The following prompt is by Chuck, a member of Writers in the Grove, and a part of our Prompt-a-Day project to support NaNoWriMo during November 2015. Each prompt was generously donated by our Writers in the Grove members. You are welcome to take this prompt in any direction you wish.
What happened when the cat came home?
The following prompt is by Marilyn Schmidlin of Writers in the Grove and a part of our Prompt-a-Day project to support NaNoWriMo during November 2015. Each prompt was generously donated by our Writers in the Grove members. You are welcome to take this prompt in any direction you wish.
Uncomfortable shoes.
The prompt this week was to write about a dream. As per all our prompts, the writing time is typically limited to 15 minutes.
The following prompt is from Shannon of Writers in the Grove and is a part of our Prompt-a-Day project to support NaNoWriMo during November 2015. Each prompt was generously donated by our Writers in the Grove members. You are welcome to take this prompt in any direction you wish.
The answer is blue.
Write the question.
The following is by Lorelle VanFossen, member of Writers in the Grove, inspired by Prompt: Scary Palindrome.
Goodbye, sleep.
Sound in the night.
Knock, knock.
It’s the rain.
Knock, knock.
Is it the wind
Knocking something over?
Is that the cat?
Knock, knock.
Is someone there?
Knock, knock.
Whose there?
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock.
Whose there?
Knock, knock.
Is someone there?
Knock, knock.
Is that the cat
Knocking something over?
Is it the wind?
Knock, knock.
It’s the rain.
Knock, knock.
Sound in the night.
Goodbye, sleep.
In honor of Halloween, our prompt this week was another palindrome, a word, phrase, number of other sequence that reads the same way backward or forward. The twist? Write the lines out, make them tell a scary or spooky story, then reverse them for the second stanza.
For instance, write 10 lines, numbered one through ten, then write the next stanza with the same lines, ten to one.
What? Right even more during NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days? Are you crazy?
Actually, many people blog their NaNoWriMo experience on their blogs. Some even publish their daily writing on their site for their fans and community.
So many people are worried about sharing their novel idea or plot, it becomes almost a paranoia. Relax. There is much you can share without giving the whole thing away.
The fun of sharing your NaNoWriMo experience every day on your blog means you are part of a community. You are sharing your experience, the struggles, challenges, joys, discoveries, and lessons and techniques learned that might help others.
Here are some tips to help you cope if you choose to blog your NaNoWriMo experience.
No matter what, share the journey.
We love learning how you got there, the good, the bad, the ugly. By sharing your journey with others, they will hopefully learn from your mistakes, but also feel inspired by how you overcame the challenges of writing 1,677 words a day for 30 days.
Just as you would jot down a description of your day in a journal, take 10 minutes at the end of the day or after you’ve completed your NaNoWriMo writing for the day, and consider the journey.
Was the writing easy today? Why? Was it a challenge, the intimidation of the blank screen getting to you? What happened? What made a difference?
Did someone say something or give you words of encouragement that impacted your attitude about your writing and your story?
Define the obstacles. What got in your way today? Was it family? Friends? Work? Illness? Or the story itself? The clearer you are in defining them, the faster you can prevent such interference going forward…sometimes. At the very least, by sharing, others may commiserate with you.
Find a new trick, tip, or technique? Share it and explain how it helps.
Let your readers and community know how you are doing so they are taking each step of the journey with you.
“I hate my stucks,” a writer complained to me. “The stucks suck.”
We all get stuck when writing. Sometimes it is as simple as knowing the word but not finding it in your brain, or coming up with a great plot twist but it may require you learning about something you know little or nothing about.
Or there are those times when the characters aren’t talking to each other nor you, and you have stuck them into a situation you know not how to escape.
Share your stucks. Let your readers know if you get stuck and ask them how to get out of it. You don’t have to take their advice, but sometimes crowd sourcing the stucks breaks the damn, freeing your characters and your writing.
A writer who does NaNoWriMo every year tells me that she the one year she didn’t blog her NaNoWriMo experience was the worst year for her writing. “I couldn’t get started, nor finish what I started. I needed a daily kick in the ass.”
When you blog your NaNoWriMo experience, other participants often find you and they will cheer you on when they detect you dragging, as you may for them. That’s why the meetups and social events in and around NaNoWriMo are so good for many people.
By being surrounded by determined folks who have been there, done that, wrote the writing, they know what it is like and they will lovingly kick you in the writing ass and keep you on track when you need it.
Or you can ask for it.
In “How to Shake Off Writer’s Fatigue” on the NaNoWriMo site, they recommend:
For the first few days, showing up to write every day is easy. The shiny factor hasn’t worn off yet, and the excitement over your story is almost palpable.
Then there are the other days, where the drive to write isn’t there. Adding words to your story feels like getting out of a warm, blanket-filled bed into a cold world: you don’t always want to do it, but it’s step one toward the journey ahead. Maybe you’ve written your characters into a corner with no ideas on getting them out. Or maybe you’re bored of your story but still have thousands of words to write before reaching the magical 50K…
We all go through it. There are the NaNoWriMo forums where you can find other participants to support and cheer you on, and you can blog about it and instantly feel better.
At least you wrote something in your blog. Does that count toward your daily word count? It might. 😀
Do some worldbuilding on your blog. Open the door to the world you’ve created in your novel and invite others in.
Let them ask you questions? Let them test out the furniture. See what happens when you throw open the gates to your imaginative world and watch people wander in.
They might help you build stronger walls, floors, ceilings, and gardens.
We love to hear the good side of an experience, but most people like whining and complaining. Remember to include both in your NaNoWriMo posts not just to maintain balance with your readers but also within your self.
In “13 Ugly Truths About Nanowrimo,” Daniel Swensen explains why November is the worst month to do this in, but also offers up the reality of NaNoWriMo.
Nanowrimo can be a real blast, a useful experience, and a great utility for pumping out a first draft. But it’s very easy to take it too seriously and let the images of the purple bar, the winning trophy, and the approving faces of your friends coalesce into a harrowing vision of guilt and shame. When this happens, just sit back and remember, it’s just Nanowrimo. Winning is great, but it literally only means as much as you let it. Bailing out doesn’t make you a failure, or a bad writer, or a lazy no-good mutant. Sometimes, goals are just beyond our grasp for the moment.
But if you can, take the knowledge that you can walk away from Nano, consequence-free, and use it to rekindle your love of the game. You’re not here because you have to be. You’re here because you want to be. Because you love the exhilarating, exhausting, fun-as-hell rocket ride of Nanowrimo.
This isn’t a job. This is a choice. It is a learning experience. Learn it well, and the lessons will last a lifetime.
Just make the memories good ones.
There are many people blogging their NaNoWriMo experience. Here are some bloggers to monitor during November to help you see what they are doing and learn from their experiences.
Don’t have a blog? Go to WordPress.com to get a free blog and get sharing your NaNoWriMo experiences.
A few people have been asking me about NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days, and they want to know how it works, and how they can get involved even though they might not have a specific story to write about. We put together everything you need to know to participate in NaNoWriMo in “It’s NaNoWriMo Time: How To, Tips, Techniques, and Survival Advice,” and you will find other NaNoWriMo topics we’ve covered scattered throughout the site.
To address the question of how to participate in NaNoWriMo when you don’t have a specific story to write is a different and more complex question. Ask yourself:
Here are some things you need to know about NaNoWriMo as you answer those questions:
The reality is that you just have to write. There are prompts to stir the imagination and inspire you to write on that subject or something else in our Prompt-a-Day starting November 1.
To help some of our writers, I’d like to take a different approach to storytelling and novel writing, and that is to have you answer a question a day about a character that may be tickling your imagination.
A writer of many novels told me years ago that sometimes her novels write themselves and sometimes she writes them, but always, her characters tell her where to take the story.
I’ve thought about that often, writing with such commitment that you, the author, steps out of the way and you let the characters tell the story.
If that sounds like fun, we’ve put together a series of questions to help you answer a question once a day with words, letting your character or characters take you on a journey.
In the wise words of our Writers in the Grove leader, M.J. Nordgren, always look for conflict – in every sentence, every paragraph, and every page. That is what makes for an exciting read – and write. These prompts are designed to help you explore the conflicts within the character, between the character and other players in the story, conflicts between the character and their environment and situation, and conflicts between the character you started with and who the character becomes as they are tested throughout your story.
There doesn’t have to be any chronology to these. That’s what editing is for. But exploring these concepts, answering these questions, may just inspire a bestseller.
As with all such prompts, let them take you where they take you. There are no rules, except those set by NaNoWriMo to write every day a minimum of 1,677 words.
Print this out and assign a question a day and see where your writing takes you.
For examples of more character questions to ask your character and see where they take you, see the following.
Where will your character take you?
The following was written by Writers in the Grove member, Lorelle VanFossen, inspired from the Prompt: Palindrome Meets Pantoum.
Giggles and grins
Droplets tinkle and fall
Sun flashes gold
Hands windmill
Droplets tinkle and fall
Splashing diamonds
Hands windmill
Dancing in water
Sun flashes gold
Dancing in water
Giggles and grins
This week’s prompt is a palindrome, a word, phrase, number of other sequence that reads the same way backward or forward. Our prompt challenge limited us to 6 short lines, written forward then reversed, in the style of a pantoum, to complicate things.
Here are the specific instructions:
As an example, and to push this even further, we took a line from several member’s attempt at this prompt and put it together into a single poem using the same line structure:
It is a misty moisty morning
In the merciful shade of a big elm,
Freezing cold, freezing snow,
the trees lost their zest.Life is fits and starts of growth.
No mud flaps on my coffin.In the merciful shade of a big elm
Life is fits and starts of growth.
The trees lost their zest.
No mud flaps on my coffin.Life is fits and starts of growth,
Freezing cold, freezing snow.
No mud flaps on my coffin.
It is a misty moisty morning.
Writers in the Grove 