Category: Uncategorized

The Evanston Writers Workshop holds Prompt Group sessions every second and fourth Wednesday at the Barnes and Noble in Evanston. While you could certainly join us, I figured I’d feature a mini-session for today’s Thursday 13: thirteen writing prompts to prime the pump and get you moving. If you decide to try one or two (or all!), please link to the result in the comments so I can come visit and see!

1. You are a middle-aged woman, dressed in black, walking in New York’s Central Park at six o’clock in the evening on a Sunday. Who are you, and what are you doing?

2. Go to your bathroom and find something scented: soap, bubble bath, cologne or perfume. Take it back to your desk or wherever you write. Close your eyes and inhale the scent. Then write.

3. Try a picture prompt. You can go to Google Images and look up random things, or use this one as a starter:

4. Try using prompt cards: take 6 settings, 6 plot ideas, and 6 characters, shuffle each set and pick one of each. Then write about the combination.

5. Setting: desert. Plot: betrayal. Character: Charlotte, 33, hairdresser.

6. Go to Pandora dot com and enter the name of a band you don’t often listen to, but that a character might. Listen to the resulting station and write a story with your character.

7. Open a book at random, and pick the first sentence on the left page. Write that sentence on your paper or type it into your word processor and write for 500 words.

8. “Martin never thought he’d see the day when…” and keep going.

9. Take a short story or flash that you’ve written and rewrite it, from the perspective of another character or with a different type of ‘feel.’ Example: if it’s a romance, write it as a spy story; if it has a happy ending, change it to a murder.

10. Rewrite a story from the Bible. Old Testament ones are interesting: try the story of Ruth or maybe the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.

11. Rewrite a modern story that you like (this one is tricky, because it can be plagiarism if you mimic word for word, but I’m speaking more of using something as a model and creating your own story from it). Example: Star Wars is about a young man, coming of age, on a hero’s journey. For your story, set that same saga somewhere else, like a young police officer in modern-day New York…

12. Tell a story from the point of view of your pet. Make it serious, not a parody. Make the setting without humans.

13. Write a story without a sense: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, something. Don’t use that sense at all in description. Bonus points if you eliminate one that you use all the time: if your characters are usually very visual, then eliminate that and describe everything by sound and touch.

~Happy TT!~

With all the doom and gloom repeatedly in the news through all media channels, it’s easy to forget that it’s good to just be alive. It’s even better when we can muster some excitement to be here. In honor of this sentiment, I would like to share thirteen things I’m excited about this summer. Enjoy!

1. I’m learning to weave! I’m attending the Chicago Weaving School and wrote about it last week – with pictures. More pictures will go up after tonight’s class, where I learn to put the weft on and actually weave some fabric. Yahoo!

2. I put in a garden! We have lots of new plants to play with, even some flowers. I also, it appears, have a very industrious squirrel who is soon to be a dog toy.

3. My dog is getting better at behaving when on a walk. We might even get to have some guests over!

4. I have a house guest coming next month for almost a whole week! I can’t wait! Rachel’s visiting the first week of July and we’re going to paint the town red and even visit Madison, the setting for our first serial novel, New World Order.

5. I’ve started back up with Skep, Old Tools For the Present. It’s a blog that I write with my friend and circle partner, Dorothy.

6. I’ve also re-started Eclectica, which used to be a print newsletter. It’s now on the web in blog form, and actually has been since 2008. But I recently re-started it and am blogging about chocolate, gardening, and some other cool things.

7. My writing group is going very well. We are planning our next events, including an Artist’s Way workshop that starts this Sunday and a retreat in August.

8. I was invited back to Michigan to distill oregano again. We’ll be making hydrosol and essential oil. There are possible opportunities to go back and make lavender and lemon verbena, and I couldn’t be more excited.

9. Tunisian knitting class starts a week from Sunday. It’s only two Sundays, but I figure it will be a neat way to learn another way to knot yarn. Knit yarn. I meant knit.

10. Going to Starved Rock in August for our retreat with EWW. We’re working out details, but it should be really fun.

11. Going to Las Vegas in September for our annual writing retreat with a small group of writing friends. I’m excited, since we have a couple new people joining us. We’ll even check out Zion National Park. Can’t wait!

12. Submitted a novel to a publisher a couple weeks ago, so I’ll hear, one way or the other, this summer. Either way, it’s exciting to take the next step in being a New York Times bestselling author.

13. I’m re-doing a camera bag design I’m doing, and have a better design. I don’t know that I’m happy with a curl in this one, so I may make a third, but the design process is rewarding.

I’m so excited, I can’t stand myself! Must go clean something… (bonus points if you can tell me where that comment comes from… hint… it’s an animated movie…)

~Happy TT!~

In honor of joining a new gym, the Evanston Athletic Club, here are thirteen thoughts about the body and being in it.

1. Stress is a fact of life. It is dangerous, because it causes the body to secrete chemicals that are harmful to it, but that are helpful in the fight/flight response. This is necessary for survival; however, too much of it can create harm long term.

2. One of the ways to combat stress is to make an effort to get into the body. If you are great at this, you probably don’t need to read the rest of my post. But if you, like me, sorta suck at it, then read on.

3. Yoga is one of the ways I’ve found that helps me get into my body. I don’t have to “do” anything actively, which is counter-intuitive for an intense person like me, but as I follow the instructions of the teacher (in a group class), I find that I can unhook my mind’s chatter and just do the poses.

4. Being in the body isn’t spectacular, or earth-shaking. It’s quiet. At the end of yoga class, for example, I don’t leap up filled with an epiphany or anything (or, at least, haven’t YET), but I feel calmer and more centered.

5. There is a difference between Grounding and Centering. Grounding is merging your energy with that of the earth and the world around us, and is an act of connection. Centering is pulling our attention and energy back into the physical center, what the Chinese call the Dantian.

6. We have a lot we can learn from the Chinese and Indian philosophies of the body.

7. Massage is another great tool for stress management and physical health. In particular, related to stress, the muscles and connective tissue form something called adhesions in the fascia. If you imagine the fascia as a strip of stretchy fabric or canvas, it wraps around the muscles. It should move smoothly across the muscles and not get stuck. In the process of exercising or being stressed, collagen deposits act like glue between this fascia and the muscle fibers and literally adhere them together. This is what accounts for the crunchy feeling when you run your knuckles along the big muscle of your thigh. Breaking them up can be a tad unpleasant, but will help you feel a LOT better and looser.

8. Trigger points suck. But if you find a good massage therapist that knows trigger point therapy, keep them!! (The therapist, not the trigger point.)

9. Swimming is good food. I find that floating on my back, using my legs to kick gently and my arms to guide myself along the lanes, helps my neck to relax. It takes a while, like sometimes thirty or forty minutes, but it really helps with stress and pain associated with computer work.

10. Chinese Baoding balls help prevent, or manage, carpal tunnel syndrome and other tendonitis associated with typing too much and knitting too much. They’re tricky to explain, but I did find a You Tube that might help. (As I watched it, I thought, I could do a You Tube – the Noonychannel!)

11. I actually HAVE a Noony channel. Not much is on it, just a video about Chuck the Sheep (no, it’s not salacious in any way and yes, it really is about a sheep), and a poor attempt at my first movie… with a twist… (Yes, video quality is awful, but a) it was my phone, and b) I don’t know anything about video production.)

12. The Noony channel has nothing to do with managing stress. Or being in the body.

13. I begin to see my problem. Attention span much?

~Happy TT!~

It\’s my birthday Saturday, and so I bought myself some new sewing patterns since Vogue Patterns is having a sale today and tomorrow. In the process of playing with the images, inspiring myself, I thought of my post for today.

1. Sewing, like any craft, has its share of work. Stuff one doesn’t necessarily like doing, or things that are necessary for the final product. These are part of the process.

2. You know how they say ‘enjoy the ride,’ like you’re supposed to enjoy the process of doing something and not really focus on the product?

Yeah, that’s really hard.

3. I sew slow.

4. #3 is okay, because #2 is true.

5. #1 is also true.

6. Even so, I love to look at patterns and imagine what I can do to design things. I like to design.

7. I’ve been a designer my whole life. It started in calligraphy, and branched out into needlepoint, music, writing, and knitting.

8. It’s not really a surprise that I’d like to sew; it’s tactile, it’s like sculpting with fabric, AND I get to wear what I design.

9. I’m scared of #8.

10. #1 is still true. And because of that, I’m reminded of another truth: the verb is “to sew,” not “to have no fear.”

11. Sometimes, I’d like to run over whoever came up with the idea of Zen. And flow. And process over product. And all that crap.

With a hummer.

12. It’s my birthday Saturday, and I’m excited about the patterns I just purchased.

13. COME TO MY WRITING CONFERENCE! (This is not a non-sequitur!)