writing

Starting Tomorrow: October Challenges!

/ Gerry Wilson / Leave a comment

Bring ’em on—the October challenges, that is! Starting tomorrow, I’ll participate in two writing challenges of different sorts.

 

The Submit-O-Rama is the brainchild of Khara House, poet/blogger extraordinaire at Our Lost Jungle. Khara has offered several levels of commitment so we can submit our work during October at a rate we’re comfortable with. I’m going with the one I think I’m most likely to do–the Submit-O-Rama Choice Challenge–wherein I make my own rules. And my rules will be to submit one story a week over the next month–not the same story each time!

 

 

My parents, before I was born.

 

 

The other challenge I’m subscribing to of my own free will is the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge hosted by Jane Ann McLachlan at Join the Conversation. You’ll learn more about this one and my motivation for participating when you read the first memory blog post tomorrow: a memory before the age of two! Jane Ann has encouraged us to be creative, so we’ll see how it goes.

 

 

Both of these challenges are great practices for the writing life!

Visit Khara and/or Jane Ann and join in the fun. It’s not too late! And please do come back here tomorrow to see where the memory lane leads me first!

 

 

A Picture’s Worth . . . How Many Words?

/ Gerry Wilson / Leave a comment

Returning to the picture as writing prompt today, with a variation: I’m giving you two photos, one suggestive of place and the other of emotion and conflict.

I invite you to let them take you where they will: a memory, a bit of fiction, a poem. Whatever you write, have fun! Please post a bit here in the comments.

Here we go . . .

Panther Crossing/Gerry Wilson

Couple
by taliesin at morguefile.com

Monday Discovery: Joe Bunting’s The Write Practice

/ Gerry Wilson / 1 Comment

At The Write Practice, Joe Bunting offers not only sound writing advice; he offers the opportunity to practice whatever skill he’s exploring on a given day. This article, 16 Observations About Real Dialogue, is one of the best I’ve read. Very practical.

For example, here’s Observation # 5:

5. Real People Refuse to Repeat Themselves

Sometimes, when the other per­son can’t hear and says, “Huh? What did you say?” real peo­ple don’t repeat them­selves. They say, “Nothing. It’s not impor­tant. Never mind. I’ll tell you later. Forget it.”

Sometimes, this leads to bickering.

This tech­nique is espe­cially effec­tive if a char­ac­ter has just said some­thing vul­ner­a­ble. People will rarely repeat some­thing embar­rass­ing or hurt­ful or vul­gar. You can draw atten­tion to their vul­ner­a­bil­ity by hav­ing them refuse to repeat themselves.

“Team Solitary”
Image Courtesy of Idea go/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Visit  The Write Practice, a great resource  for both beginning and more experienced writers.