New Project...

Okay, I'm working on a new project right now--I already mentioned it to Lisa on the phone briefly--about a sweet widow who runs a non-profit long-term doggie daycare for troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. I was doing research this morning and ran across this video. I bawled like a baby! Had to share...

How to Write an Effective Writing Prompt

Okay, so I couldn't think of anything I really felt like blogging about today, so I did what I normally do when the river runs dry: I went out wandering around on the web, looking for inspiration. I spent more time traveling than I perhaps should have--I'm sure I could have found a more productive use for my time--especially since, in the end, I decided I really didn't want to blog about the 4-year-old who shot his babysitter for accidentally stepping on his toe or the cross-dressing Harvard-educated dermatologist who hung himself after shooting his wife. Really--what do you say?

So...being both an English teacher and aspiring writer, I was excited when an idea occurred to me: use a writing prompt! I googled "writing prompts," "writing creative prompts," and "writing romance prompts," and several sites came up. I started scrolling through each of them, looking for something to jumpstart my creativity, when I realized that most people really have no idea what a "writing prompt" is--and isn't. So this blog will be dedicated to educating the GP on "How to write an effective writing prompt." :-)

Basically, a writing prompt should start in the beginning or middle of the action, and it should end before the action is concluded. It should inspire the writer to complete the thought and/or story with his or her own ideas.
Not effective: "Describe someone you know."
Why? While it inspires you to write something, it doesn't really spark any creativity. Instead, you could use: "She's the most amazing woman I know, and I'm better for having known her. Her gift to the world is..."
Not effective: "You find a person you are attracted to has a dark secret."
Why? This is a summary of a plot point. This is not a writing prompt.
Effective: "Tessa gazed at Gary, her teeth nibbling worriedly at her lower lip. It was only a matter of time before he discovered that..."
Why? This is a writing prompt. The writer is prompted to finish the sentence and the story: before Gary discovered what? That Tessa was a vampire? A single mom? A convicted felon? A cross-dressing Harvard dermatologist who had just shot his wife? (naa-nobody would believe the last one...)
Not effective: "Girl meets guy and they fall in love, only to learn that he is still seeing his former love interest because she’s strung out on drugs and threatening suicide. Guy doesn’t want to be the cause of that happening."
Why? Again, it's a plot summary--not a prompt (and a really convoluted one, at that).
Better: "Jennifer shot out of chair the instant Mike left the room, snatching his phone from the bedside table. Quickly, she thumbed through his text messages, skimming each one until she found..."

The point, of course, is that a writing prompt, well, prompts. I should want to finish the thought. It should stimulate my creative juices, send me off and running in a direction that I hadn't even considered.

So...to ensure that each of you has mastered the objective of this mini-lesson (to identify and create an effective writing prompt)--and just for fun!--share a prompt or two with the rest of us! We can always come back here when our muse has abandoned us... :-)

Letting Go...

Saturday was a difficult day for me. Matt and Cindy are both enrolled in college classes this fall, and I knew that their first Philosophy paper was due Saturday night--along with a big test over the first unit--and I was worried because when I spoke to them on Friday, they still hadn't finished either. I avoided giving them a lecture on the consequences of procrastination, instead encouraging them to call me for help--regardless of what time it was or how close to the deadline they finished.

So Saturday rolled around, and I tried not to think about it. I puttered through my day, took the dog for a walk. Watched a movie with my husband. Tried not to watch the clock. I finally broke down and called around 3pm (my time), and Matt assured me that they had everything under control, that they would call if they needed me.

They never called.

I went to bed Saturday night, my mind racing in big loops that had me staring at the dark ceiling until close to 2am. Matt finally called the next day: they had both finished their papers and tests and turned them in on time, and had both earned perfectly respectable grades (I suppose it's easy to grade assignments really quickly when you don't write a SINGLE comment, but simply post a score...but that's a whole other rant.) I read Matt's paper, and was really impressed with the quality of his ideas about choosing "The Middle Path" and with his structure, style, and tone; it was just a bit short of the minimum length requirement, which is what prevented him from earning an "A."

And Matt was thrilled. Proud. He'd done it all on his own, and he'd succeeded. When he asked for his dad so he could tell him all about it was when the realization hit me...

It was better for him if he could do it for himself and get a decent grade than it would have been to have my help and received a perfect grade. This was perhaps my greatest downfall as a parent--that I had trouble letting go, letting them succeed or fail on their own. After all, I reasoned, with my help, I could ensure their success. What I didn't realize was that in their minds, it then became my success, and actually undermined their confidence in their own ability to succeed on their own.

What's frustrating is that I'm coming to this conclusion now, when they're 19 and (almost) 22. You know that old cliche about hindsight being 20/20? So true. Four years after he grew up and left home, and four months after the birth of his first child, I'm finally learning the importance of letting go...

Time

Time is such an intangible thing.

It comes, it goes, we lose track of it. It weighs on our hands and on our minds, it crawls by, and it flashes by at the speed of light.

I’m turning forty in a few months, and suddenly, time has become a tangible, frightening, and precious commodity. I don’t have nearly enough of it, even when it’s crawling by. I feel guilty for those times when I wish it would go more quickly, but sitting in a crowded doctor's office with a roomful of sick people, I find it hard to cherish the moment. Especially when my “To-Do” list has carried over onto the third page in my planner, and everything on it has a deadline of yesterday.

When did my life get so busy? But then again, when was it not?

A reader is born

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air raids..."

I learned to read words when I was three, but it was in my first-grade classroom that I encountered literature for the first time. Each day after lunch, we laid our heads on our desks, my teacher turned off the lights, and for thirty minutes, she read to us.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was my introduction to the world of fantasy, the world of literature, the world of imagination. I remember the first day she read to us quite vividly--the scents, the sounds, the images that surrounded me--even after all this time. I remember how the classroom was arranged, where my desk sat, and the posters on the wall. I remember her voice, soft and melodious, rising and falling in a rhythm unique to that particular story. I remember how the language and style fascinated me, was like nothing I'd ever heard or read before...

Most of all, though, I remember my wonder and awe.

That day, in that classroom, a first-grade teacher found the right book for the right child at the right time, and a reader was born.

Thank you, Mrs. Jones. And thank you, Mr. Lewis. You have both enriched my life immeasurably.

When Looking Backwards Helps us Move Forward

"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us."--the Dalai Lama

Things I learned this month:

(1) We often speak to avoid listening, using language as a defense mechanism--to build a wall that helps us to maintain a safe emotional distance from others and ourselves.

(2) The need for constant distractions is a sign that we are avoiding being alone with ourselves.

(3) Feeling passionate about the world around us is natural and good, in spite of our academic inclination to value reason over emotion, and in fact, many of us who find our home in academia do so because it's one place where we can avoid emotion and still be considered "normal."