Archive for April, 2009
Writing Challenge Roundup: April
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript will be offering a Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of April and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: PostSecret
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a simple photograph, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
“Shhh…I have a secret.”
What is so compelling about secrets and why the longing to share them? What sparks that curiosity in us, that need to know? Is it the desire to discover something previously unspoken? Is it the unknown, the allure of something forbidden, that heightens intrigue before the words are said? Or perhaps it’s merely an attempt at communicating and relating to another human being through shared confession.
Writers seem to have an insatiable curiosity — a desire to know and understand the world and those in it — that tends to transfer to the page. We want our readers to connect with and relate to our characters and their situations, and yet we still need to maintain that intrigue, to hook them, draw them in, and keep them reading until the very last word. We want our readers to discover our characters and this world we’ve created throughout the story, uncovering pieces bit by bit so that the readers become more involved and characters’ motives become better understood. Whether it be through hopes and dreams or unveiling a bit of their life experience, readers develop a relationship with our characters because of the ability to relate to them. And if there’s one thing we can all relate to, it’s secrets.
Because everyone has a secret.
And every secret tells a story.
PostSecret is billed as a “community mail art project” wherein individuals submit their secrets (or confessions, thoughts, or dreams) on a homemade postcard. A selection is then chosen for display on their website each week. Thousands of postcards have been submitted, with the anonymity of the project most likely playing a factor in the appeal.
However, what is personally most intriguing are the thousands of individuals behind these postcards. If every person has a secret and every secret tells a story, then there are thousands of stories just waiting to be told.
What story will you tell?
Challenge: Use one or more of the images below, selected from previous PostSecret posts, as a prompt for a new short story or poem.
Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?
A friend from Georgia called me recently. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned that he was one of my closest friends.
“Words are meaningless,” he responded.
“Words matter,” I tried to argue.
“Only if there are actions behind the words,” he said. “I call you every day to tell you that I love you, but I’m also showing you that I mean it.”
Touché.
This conversation happened to bring up a curious concept that I’ve been pondering ever since: just how much do words really matter? Or are they meaningless without the action behind them to back them up?
As a writer, I tend to place a lot of emphasis on words, always believing that they conveyed more because you’re making a conscious decision to verbalize how you think, feel.
But are these words enough?
There’s the saying that “actions speak louder than words.” In writing, the rule of thumb tends to lean towards “show, don’t tell.” Verbs depict the action, adjectives describe the setting, but in the end, are these still just words on a page, used to tell a story, a small piece of expression?
Is the meaning still there, still as strong? Or are words merely hollow thoughts without the actions behind them, used to emphasize the meaning and make it more real?
Do actions really speak louder than words?
9 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Fortune Cookies
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
This Wednesday Writing Challenge seems a bit different from the rest. Fortune cookies? What in the world do those have to do with inspiration? Everything. Because inspiration is in everything, everywhere, if we open ourselves up to creative possibility and allow it to take us places. Sparks can be found in conversation, in a piece of music, and, yes, even in a tiny slip of paper, extracted from a cookie.
I tested this challenge out last week with my writing group; each person broke open their cookie and read the words silently before settling in to write for our first half-hour writing exercise. It was amazing to see how something could emerge out of nothing; just from the prompt of a few little words, a transformation in our writing took place. One used her fortune as a metaphor to guide a non-fiction piece; another used the prompt as a starting point before letting it lead her in a completely new direction. Inspiration can be fickle, but inspiration is always there.
Origins of the fortune cookie differ according to varying reports; however, the cookies with which we’re familiar are said to have originated in California, containing pieces of wisdom, prophecy, or insight on a tiny slip of paper (along with Chinese translations and a series of lucky numbers).
What is so appealing about these fortune cookies? Could it be the desire to apply these simple words to our own lives as words of wisdom and guidance? Is it the comfort in having something planned out, being able to have a sneak peek at what’s in store? Is it the anticipation, wondering what that slip of paper will contain as you break open the cookie?
As writers, the conflicting desire to know where we’re headed and the anticipation in finding out the next step is somewhat natural: we want to have the plot mapped out, we want to know our characters and their motivation. We want to know everything that’s going to happen to complete the book, story, poem. We want to have an endgame.
However, writing, can take pleasantly unexpected turns; characters can lead you to new adventures or dead ends. Maybe these little nuggets of wisdom are a guide for when you’re unsure where you’re going with a plot thread or a character; maybe they can serve as inspiration to bring you back on course. Or maybe they just serve as a little bit of fun, as all writing should be.
Next time you see those cookies in that familiar wrapping, instead of discarding them take a look at what they have to say and see if they don’t serve up a little more than dessert.
Challenge: Use the fortune that appears below (or click on the link for more options) and use your fortune as a prompt to start a new story or spark ideas for a latent project:
Why I Twitter, Why I Write
A close friend sent me the link to an article, titled “Give Me Twitter or Give Me Death.” While my love for Twitter doesn’t run so deep (give it time), it made me question what attracts me to it, to blogging, to writing.
The answer is in the details.
According to the article, “Twitter is a communications technology, a form of mass instant messaging, that specializes in recording the details of life in the moment.”
And, for me, therein lies the appeal: recording the details of life in the moment.
It’s why I read, it’s why I write. I love the everyday moments of life and those ties that bind us together: making dinner, going to work, playing a game, questioning life…There is beauty in the simple moments that is captured by words, a life story woven through them.
Maybe this is why I’ve always been intrigued by history — not so much by the events that occurred, but, rather, by the people that experienced them. Humanity has no time barrier; it spans generations, and though our technology may have changed, though our societies may differ, we can still relate to generations before us because we all still love, laugh, face heartbreak and rejection, feel joy, feel suffering, feel lonely.
Maybe this new technology is just another way to bridge that gap, let everyone have a brief glimpse into someone else’s life to help us realize how similar we really are, to see them for the people they were, not just as names, but as fellow human beings.
We’re not so different. No matter what age, no matter what era. Maybe this technology just emphasizes that more, brings history a little closer to home.
Because I don’t think I’ll ever quite be able to articulate these thoughts as well as I did last May, below is the blog post I wrote after a trip to Gettysburg:
I used to hate history as a kid and love it now, and I know the exact reason for it: Textbooks are filled with only the facts — dates and names and places are meaningless unless there is a story there. And there is always a story. Maybe that’s the writer in me, but I believe that history is more than a recording — it’s a living picture, a breathing past. A journal is the same thing; it’s the story of a life – raw, uncut, and unedited.
When I went to Gettysburg with my best friend a few weeks ago, we toured the museum in the Visitor’s Center. I will freely admit that I quickly bypassed the plaques with all of the figures and dates and zeroed in on the showcases that held real, tangible objects. It’s breathtakingly bittersweet to realize that what is now on display was once in someone’s hands: Someone wrote in that diary, someone read from that prayerbook. Behind protective glass is furniture punctured by bullet holes and mirrors with smudges and cracks; showcased is an old wooden medical kit with some of the medicine still in glass jars and a full-size diorama of what an officer’s living quarters would be in comparison to a foot soldier’s.
The heartbreaking reality is that these were people who lived and breathed and shared smiles and tears — someone looked in that mirror, before it was cracked, when it hung on a wall; someone sat in a camp just like the one depicted in this glass case, possibly poking at their dying fire, struggling to keep warm beneath their thin tent, millions of miles away from home and missing their parents or siblings or pets. They may have laughed as they played cards or chess with a fellow soldier, as the little pocket games that were on display would suggest; maybe they wrote how they really felt to their families, or maybe they kept up that brave front, as the letters read. I wondered if these grown men cried, reverted to the mere boys they really were, as they lay on their cots in the dark and thought about the people they loved and left and lost; I wondered if they feared what they would face the next morning — and not just the battle, but the weather, the disease, the journey.
We’re left to always wonder. We read their journals to get glimpses into their lives, to see how people lived and maybe even boast about how far we’ve come, but maybe what we’re really looking for is that connection, to see that despite time and location and circumstance, we all really fear, hope, and long for the same things. So much is captured and kept in a museum, but feelings of fear and insecurity and faith can’t be preserved behind a glass wall. Despite the records and artifacts, a million little moments are lost forever.
We all have experiences and emotions that we want to remember. We all have a story to tell.
What story do you want to tell?
No commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Song Titles
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Words and music are powerful forms of creativity because they both have the ability to evoke emotion, create an experience, and move you. Music speaks to the same part of our soul where our words come from, delving into a part of ourselves and calling forth sometimes stagnant emotion that can be then poured out onto the page. Sometimes, the music you’re listening to can shape the tone of your writing. A peppy pop ballad can make for an upbeat, feel-good story filled with humor and chaos. A slow ballad can cross boundaries and create melancholy and passion.
While the music itself can lend to inspiration, often the best lyrics tell a story full of character and plot of their own, with the song titles serving as prompts. Billy Joel writes about a “Pianoman;” Carrie Underwood wants to “Get Out of this Town.” Who is this pianoman? Why is she leaving and where is she going?
Like newspaper headlines and book titles, song titles are meant to catch your attention, intrigue you, convince you to listen. However, they can also serve as the point of inspiration for your next story or poem.
Pay attention when you listen to the radio or browse through the selections on iTunes. Your next story may be waiting in the music. What song titles serve as your inspiration?
Challenge: Take a look at your own collection or use some suggestions from my own playlist below to create a new short story or poem:
“Somewhere Only We Know” – Keane
“Praying For Time” – George Michaels/Carrie Underwood
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” -The Beatles/Across the Universe Soundtrack
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” -Keane
“I Owe You A Love Song” – Shiny Toy Guns
“It Became A Lie On You” – Shiny Toy Guns
“Five Minutes to Midnight” – Boys Like Girls
“Come Downstairs and Say Hello” – Guster
“Misery Business” – Paramore
“What’s Victoria’s Secret” – Rick Springfield
No commentsApril Giveaway: Reclaim Your Dreams
Every month, Typescript will post a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.
If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.
Would you regret not following your heart?
I love Typescript’s design, and I have Jonathan Mead to thank. I first became acquainted with Jonathan through his blog, Illuminated Mind, when we were syndicated on the same blog network. From there, we followed each other on Twitter, and when I put out a call for help with blog design, he was one of the first to answer.
His talent doesn’t end with graphic design, however. His blog is a great tribute to personal development, and his book is a testament to living life completely. I read “Reclaim Your Dreams” at a time in my life where everything Jonathan wrote spoke to me as a great reminder of the lessons I had learned, when I needed encouragement to pursue creativity. However, it’s really for everyone: for those who are just beginning to realize their passions, for those who feel a little lost, and for those, like me, who have only recently gotten back on track and can use that extra reminder.
Jonathan’s e-book Reclaim Your Dreams will give you the tools to define your dreams, keep them alive and inspired, and give you the courage to make your dreams a reality.
April’s giveaway is a free copy of Reclaim Your Dreams. To learn more about Jonathan and Illuminated Mind, check out his blog and reclaim your dreams.
Congratulations to Sobia Aijaz, recipient of Typescript’s April giveaway!
Writing Challenge Roundup: March
A lot is happening on the blog this week, so in place of our Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript will begin offering Writing Challenge Roundups the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of March and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
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