Writing Workshop Prompts – Collections

Posted by Josie on Oct 5, 2011 in Writing, Writing Prompts, Writing Workshop | 2 comments

I know, late again. My unpredictable timekeeping makes me interesting and enigmatic though, right? Definitely NOT annoying? You can blame the Fibro for Monday’s lateness (Josie swallowed by a post-MADS black hole, urgh) and THIS for yesterday’s (SO EXCITED) but look, I’m here I’m here!

So then. What are we going to be writing about this week?

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can started.)

Prompt

This week I want to hear about your collections. (no prizes for guessing where that idea came from)

Tell me about what you hoard, what you collect. Describe it to us, what is it about the things you collect that you love and that draws you to them? Tell us stories behind the things you’ve collected. Where did they come from? Do you know their history? Describe one item, or five, or ten, or whatever you want. What would you collect if you had the spare cash? 

Writing Workshop Prompts – What Today Meant

Posted by Josie on Jul 4, 2011 in Moments, Writing, Writing Prompts, Writing Workshop | 1 comment

Morning you lot. Hope you’ve all had a good weekend. I have a small, naked pirate on my lap as I type and something smells funny in my kitchen, so all normal here.

While I go and have a read of all your entries from last week, it’s time for you to start thinking about your next one – this week’s workshop is going to be based on a post I wrote yesterday about finding beauty…

(For anyone unfamiliar with my Writing Workshop, have a read all about it and browse old workshops here, or if you’re an old hand at this you can carry on straight to the prompt.)

Prompts

What made you feel alive today? What made today mean something?

Write about a moment, a thought, something you did, something that happened to you, something somebody said to you, that made you stop for a moment. It doesn’t have to big or impressive, just one thing that left you different because of it. Something that felt significant, beautiful, or that just made you feel something. It doesn’t have to have made you feel good, not all days bring us that, but it needs to have touched you.

Try and capture it and pin it down with the words you use.

Writing Workshop: One Year – On me, Cybermummy and Blogging

Posted by Josie on Jun 27, 2011 in Blogging, Charity Organisations and Awareness Raising, Me, Save the Children, Writing, Writing Workshop | 47 comments

This is the bracelet I wore to Cybermummy this weekend. In case you don’t recognise the symbol, it’s a Save the Children one, and on the back is engraved “Every Child Born To Shine”.

I lay in my hotel room the following morning, ribs aching from laughing, heart aching from unexpected feeling, and head a little numb from thinking, and rubbed the red token with my thumb in the sunshine coming through the blind. And I thought back on the last year.

Thinking about last year’s Cybermummy I suddenly realised how much I’d changed, and how much those changes have affected the way I approach and experience things. Not just things like Cybermummy, everything really, but comparing myself at the two events really hit home.

Last year’s saw me full of self-doubt, feeling like I had something to prove, feeling like I needed to convince everyone that I had something to say that was worth listening – brands as well as people. In a room full of mostly strangers I felt small. Standing up to deliver my talk about blogging and authenticity and voice as part of the main panel session, something I had anxiously worried over long before-hand, I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be there and I worried that everyone else thought it, too. This meant I tried a bit too hard, I think. It certainly meant I worried more, a bundle of self-concious nerves with a slightly forced face of confidence and a ‘I belong here’ attitude to try and convince myself.

But by the end of the weekend I wasn’t in a room full of strangers any more, and my voice had reached people that I never would have expected, prompting an email a couple of weeks later from Save the Children and the beginning of that amazing journey and all the changes that followed.

Writing Workshop Prompts: Personality Catwalk

Posted by Josie on Jun 20, 2011 in Writing, Writing Prompts, Writing Workshop | 4 comments

I spent a lovely couple of hours yesterday reading all your workshop posts from last week. Thank you so much for joining in and sharing what were such a mix of personal, honest, brave and creative entries. We had personal stories, poems, we had descriptive writing, fiction, we even had an audio reading - it really did make me fall in love with the workshop again and remind me why I do it. I mean it when I say that it was an absolute privilege to get to share your head-space for a while, and while I may not have time to comment on all entries every time, I will do my very best because I do think it’s important you all feel like your writing has been well-read when you put so much of yourselves into it. So thank you – I hope you’ll find this week equally inspiring.

Long-time readers of this blog will know that one of the things that it chronicles most vividly is my journey in trying to figure out who I am, understand better about how I tick, and. harder still, try to like the person I find. More recent readers will know that at this stage of my life I’m probably closest to that as I have ever been, with me finally beginning to feel a sense of real identity and a confidence in it.

Rather weirdly, but perhaps not coincidently, my interest in fashion has echoed this. For a long time I felt too unattractive, too uncomfortable in my skin, too nothing to give much thought to clothes or how I look, but these days the clothes I wear are really starting to be another way in which I express myself and tell the world about who I am. Now… I’m broke, so this means more charity shop scouring and mix-and-matching supermarket sales bargains than anything else, but as my sense of self is growing, so is my sense of style (at least, I’d like to think so!)

Maybe I’m a little late in the game to this one, but I’m beginning to love how a certain pair of shoes, or a hat, or a bag, or an anything can say something about me. And I’m enjoying discovering what I like, and what I don’t like and what suits me and what makes me feel good.

Which leads us on to our Workshop prompts this week…