Prompts

Prompt-a-Month: First Thoughts

Writers in the Grove Prompt-a-Month badge.The July prompt-a-month for our Writers in the Grove members is:

What is the first thought when the alarm goes off in the morning?

Writers in the Grove members may hand in their submissions during the workshops or use our members only submission form. Check out the guidelines and instructions for submissions in the announcement.

ANOTHER SIDE

The following was inspired by the prompt, Both Sides, and is by Writers in the Grove member, ralph cuellar.

Regardless of how intently i stare ahead
it’s always hindsight that has the better view
“Why is that”, i ask
and then upon reflection realize
… “why yes, of course”

Nature does not wait to be regarded
The future never arrives before its time
My thoughts fill my pockets and
occasionally spill out and get left behind
It’s not uncommon to come upon them again
only to discover they have another side

PROMPT: PANTOUM

Today the group explored the poetic form known as Pantoum.

Although it originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century as a short folk poem, the modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.

The exercise is to create a pantoum of 3 stanzas:

  • Write six fairly short lines on the same subject (numbered 1-6).
  • To make the first stanza, copy the first 4 lines from your list of 6.
    • line 1
    • line 2
    • line 3
    • line 4
  • The second stanza has the following formula:
    • line 2
    • line 5
    • line 4
    • line 6
  • The third stanza has the following formula:
    • line 5
    • line 3
    • line 6
    • line 1

 

The suggested subject for the exercise was Father’s Day, but you can choose any subject you like.

Have fun and see what you get!

PROMPT: 3 QUOTES TO USE AS PROMPTS

The first two quotes are from the novel “The Tears of Autumn” by Charles McCarry. Notice the unusual descriptions utilized in each one.

  • They were alone on the sidewalk, and when they reached Connecticut Avenue the broad street was empty of cars, though the automatic traffic signals went on working; the lights changed to red along its whole steep length, like cards falling out of a shuffler’s hand.

 

  • Charcoal fires burned down the length of a long street, like a herd of red eyes in the black night. Nsango dropped on all fours in front of a tin hovel and crawled inside. It was constructed of flattened gasoline cans and other bits of scavenged metal, and it stood in a row of houses that looked like mouths with the teeth knocked out.

 

  • The third quote was shared by one of our group members.

I have to keep on writing to remember who I am.

PROMPT (1): I CAN HANDLE THIS. PROMPT (2): A POOL OF MILK UNDER THE CIRCLE OF THE MOON.

There were two prompts suggested today:

  • Write on the attitude expressed in the statements “I can handle this” and “I don’t need to ask directions”. Is there an experience where you or someone else took this position but it turned out otherwise?

 

  • The following is a quote from the novel titled “Dead Man’s Fancy” by Keith McCafferty:

Another half-mile and the lake was before him, a pool of milk under the circle of the moon.

Prompt-a-Month: Favorite Toy

Writers in the Grove Prompt-a-Month badge.The June prompt-a-month for our Writers in the Grove members is:

Describe a favorite toy from your childhood.

Writers in the Grove members may hand in their submissions during the workshops or use our members only submission form. Check out the guidelines and instructions for submissions in the announcement.