Stephanie is an award-winning copywriter, aspiring novelist, and barely passable ukulele player. Here, she offers writing prompts, tips, and moderate-to-deep philosophical discussions. You can also find her on and Pinterest.

Inspiration Monday: Sell Time

After continued computer trouble I determined it was a hardware problem, not a virus, and I bought a new computer (3-5 years is the limit on these things anyway). Is anyone else on Windows 8 yet? It’s awfully different from 7.

Meh. Wouldn’t you rather read about more interesting troubles? Yes, I thought so:

Evan

DJMatticus

PrincessDeloso

Eleenie

Elmo

LLDFiction

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

SELL TIME

MOMENT IN THE SUN

SOUNDS OF THE STARS

HOW TO BE AN EARTHLING

OFF THE RECORD

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

Inspiration Monday: Future Relic

Despite it being a long day, I’m feeling rather good lately. Rather alive. These university podcasts are quite bracing, and I’ve just started reading Niven’s Ringworld as well as Nathan Bransford’s new book on writing. What are y’all reading?

I hope it’s this:

DJMatticus

PrincessDeloso

ARNeal

Evan

Chris

Kim

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

FUTURE RELIC

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

LAST WISH

UNATTENDED CHILDREN

MIDWIFE

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

Inspiration Monday: Battle of Wits

Ahhh, it’s good to be back. I am one of those creatures who loves routine. But look how many InMonsters were able to write pieces with the extra time!

Happy New Year, happy reading, happy writing!

LLDFiction

PrincessDeloso

ARNeal

TheImaginator

Elmo

DJMatticus

Evan

TKHuynh

Kim

Chris

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

BATTLE OF WITS

ALIEN MYTH

SLEEPWALKING

BROKEN TIMELINE

ANSWERS IN SONG

 

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post; I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

New Year, New Digs, New Schedule

Image by Hector Alejandro.

Image by Hector Alejandro.

And…we’re back!

Maybe you noticed I haven’t been posting as much lately. Even before the holidays, I’d slacked off in creating truly useful content. I used Voice Week and computer crashes as excuses, but even without those interruptions, I doubt I would have been able to come up with anything substantial. Honestly, I’ve had to step back from blogging for a very different reason.

I’m running out of things to say.

While this past year, thanks to some awesome suggestions by you guys, I’ve posted some of my best stuff, I haven’t been doing as much learning as I should have. I read fewer books and watched more pointless TV. I wrote less, on the blog and in the old WIP, and I spent more time watching forgettable YouTube videos and browsing the Geek section of Pinterest.

I have allowed the Information Super Highway to become The Great Distraction. And I’m sorry about that. Not just for myself, but for you guys.

Your time is valuable. It’s an honor to be given some of that time every week, and I don’t want to waste any more of it by posting half-conceived notions just because it’s Friday and I always post on Friday.

So here are my resolutions for 2014

  1. Refuel the Mind. That means reading more blogs and more books, both fiction and non. It also means actually listening to all those free university lectures I got so excited about in August.
  1. Finish Another Draft of the Old WIP. I call it the Old Work In Progress because I’ve been working on it for more than ten years, but it hasn’t started really taking decent shape until this year, thanks to all the stuff I’ve learned running this blog. Now it’s time for the blog to start learning from the WIP again. Which means making more time for said WIP.
  1. Post Better Stuff, Less Often. I won’t be writing an article every Friday this year—but there will be at least one new post a month (not including Inspiration Monday, which will continue weekly as usual). And, drawing from things I’ve learned per Resolutions 1 and 2, that post will either be truly useful, or wildly entertaining. Or both. At least I hope so.

This new blog layout (schnazzy, huh?) will allow me to feature some of the more useful posts from the archives, so as you stop by for the week’s InMon prompts, you might run across an article you haven’t seen before, even if I haven’t written anything new that week.

How can you help?

The real question is, how can I help? You guys have always been amazing sports, telling me you’ll enjoy whatever I write. I’m so grateful for that. But I really want to know—what are you struggling with as a writer? What keeps you up at night? Maybe we can figure out a solution together.

Want more of me?

Okay, if you really, actually enjoy reading whatever tickles me or pops into my head, you can follow me on Google+ and/or Pinterest. I post storytelling stuff, nerdy jokes, book recommendations and more.

And that’s all she wrote!

 

Christmastime is Here: Blog Down for Maintenance

Sleigh bells in the air…music everywhere…

Okay, folks. Just a reminder that Inspiration Monday is postponed until next week, as the blog may be going down any time between tomorrow and Sunday while I experiment with dangerous new layout concoctions and celebrate Christmas with the fam.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas – do take a moment to just appreciate the everything. Gaze at some stars while listening to O Holy Night. Or something. It’s good for the soul.

Talk to you all again soon!