming, all!
1 Comment
