Posts made in February, 2010
Writing Workshop #14 – Childhood Passions and a Fantasy Shopping Spree
Welcome to Monday’s Writing Workshop prompts!
For any newbies (and it’s never to late to join in), here’s how it works… I’m going to give you 5 writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to have fun with it!
Prompts each week will take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever everyone happened to be talking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.
So here they are:
1. What is your personal motto? Or if you haven’t got one, then it’s time to make one up!
- Inspired by my friend Rosie Scribble with her post “Keep Calm and Carry On” (P.S. Miss you Rosie x)
2. Go on a fantasy shopping spree. I’m giving you a virtual £1000 – go nuts! What will you buy?!
- Inspired by Life Slighty Used’s “On the topic of clothing…”
3. Write a letter to something that you own, that you love, or maybe that you hate.
- Inspired by Victoria from It’s a Small World Afterall’s letter to her bed.
4. Tell me about a childhood passion that somehow got left behind as you moved into your adult life.
- Inspired by Dad Who Write’s rediscovery of ‘Riding’.
5. Talk about a time where you found something magical in the mundane.
- Inspired by ME! and my ‘Falling Snow’
Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please.
Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.
Feel free to use the Workshop badge on your blog or as part of your post if you like. Code is here:
Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.
See you Thursday then!
P.S. And if you fancy plugging this workshop on the social network of your choice? Then that would be fan-frigging-tastic.
——————————————————–
This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.
Read More
Falling snow
I am not going to talk about how hard I have found today.
I am not going to talk about the fact that Kai is sick again. My poor poppet with his ribs still poking out of his once portly abdomen, who has only just got his appetite back and is now back to nibbling miserably at the odd biscuit while he fills nappy after nappy.
I am not going to talk about the fact that all this has meant I had to cancel my one afternoon off in nearly a month. That I’m not likely to get another one for another month, or that the thought of this has made me sob today with disappointment and need, and with guilt that this mattered more to me than the fact that Kai was sick.
That all I wanted was a couple of hours to sit a drink hot chocolate and work on my now-inevitably-late assignment as I watched the people pass outside the cafe window; to wander around the park and take photos of light on water, and to buy nail polish and paint my toe nails a deep, blood red.
I am not going to talk about the fact that, despite my best intentions, the only way I have survived today is by having Postman Pat and Fireman Sam on repeat.
I’m not going to talk about that.
Or not much anyway.
No.
I am going to talk about my amazing, perceptive boy.
Who can sound out a bin-lorry or a police siren from streets away, who notices a tap dripping from another room, and who, despite the thick net curtains that hang from our street-side window, noticed within seconds today that snow had begun to form in thick, soft, silent flakes upon our grey row of houses.
My boy who jabbered and pointed excitedly until my attention and my comprehension had caught up and who raced to the door, begging to see.
My boy who, in a moment of compulsion and an invisible push from I don’t know where, I swept up and outside under the cold grey sky, into the street to twirl and dance as snow fell on our hair and on our tongues, and on my cheeks wet with tears.
In that moment I did not feel guilt, or loss, or pain.
Just love.
Overwhelming, heart-stopping love that made me ache for the touch and the closeness of his little body in my arms as I brought him inside to resume his place on my lap, his head against my face.
That is what I want to talk about.
Because although this has been a shitty, shitty day, that moment right there?
Was perfect.
Read MoreWriting Workshop: Life Lines
Welcome back to the Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts.
First of all it’s my turn. I’ve chosen prompt number one: an honest description of what I look like. I hope you enjoy it.
____________________________________
Life Lines
I am made of lines. Some deep
some faint and silvery fine.
They run, criss cross, through skin
and bone, through heart and soul,
and make a picture.
Like veins they snake, up leg and thigh
over hip and not-firm torso.
Memory worn of stretch and shrink.
Of tiny feet and form, pushed drum tight
and carried, cherished, close.
Inked into breast and under arm
tell tales of swollen milk-filled days.
Shrunken now, along with waist.
Too many meals skipped
and pavements walked.
Furrows run, across brow and mind,
ploughed deep by thoughts, dug up.
They pull the corners of mouth and eye,
crinkled soft and bright, or firm and tight
and running fast with tears.
They tell a tale these lines of mine
of things both past and yet to come.
They feed the new lines, leaping free
to run in rivulets down fingers keen
and written out.
For you.
____________________________________
So now it’s your turn!
1. Write an honest description of what you look like right now.
- Inspired by Nickie at Typecast whose post made me smile.
2. Give your curtains a twitch and dish the dirt on your neighbours.
-Inspired by Kate at Two Men, A Cat and Me, who’s decided that life really isn’t that boring after all!
3. Write about ‘one of those days’. I’m sure you’ve had one lately…
- Inspired by poor Metropolitan Mum who certainly has!
4. What were you doing this time last year?
- Inspired by Maternal Tales who celebrated her 1 year Blogoversary this week – congratulations!
5. Tell me about the most romantic moment, or moments of your life so far.
- Inspired by soppy Sally at Who’s the Mummy who thinks that romance isn’t about places but about people.
Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!
If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.
This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.
Read More
