Inspiration Monday II

Thanks and kudos to Debra at Find An Outlet for participating in last week’s Inspiration Monday. Read her (two!) fantastic pieces here. If I missed any participants, let me know in the comments!

 

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 prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

No really; I need rules!

If you work better with guidelines: 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

I ignored the raised eyebrow of the checkout girl

Time capsule from the future

The answer, one day too late

Saved by a broken law

Everyday villain

If you 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.

Happy writing!

Inspiration Monday

Per Debra’s suggestion, I’ve decided to post some weekly writing prompts, here forward known as, “Inspiration Monday.” Of course, because I won’t get around to getting the post up until 8 or 9 pm CST Monday, most of you won’t see it until Tuesday. But I digress.

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 prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

No really; I need rules!

If you work better with guidelines: 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

Leftover humans*

Our last kiss

When it looked at me, I screamed

I knew I shouldn’t have published that article

The invention of music

 

If you 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.

Happy writing!

* Today’s first prompt is brought to you by The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

The four days that made me a writer

When I was in grade school, I went to writing camp with my two best friends. This consisted of the three of us staying at the house of a creative writing teacher for four days.

The first thing I remember doing was sitting down at her little card table, one of us on each side, pencils poised over notebooks as we gazed off into space. Miss Judy was spouting random phrases, spaced out to give us time to think in between, and occasionally one of us would bend over the table, scribbling something on the notebook paper. I can’t remember any of the specific phrases she gave us, but they were something like: a strange visitor…the first day of school…the last time we met…my best friend…and so on. Writing prompts. Sources of inspiration.

Since then, I’ve looked at writing prompts on a few writing websites and been disappointed. Most set up a situation and then ask you how it ends. Others give you a list of words to use, or a picture to write a story about. This seems to me more exercise than inspiration. The simple phrases Miss Judy gave us sparked our imaginations and empowered us to write whole stories.

Second, Miss Judy separated us. We each had our own corner of the house, where we wouldn’t be distracted by one another. She would set the timer for 45 minutes and we would sit there and write whatever story had been inspired by her prompts. My writing spot was a long, straight hallway, with very few doors and no decoration. Stark white. It had a cold, clinical, futuristic feel. I can’t stress enough just how much I enjoyed sitting in this hallway. Something about its emptiness excited me, the same way a blank page excites me. I think this was the first time I felt the intense joy of creating.

When the 45 minutes were up, we gathered together and read aloud what we had written – and here was the kicker: we had to read it exactly as we had written it. No fixing grammar mid-read. This encouraged us to edit more meticulously before we came to the group session; it helped us to look more objectively at our own writing, because we knew we’d soon have to face the criticism of our fellow writers (which was always kind…but still!). Then, of course, we gave each other suggestions and encouragement.

Best. Four days. Ever. It was eat, sleep, write, critique. Miss Judy taught me a lot about writing, and she fueled my passion for something I had, until that point, only been mildly interested in. Although my two best friends now only write casually, occasionally, I have grown into a writing fiend. I’m addicted. If I go more than a week without working on some form of fiction, I start to get depressed. And I couldn’t be happier about that.

What’s your origin story? How did you become a writer?

Writing: the Sixth Sense

 

I see fictional people. And they don't know they're fictional.

 

After reading my novel (old draft, now discarded) for the first time, my brother’s fiancée asked me where I got the idea.

I had no idea what to say.

Of course there were various influences, from Out of the Silent Planet to Stargate, but I can’t rightly say where I got any idea. I can’t say I made it up, either. It’s inspiration. God breathes it at us.

Writing fiction is like discovering a story that is really going on somewhere, but you can’t see or hear it. Writers are simply born with a sort of sixth sense by which they feel the story. Sometimes we are well-attuned to that sense; sometimes the sense lies to us. We know some details of the story automatically, without even thinking about it, while other details we have to feel for in the dark. That’s why there are so many badly-written books. Those authors haven’t fine-tuned their sixth sense.

We don’t control it; we discover it. That’s why our characters rebel and sometimes refuse to do things we want them to. We can turn them into puppets and force them to our will, but that always makes a soulless, wooden story. There are certain restrictions to playing God. If we interfere with free will, we suck the life out of the story. But if we stick to manipulating only certain parts of the story – the weather, or the timing of events – we can move the story forward naturally. We arrange events around our characters’ personal tendencies, like drawing a chalk line around an ant, to urge them in certain directions. 

Finally, they arrive at the end – having walked there on their own two feet – where they will discover, Author-willing, their carefully-planned happily ever after.