A Fresh Approach to Journaling Starts Feb 6th. Space is limited. Register by Jan 30th. REGISTER / LEARN MORE A new year is upon us. Perhaps you resolved to start a journal and now you’re regretting it or wondering how to get started; or if you did get started, how to keep going. If the … Continue reading Journal Writing Workshop – Online
free write
Writing Magic in Minutes
Our most creative and original writing is often spontaneous and intuitive. Responding to writing prompts within a limited time frame can help you to write without over-thinking. This is why I offer fifteen minute writing prompts in workshops and classes.
what shoes mean
Write the story that begins: "We arrive barefoot, and leave shoeless..." photo: ebszabo
crepuscular
adj: resembling twilight. or: birds, insects, or animals active at twilight. This is a word that doesn't sound like what it means. Crepuscular sounds faintly menacing or like a medical condition. Forget the definition, in a 10 minute free-write respond to what this word evokes, and discover the foundation for a speculative fiction story.
truth to fiction
Translating life into fiction can be a way to externalize our inner apocalypse... photo: Jon Sullivan ...and reading our fiction can lead us to an understanding of what we have locked away. Write about a Thanksgiving that became a turning point in your life, locate it in an exaggerated world of your creation, and animate it with people who enact … Continue reading truth to fiction
Underwood no. 3
William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac all used Underwood typewriters. Writing Prompt: Take a paragraph you've written and translate it into the style of a writer you admire. This helps to identify and experience how fluent writers harness the power of words. The point here is not to write 'like' someone else, but to … Continue reading Underwood no. 3
before selfies
Before there were selfies, photographers revealed themselves with subtle clues that perhaps even they were unaware of. Examine this photograph, and from the details - tangible and intangible - evoke the photographer. Who is this person on the other side of the lens? What is their relationship with the people in the photograph? How did they come to be the … Continue reading before selfies
foreshadowing flim flam
Rule for writing and life: A flim flam man (or woman) cannot work in a vacuum. It takes at least two participants for flim flam to be successful. So, when a character (or you)is bamboozled, there will be plenty of red flags in the field. They will look something like this: photo: Justine Belson In writing, … Continue reading foreshadowing flim flam
deceit
What have you agreed to believe, though you knew it could not be true? Recall the moment when you knew you had gotten on the wrong train. How long after that did you stay on the train because you paid good money for the ticket? Jon Sullivan Create a character (loosely based on you), and offer them … Continue reading deceit
what are they talking about?
Read their faces, write the dialogue. Can you capture the moment in their words? Jerry L Hout U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Szabo Creative Consulting 