Rise and Write: Prompts 50-56. Week 8

Happy October, writers! 

Welcome to the 3rd month of daily writing sketches! I am glad we made it so far! I wanted to drop it more than once, but thanks to you I see that it actually really helps - not only helps finding the time to write (I now am absolutely convinced that I can write anywhere, any time, on any given subject - which is, frankly, a huge part of being a writer, a huge part of craft). But I find that it also helps with the growth as a writer - it's like when you are a runner, there comes the time when you feel like you can't run any more, and then you catch second breath (or second wind?) - you find more new energy within yourself, and running becomes easy. I still have lots of things to learn about writing (English grammar and vocabulary would be a couple of such things), but I learned that I can catch my inspiration whenever I want to - I learned that I can write on demand. And this is HUGE.

Here are the new 7 prompts for your inspiration, and please do share what you've been learning during these past two months of intense almost-daily writing.

Prompts 50-56. Week 8

50

Write about fingers (or toes). Do they belong to your character? Are they lean and long “artistic” fingers, or short and chubby? All of them in place? What are they good at?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

51

Write about a queen. Is she a real figure in history or a fantasy character from your favorite fairy tale? Is there some thing about her you find admirable or enviable? Is there something that you dislike about her or her status?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

52

Write about a door – wooden, glass, heavy, tall, Dutch door, garage door or a magic door (Open, Sesame)…

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

53

Write about a village, real rural countryside. Do you idealize it as many writers and poets have done? Or, as Agatha Christie, see its dark side?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

54

Write about changing seasons, that very particular time in the year cycle when it is not Autumn yet, but already passed Summer…

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

55

Write about a suitcase. Is it a brand new thing from a department store, a charming vintage or a ragged old thing that saw the world? Describe its smell, shape, feel…

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

56

Write about feeling sorry for something you have done or something you have not done. Remember that you can always use your character!

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

#46 Chores; #47 Bird; #48 Wrinkles

46

Write about housework chores, such as vacuum cleaning or mowing the grass. Who did it in your childhood home? When you were introduced to this work first? Is it something you enjoyed doing or tried to avoid at any coast?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

You know what I want? I want to learn to love chores. I mean, truly, to stop resenting them and not just that, but finding poetry in doing them! It’s very hard for me. I am out of shape, that’s the reason number one – it is just physically very challenging to do housework for me. My head is full of creative ideas, and I’d rather be working on them than cleaning the floors, that’s another reason. And there are more, but the point to me is not in counting reasons why you hate doing something, but in finding a way to stop resenting and even finding a way to do them that will bring me joy. I know some people focus on the result – they look forward to the result (clean house), and it somehow makes it OK for them to actually do all the chores. I understand, but it does not do the trick for me. Other people just tell themselves that once it’s done, it will be over, and they will be able to enjoy whatever it is they actually want to do. Not a bad way, but again, somehow it's not helping me. Once I read a post by a woman whose approach to cleaning the house was the most inspiring of all – the most creative and I even want to use the word “artistic”! She lit candles, played relaxing music while cleaning her home – she took it as a meditative, creative, and truly cleansing process! It's hard to impress me when it comes to cleaning, but there I was really impressed. Cleaning your home, the sacred place where you enjoy being, enjoy sharing life with the people you love, enjoy creating whatever you love to create, can be actually such a beautiful process, similarly to cleaning your tired mind or exhausted soul, or aching body. It can be as beautiful as having a spa day. Banya for the house!

10 min

47

Write about a bird - the one you have (or had as a kid), or a magical bird from a fairy tale that you love, or a bird that visits your yard and teases your cat.

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

Excerpt from my fairy tale

Anya walked in the snowy wintry woods, feeling all cozy in her cute little coat and valenki*, wearing mittens and a long scarf which Chickenleg House made for her, when suddenly she heard someone coughing. She looked around and couldn’t find anyone, but then she heard it again… cough... cough, cough…

“It’s me, Anya, Snegir **, can’t you see me? Look up!”

“Oh hello dear Snegir, and I was wondering to myself, who is coughing? Did you catch cold, poor fellow?”

“There is that, a little.”

 Anya took the woolen scarf from her neck and handed it to the bird.

“Here, wrap it around your neck, that’s what mama taught me to do when catching cold. It will warm up your sore throat. You will feel better in no time!”

“Thank you, Anya, you are such a kind little girl,” said Snegir and wrapped the scarf around his neck.

“But wait a minute, take this bunch of frozen berries with you, they will prove being useful some day.”

With these words, Snegir handed a bunch of bright red berries to Anya.

“What should I do with them?”

“Just keep them in your pocket. Don’t worry, they won’t go bad. They are not just some frozen berries, but rather magic little things. They will keep till Summer and help you one day. You will know when you need them.”

And Anya did just what the kind Snegir told her. She put the bunch of bright red berries in her pocket and saved them until she needed their magic power.

* valenki - traditional Russian woolen (felt) boots.

** Snegir (from the word "sneg" which means snow) is a Russian name of Eurasian bullfinch, a pretty small bird with bright red tummy which is very visible in the snow.

10 min

48

Write about wrinkles - yours or on someone's face, or maybe your character's. What stories wrinkles can tell?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

A kind wrinkly face looked at her, and she sensed the open, wise spirit from its features, and even some sort of loveliness which is usually hard to describe, but one can feel it with their heart, or maybe with something bigger than a heart. It was as a choir of angels was singing from every little wrinkle passing through this lovely face which only a sleeping one could describe with this quick meaningless word – “old”. The silver voices sounded so harmonious – as if someone’s healing hands held her whole being, softly touching the very core of what was her soul.

5 min

September Make-up Link-up

#32 Number; #34 Reptiles; #42 Leaf

I looked up all the prompts we've done in August and September, and found out that I missed 8. I posted one earlier today, and in the evening I had a sort of writing marathon and wrote 6 more prompts while waiting for my daughter who was having a dance class. I post three here, and another three in the following post. So I am down to only one missed prompt, wahoo! It feels great to catch up like that! 

P.S. Later tonight, I will post 7 new prompts for the first week in October, so tomorrow we will be ready to start a new month!

32

Write about a number that is significant in your life. Maybe it’s your lucky number, or the opposite. Maybe you feel connected to a certain number and see definite patterns in your life (or your character’s life).

OPTIONAL: Work on your own fiction, without the connection to the topic. Share what you are working on.

I remember as a kid, my cousins and I used to pick favorites. Favorite color, favorite letter of the alphabet, favorite number – you name it, we categorized everything! Since this little piece of writing is supposed to be about numbers, I will only tell you that my favorite number since my childhood was 9. Why? I don’t know really, maybe because there is 9 in my birthday date. I think a bit later, when I learned about numerology as a young person, I learned that 6 is significant for me – it’s the sum of all other numbers of my name. And I have to say I always liked 6, probably because 6 as a written symbol is an upside down 9. One way or another, these two numbers are my favorite numbers, or my lucky numbers if you will, and the fact that one of the great songs by sexy Bryan Adams is called Summer of 69, does not hurt either.

5 min

34

Write about reptiles. Most people have very strong feelings towards them – either love or hate them. Which are you? (Or your character?)

OPTIONAL: Work on your own fiction, without the connection to the topic. Share what you are working on.

Not being a hater of snakes, I have to say it is still a little difficult for me to understand people who love snakes or frogs to the point they have them as pets in their homes. It is not difficult to understand that they admire the exotic beauty and mystique of snakes, and no, it is not difficult to understand at all when people adore cute little frogs or lizards. But to have a pet that I can’t really pet seems a little should I say "restricting" to me. I would definitely have more appreciation for reptiles as pets if they were fluffy and fuzzy as kittens are! We just took our kittens to a surgery, and their poor little tummies were shaved, which makes them so vulnerable, a little snake-like really. I can’t wait when they grow all their fur back, and we don’t need to be extra careful about petting their thick, soft fur again.

5 min

42

Write about a leaf turning color. Is it still up on the tree or did you find it under your feet? What’s its journey?

OPTIONAL: Work on your fiction and share.

The most gorgeous leaf turning color I’ve seen was a huge maple leaf fallen from a giant maple by our beach house. Those leaves were truly amazing, reminding me of paintings made by artists. Their size was also quite remarkable. They were bigger than our then 6 years old daughter's head who liked to gather a bouquet of the giant artistic maple leaves to bring to school to share with other kids and teachers. The leaves bigger than a little girl’s head in all hues of yellow, orange and red all at once, as if they were the palette of an impressionist, are one of the brightest memories I have about our living in the tiny hut on the beach.

5 min

September Make-up Link-up

#33 Happy Day

33

Write about a happy day from your childhood. Where are you? With whom? What’s going on? What made this day so memorable?

OPTIONAL: Work on your own fiction, without the connection to the topic. Share what you are working on.

It is not easy to choose a particular happy day from my childhood - there were so many of them! But maybe the correct thing to say would be that I remember rather many moments of my childhood, and not whole days. I remember lots of laughter and light. I don't know why but when I think of my childhood, despite some challenging times, I do remember mostly how absolutely happy it was and how it was filled with light. Mama, Papa, Andrei and I taking walks - long walks in the fields and sometimes woods near our small town, because that's what doctor prescribed for mama's health condition.  Mushroom hunting with papa - he is such a mushroom hunter, and I went to many all-day hunts with him. Mom likes to add that she would fill papa's backpack with food, so I wouldn't get hungry - when he hunts alone, he never takes food with him. Papa taught us, Andrei and I, to never tear off a mushroom with its roots, only very precisely cut the stem, or the leg of a mushroom, with a small pocket knife (he would give each of us a knife and make walking sticks from the branches he'd found in the woods) - so we never destroyed whole families of mushrooms growing under the earth, as the individual mushrooms are connected with each other... I remember how I absolutely adored my brother and wanted to play with him endlessly. He was and still is such an inventor with wild imagination and a great and very kind sense of humor. When I faced the "real world", the world outside of my family, I was struck by how many people see humor in cruel or insensitive jokes or comments. Even later yet, I realized that the family I grew up in is one of a kind, I still did not see any family like mine, except for the one Justin and I created together. It's not to say that they don't exist, but that they are extremely, extremely rare... Sometimes I think that I must write only because of this unique vision of life that I got growing up in my family.

9 min

September Make-up Link-up (I will try to link up more today, even if they'll be short and diary-like... I have 7 prompts that I've missed in August/September.)

September Make-up Link-up!

Hello fellow writers,

Before we begin daily writing in October, I offer you a place to link up any missed prompts, re-writes, or simply the pieces of writing that you have been working on your own and would like to share. (Please note that we do not practice critiquing each other's writing, unless you specifically ask for it.) Feel free to write for 5 minutes or longer on any given topic and link-up whatever you have in store!

To review the prompts we did in September, from 29 to 49, go to these posts:

Week 7

Week 6

Week 5

To review the writing prompts that we did in August, from 1 to 28, go to these posts:

Week 4

Week 3

Week 2

Week 1

PS Want more writing challenges? Make sure you don't miss my other creative writing link-up which I host once a month on In The Writer's Closet (click HERE to participate).

Me-Time

Hello writers,

I'm taking a break from Rise & Write.

I love this brainchild of mine,

and I love your wonderful company,

But I feel like I need time for walking alone now -

Time to wander,

Time to explore freely,

Time to write without given challenges

(Even if they are self-given),

Time to simply be.

Much love & See you soon!

changing

it's only a moment

it doesn't last long

someone smiles at me

someone says a kind word

and
my whole world
is changing

i feel that my wings

are ready to spread

to soar

it's only a moment

it doesn't last long

someone ignores me

does not say a word

and
my whole world
is changing

i don't feel my wings

just empty and lonely

just sore

and they
say
hey
grow up
will ya?