travel

PROMPT FOR THE WEEK: THE POEM “ON TRAVELING TO BEAUTIFUL PLACES” BY MARY OLIVER

We are experimenting with giving a prompt for the week so members can have more time to work on it and then bring their writing to the group meeting the following Monday.

The prompt for this week is a poem by Mary Oliver from her book of poems titled, A Thousand Mornings.

On Traveling To Beautiful Places

Every day I’m still looking for God
and I’m still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
in the islands that lay in the distance
continents of ice, countries of sand
each with its own set of creatures
and God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it’s late, for all of us,
and in truth the only ship there is
is the ship we are all on
burning the world as we go.

by Mary Oliver

Take any inspiration you find in the poem and write in whatever direction you wish to take it.

Prompt-a-Month: The Journey

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

The Journey

The deadline for submissions is 1/1/2018. Submissions will be published during the next 30 days.

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.

2017 November 10 Prompt

During the 2017 NaNoWriMo event in November, Writers in the Grove members offer these prompts to provide inspiration and incentive to keep you going during the self-competition to write 50,000 words in 30 days. You may find NaNoWriMo prompts from previous years and prompts from our weekly workshops.

Today’s NaNoWriMo prompt is:

I had walked this path a hundred times but today I stumbled. As I looked down I saw…

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, or wish to, Writers in the Grove offers an extensive range of NaNoWriMo tips and techniques to help you through the month long writing project.

2017 November 5 Prompt

During the 2017 NaNoWriMo event in November, Writers in the Grove members offer these prompts to provide inspiration and incentive to keep you going during the self-competition to write 50,000 words in 30 days. You may find NaNoWriMo prompts from previous years and prompts from our weekly workshops.

Today’s NaNoWriMo prompt is:

It took him 21 days to walk home.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, or wish to, Writers in the Grove offers an extensive range of NaNoWriMo tips and techniques to help you through the month long writing project.

Prompt: Corrections – Ones that Worked or Did Not

This weeks prompt was introduced via a story related by one of our members who had been traveling overseas. As she was about to embark on the long return flight home to the US, she sent a short text her family using her smartphone. We’ve likely all experienced doing battle with the auto-correct function while texting on our phones, as it attempts to interpret what it thinks we are trying to say.

In this case she texted her family that the “flight was delayed.” A short while later on the plane she noticed that the auto-correct function had changed her intended text from “flight was delayed” to “wife was cremated.” At this point she no longer had internet access and so was not able to send a correction to her likely bewildered family!

Write about intended or unintended corrections in your life either made or received by you.

Prompt: Where the Road Takes You

This week’s workshop was led by Writers in the Grove member, Paula Parks, and she brought us the following prompt.

Collection of photographs and images of roads, trails, and pathways.

Examine or imagine a collection of photographs of roads, all types of roads, with bridges, train tracks, dirt roads, tree-lined paths, paved back roads, wide well-traveled interstates, all sorts of travel byways and highways. Write on wherever the road takes you.

Tell Me a Story

The following is by Writers in the Grove member, Bev Walker, based upon the prompt, The Roles We Play.

“Why can’t a woman be more,
More like a man?” he said.
“Because then you wouldn’t be here,” says I.

Would I trade having kids,
Watching them grow,
Laugh, learn,
For the hard labor of a
Construction site?
Or sitting in an office all day?
No.

Would I trade the warm scent
Filling my kitchen
As I take loaves of fresh bread
Out of the oven,
For the oil and grease
Of a mechanic, a factory,
Or the dry sterile atmosphere
Of a skyscraper downtown?
No.

Would I like to be an astronaut,
Like Peggy Whitson,
Out there, exploring the stars?
Yes!

But the time is not,
Nor ever was,
For me to fly to the moon,
Discovery electricity,
Romance in Paris,
Dance across the Great Wall,
Or pet a tiger.
But I can.

I can do whatever anyone
Throughout time has ever done,
Feel what they’ve felt,
See what they’ve seen.

So, show me, storyteller.
Where have you been?
What have you done?
What have you seen?
Tell me a story
So I can go, too.

8 May 2017

Broadening Travel? Well, Depends.

The following is by Writers in the Grove member, Bev Walker.

I’d be much skinnier if I lived in Germany.
Cabbage, sauerkraut and beer are not my thing.
I know why Brits are such avid tea drinkers,
There isn’t a decent cup of coffee in the whole island.
I’m addicted to cheese.
I’d have to find a substitute if I lived in Scandinavia,
(Not that there is such a thing)
Their’s smells like sewage.
But how all those French stay so slim is beyond me.
Chocolate, creams, and pastries!
I gain ten pounds just looking in a bakery window.
Open the door, get a whiff, another ten.
Dare to go inside?
You’re a goner.