The Aroma of a Fresh Box of Crayons (Melissa Robbins)

It’s that time of year, back to school shopping! But Mel, it’s only July. My kids go back in the middle of August. If we don’t get our supplies now, the required blue folder with the brads won’t be there.

To my children, Drama Queen (DQ), Boy, and Little One, school supply shopping is bittersweet. They enjoy picking out their spiral notebooks and binders. Who my age doesn’t remember getting their new Trapper Keeper? New supplies are a sign that summer is almost over, the camps are completed, and the neighborhood pool closes. Our trip resulted in joy and tears. Little One bawled. Unlike her older siblings who could choose whatever color folders they wanted, her sheet instructed that she bring yellow, blue, and greens folders. Her favorite color is purple and hello, when a seven year old has a choice between a folder with a cute tiger or a plain yellow, which one do you think she’ll want? I bought both.

I love school supply shopping. I buy stuff for me too. One can never have too many nice pens (mine all grow legs and wander off) and a notebook to fill with all sorts of notes for stories. Don’t forget that smell of a fresh box of crayons. Talk about an aroma that stirs up the memories of school and first days. I try so hard to remember to add the sense of smell into my stories, because where one scent evokes joy and excitement, in someone else, it drudges up fears of bullying and poor marks. Don’t forget the scents in your stories. Think of all the emotions they can stir up! 

The Story Behind the Story (Melissa Robbins)

Writers have a knack for reading a news article or having a dream that turns into a story.  My short story mystery, The Bones in the Box, which it part of the Sisters in Crime Guppies Anthology, Fish or Cut Bait (due out in May), touches on this very subject. 

I love World War Two stuff and relish reading fascinating stories of the time whether it’s found lost love notes or film or time capsules.  The inspiration for The Bones in the Box sprang from one of these very stories.  In 2010, a French lady died, leaving behind a Parisian flat.  A flat she abandoned in 1942 during  Nazi occupation and never returned to despite always paying on the place.  When her lawyers opened the flat, it revealed a treasure trove like opening an Egyptian tomb.  Items left when she fled, remained untouched, including a priceless painting.

The wheels of my writer’s brain spun. As we often do, I asked myself, why and what if. Why did the lady never return, but still paid on the flat? What if she didn’t want anyone to know what remained inside?

The Bones in the Box was born. Charlotte Graham just inherited a house on a Channel Island from her grandmother who had abandoned it just after WW2.  Charlie never knew the place existed nor the Nazi skeleton in Granny’s cedar chest.  How did he get there? Did Granny put him there?

My son and his heart condition inspired my current project, a middle grade story about a boy with a heart condition who desperately wants to fly for England’s Air Defense Cadet Corps during WW2.  How far will he go to achieve his goal?

Be ever vigilant. You'll never know when inspiration will strike next!

Christmas Mission Possible (Penny Rader)

Happy holidays!  Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and I hope you will!), is to use as many of the following words as you want in a Christmas piece. No pressure to use all the words.  It can be a poem, a haiku, a short story, a scene, a paragraph, or a sentence. And feel free to use a portion of the word, if need be.

Ready?  Let's play!

Angel

Believe

Christmas

Dolls

Eve

Festive

Gingerbread

Holly

Ivy

Joy

Kiss

Love

Mistletoe

Noel

Ornament

Presents

Quirky

Ribbon

Scrooge

Tree

Unwrap

Vixen

Wishes

Xylophone

Yule

Zest

And if you need some visual inspiration, maybe these will help:

by mararie, creative commons license  

by koko love, creative commons license

by HumanSeeHumanDo, creative commons license

by rika Oyen, creative commons license

I can't wait to read your offerings!

May your Christmas be blessed, happy, and merry.

Flex Your Writing Muscles - Childhood Memories (Penny Rader)

http://sites.google.com/site/vwnesler/RenoirChildWriting.gif

Since we've been discussing the impact our childhood might or might not have had on our writing, I thought it could be fun to use writing prompts to delve into our childhoods.  Might give us great fodder for stories.  I hope you'll join in.  Feel free to share.

Free Creative Writing Prompts: Childhood  (Bryan Cohen)

• How did the following things affect you during your childhood: music, books, the weather, money, love. You can combine them all into one story or do separate entries on each.
• Write a poem about [y]our earliest childhood memory.
• You have been given the opportunity to go backwards. You can pick an age and start over again from that age. Do you pick one or not? What age would you go to? Describe your first week with your "old person" memories in your younger body.

How to Write about Your Childhood — Autobiographical Writing (John Hewitt)

"Autobiographical Writing is an excellent way to work on your descriptive skills. When you describe items or memories from your past, you are able to provide details that are often lacking in more purely imaginative exercises. With autobiographical writing you learn how to describe what was rather than what isn’t."

Here a few examples of prompts given by John:

• What was family life like as a child? How did you feel you fit into your family?
• Write about your best friend as a child and the experiences you had together. What has happened to that friendship since childhood?
• Describe your nemesis growing up. Who made your life miserable and what did they do to make it so rough?
• What was the biggest trouble you got into as a child? Describe what you did or didn’t do to deserve what happened to you.

http://www.innertuitionlifecoaching.com.au/files/innertuition/photos/rope%20swing.jpg

Reawaken Your Creativity By Revisiting Your Childhood Pleasures (Aileen McCabe-Maucher)

• This week, honor the small child within yourself by revisiting the activities that brought you the most pleasure as a child. In your journal, make a list of all of the activities that you delighted in when you were a youngster. Think of the things that you used to do that made you lose track of time.
• This week, spend at least thirty minutes doing the activity that brought you the most pleasure in your childhood. Give yourself permission to be silly and spontaneous.

What do you remember from your childhood? (Jo Middleton)

"I’ve always thought of myself as a person with a fairly poor long-term memory, but one exercise we did on my recent Arvon course made me realise that there are actually a lot of interesting sounds, sights and smells buried in the murky depths of my brain, if only I can dig around enough and find them under the layers of daily life."

and

"... exercise was based on an extract of a book called I Remember by Joe Brainard. We were asked to close our eyes and imagine being ten. We then wrote down everything we could remember about how being ten tasted, how it smelt, how it sounded and how it felt. It was amazing how easily one memory triggered another, and before long we were all reciting the most amazingly evocative childhood memories. You should give it a go, see what you come up with."

Writing Triggers for Family Memories (Virginia Allain)

Virginia provides "a fresh memory prompt or writing trigger each week here. Use it to prod your memory, then write down what you discover. Your memory writing may be just a paragraph or it could be five or six pages. As you find the memories flowing again, take advantage and get it into written form. ... You don't have to write about every aspect suggested. Choose a part that interests or inspires you and start writing the memories from your childhood."

Here’s one of her triggers:

Remember Something Precious to You

Think back to some object that was important or precious to you as a child. Describe it. Do you still have it or was it lost or broken or given away? Tell why you considered it special. Who gave it to you or how did you get it? Where did you keep it?

This could be something simple like a feather you found or something valuable like a ring given to you by your grandmother. Think back to something you treasured.

http://salvacion.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/box-of-treasure.jpg

~~~

What do you think?  Care to share a memory or fictionalize a memory?  Do you have any prompts or exercises to creatively mine your memories?

Sparks Creativity a prompt does as Yoda would say. J Vincent

So what is a prompt that gets one writing? For me it can be one of many things. A word list, a phrase, a sentence, a photo, an old barn or house you drive by, an unusual rock formation, an overheard conversation, a memory, a dream, even another story. I’ll give some examples of some that have worked for me:

Word Promts: In Mission Possible a list of words is sent out and the object is to write a story with all the words.

A phrase prompt: Penny is very good at providing these. Check out her May and her August 31^st blog. She gave a list of prompts and invited us to play . Mine was

"After the door shuts and the footsteps die there will come the moment you know you are truly alone. Alone and safe.

“What if I don’t shut the door?”

“That’s a choice. Consider a door. Open. Anyone, anything can intrude, can disturb, can overwhelm you.”
“But to be alone forever . . . “

“To be safe forever.”

“But then you’d be gone.”

“Never. I am always with you. Am I not enough?”

“Enough?”

“With me you touch and stay on the edge of sanity. That is what you wanted? After all you’ve done all I’ve asked.”

“Yes, the room is empty.”

“Then take the knife and close the door.”

The woman gripped the handle of the knife. All she had to do was make one swipe across each wrist. Just one. She knew how. She knew it would close the door. Still she hesitated. Would the voice still be there is she did it? She needed the voice.

A photo: You’ll find the story I wrote from this photo about a Garden Bench

A Memory: This is what I wrote after recalling a favorite Christmas memory. Santa’s Hand

An unusual rock formation: In Colorado from La Junta to Walsenburg runs a very barren seventy miles. About half way to Walsenburg outcrops and steeply cut hills start to appear. They made me think of Roman Breton hill forts. Because of this scenery I wrote a Roman Breton romance---not yet published. You can read a rough draft of Chapter 9

These are a few of the things that inspired me. What type of prompt do you find most inspiring!