Inspired by a song | Sleep is for the Weak

Writing Workshop: Rocket Man

Posted by Josie on Dec 2, 2010 in Kai, Writing, Writing Workshop | 12 comments

He crouches low, with hands poised, counting down numbers in his head that he doesn’t yet know. Pursed lips start the rumble, louder louder. Until, it’s time. And pointed fingers lead the way to blast off, up and up, with feet following to shoot their way around the room to land on Planet Sofa or Meteorite Mum for brief refuelling, until it’s time to fly again.

He’s a Rocket Man,

no, a pirate…

…climbing his was to the top of his crow’s nest chair to stand with eyes curled round an invisible telescope, reporting back to the captain that there’s a DRAGON on the horizon, the captain who stands looking on with arms crossed and a rue smile at her ignored orders to sit and eat your dinner please. But there’s no time for that when monsters lurk,

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

no, a train…

…chuffing his way along lines in the pavements with locomotive arms circling round and round, picking up speed round corners and stopping for the red man signal with a high whistle, before green green means go go and we’re off again, head down, with his driver frantically steering him out the path of approaching freight-train mobility scooters and pushchairs. But he can’t stop, he has places to be,

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

no, a ROBOT…

… stiff arms and legs marching with squeaks and peeps and whistles loud. Until, of course, his power runs out and he slowly folds himself down, arms hanging limp, in need of an engineer to replace batteries and wind the crank on his back but who will make him wait, despite whispered robot mum mum mum until she’s finished this row and put her knitting needles down with a smile, wondering what she will find next in her living room – racing car, monster, postman, shop keeper, lion, helicopter…

cause he’s a Rocket Man,

stars in his eyes and the whole world in his sights.

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Now it’s your turn. What song or lyric did you use to inspire your writing this week?

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) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got till Sunday to enter your link! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

Writing Prompts: Let’s Get Lyrical! (groan… sorry)

Posted by Josie on Nov 29, 2010 in Writing, Writing Prompts | 4 comments

Happy Monday and hello from me. Apologies for radio silence, I’m not dead, I promise, but recovering from what was a really nasty bug and an awful week to go with it so not feeling too great. I’m struggling a bit to be honest. Losing confidence, losing faith in myself… just lost really. Anyway. I’ll be alright but things may be a bit quiet from me for a while. Just can’t seem to regain my equilibrium at the moment.

It’s a bit of a do-it-yourself Writing Workshop this week with the theme suggested by Emma. We’ve done books and films in the last few weeks, so this week our writing is going to be inspired by songs.

I’m not going to suggest any but keep your ear open in the next day or two for a song that catches your ear and base your writing either on the song’s title or use a lyric from the song to inspire you.

If you’re REALLY stuck for ideas you could always check the list of the latest top 40 singles and see if any of the titles suggest something you could write about.

For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each week I’ll give you a bunch of 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 write 10 words or 1,000. 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 enjoy writing your post and get something out of the process.

Prompts each week take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever I happened to be thinking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt for a future workshop then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.

And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.

Now here’s what you have to do. Pick your prompt and 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.

See you on Thursday!

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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 in the U.S.

Writing Prompts #4 – A bit of Eavesdropping and a Postal Surprise

Posted by Josie on Nov 1, 2009 in Writing, Writing Prompts | 3 comments

It’s Monday morning, which means it’s time for Sleep is for the Weak’s Writing Workshop prompts!

So for all your 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. Write about an over-heard conversation. We could even make this one a bit of a research project. Get eaves-dropping people!
– Inspired by Rosie Scribble’s brilliant post Overheard

2. Tell us about the worst Christmas present(s) you were ever bought, and what you’d prefer this year.
- Inspired by Zooarchaeologist’s Things I specifically don’t want for Christmas

3. Write a piece of fiction based on a song you love.
- A most excellent suggestion made by the lovely Kelly at A Place of my Own

4. Tell us about something surprising that arrived in the post.
- Inspired by Dulwich Divorcee’s Surprises in the Post and this week’s disruptive postal strikes.

5. Share with us a story of loss, if this is something that you feel comfortable doing. And you can interpret this any way you like.
- Inspired by me, after my sad goodbye this week.

Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and Wednesday. On Wednesday 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 Wednesday’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 Wednesday then!

P.S. And if you fancy plugging this workshop on the social network of your choice? Then that would be fan-frickin-tastic.

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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.