Creative Nudge #9 - Taste

 Before I get started on the Creative Nudge for today I just wanted to let you know there is only one day left to win the above book!! Hush Money was a great read that reminds me of John Grisham's work, only written with a younger and edgier tone. Go enter to win it!  There are very few entries so far so you have a good chance of being the winner.

Now onto today's Creative Nudge! As I explained last week, I am going to spend the next few weeks focusing on the different senses as a device to help add descriptive flavor to my writing, and hopefully yours! I'll be posting what I write up (this is what I wrote for the smell prompt) and I would love to read what you have to write as well.

Isn't that picture cute? It's cake....but it sure looks like a cup of coffee! Perfect picture to start out my discussion of taste. Make sure you check out the artist. 

I decided to follow smell up with taste because the two are very connected, in fact 80% of what you taste is because of the smell, which explains why food tastes so bland when you have a cold and your nose is all plugged up.

When I think of taste I primarily think of food, which is normal, there aren't a lot of other things that adults taste, although tooth paste and the lips of a significant other come to mind. Food is a very important part of most cultures, and I've always found it fascinating that people have such a wide variety of interests in food, and that what I think of as comfort food you might find completely gross.

Here's some fun facts about taste thanks to this site and this site:

• Hypogeusia is a diminished sense of taste. 
• Dysgeusia is a persistent taste, usually an unpleasant one.
• What we perceive as "flavor" is actually a combination of smell, taste, spiciness, temperature, and texture. So yes, it really does taste better cold, or hot, or whatever. Goldilocks knew what she was talking about!
• That "taste" I mentioned in the last fact? It is made of up of taste groups sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (a savory taste).
• You know those bumps on your tongue? Those aren't your taste buds, rather, they contain your taste buds, and each one has an average of 6 taste buds inside it. 
• The average adult has between 2,000 and 10,000 taste buds, "super tasters" have even more!
• Your flavor preferences change over time and can be very affected by social queues. For example, if the first time you see someone eat something they react badly, you are less likely to like the taste of it yourself.

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So how does the Creative Nudge work? Read on...

The Creative Nudge:

Theme: The sense of taste.

Genre: Any

Other requirements: Try to make the sense of taste central to whatever you write!

How it Works:

Take a few minutes to write a short response (any format or genre) to the prompt.

Post it on your blog.

Come back here and leave me a link in the comments so I can read it!

I'll post my own response on Tuesday for you to read.

Check back next Saturday for another Creative Nudge!

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Need some ideas to get you started?

1. Write about your favorite food and a memory associated with it.

2. What's the worst thing you've ever tasted? Write about it!

3. Send your main character to a restaurant. What would they order? What do they think about the food? How does it make them feel? 

4. Go to a World Food Store, pick something you've never tasted, try to describe it.

5. Pretend to describe your favorite dish to someone totally unfamiliar with the cuisine. So describe macaroni and cheese to an African tribesman. Or Thai food to someone who grew up on Southern home cooking.

6. Describe a taste none-food related. Someone's lips, medicine, toothpaste, or even blood if you write about vampires!

Have fun!

~ Ruthie ~

Starting Strong and Finishing Weak

Cool house I see regularly :)

Time for a goals check in! How did I do this week? Well the title of the blog post says it all, I started strong and finished weak...

Writing Goals:

1. 5 Hours Editing: I haven't made any progress on this since Wednesday so I'm finishing out the week at 1:30. 

2. Blog Consistently: Monday - Setting the Goals; Tuesday - Updated my blog and posted; Wednesday - Midweek Goals Check-in; Thursday - None (but it's a day I'm allowed to skip if not inspired); Friday - Book Review; Saturday - Creative Nudge (go participate!); Sunday - this post! I'm really happy that I've managed to stay so consistent this week with blogging, especially because I've had really low focus this week.

3. Continue to write and post book reviews on GoodReads.com - 2 book reviews written, not enough, I'm really behind on these! 

4. I'm adding one - I need to visit and comment on at least 5 blogs every time I post a blog post. We'll see how it goes doing so this week! 

Awesome re-purposed type-writer - check out the source!

Life Goals:

1. Put more variety in our diet, try new recipe's and cook more often - I didn't do as well as I wanted on this one as I wanted, but I still did really good! I tried two new recipes this week (I wanted to try a third but ran out of steam) and I only fell back on making sandwiches one night this week. Woohoo!

2. Clean/Organize the house - I completely failed at this goal, but it was more important to take care of myself emotionally this week, so I'm ok with that.

3. Exercise! Not as consistent as I'd like, but I did do quite a bit this week, so I'm happy! Plus my physical therapist was really happy with my progress when we met on Monday, so that makes me really happy.

4. Take more pictures - This is another goal I did really good the first part of the week and not the second half, oh well, tomorrow is another day!

I'm a sucker for soundtracks - picked up Coyote Ugly's soundtrack this week for $5 - and listening to it right now!

So as you can tell if you actually read through all of that - it was a mixed week. I would have liked to do better, but like I said in one section, I needed to take care of myself emotionally this week, so I'm ok with not meeting at all my goals. I'm just happy I had enough presence of mind to meet any of them! I'll keep trying, one day at a time, and we'll see what this next week holds. I know one thing it'll definitely hold a giveaway, so check back for that tomorrow! 

~ Ruthie ~

Creative Nudge #7 - Luck of the Irish

Cool Project for a Leprechaun Catcher

I haven't done a creative nudge in way too long, but now that life seems to be settling back into a routine, I'm excited to post them on a weekly basis again! I'm really excited about this one, I actually got the idea for it last night as I was going to sleep, and I'm going to go write up my own response to it as soon as I'm done posting this! 

The Creative Nudge

Theme: The Luck of the Irish

Genre: Any

Other Requirements? None

How it Works

Take a few minutes to write up a short story based on the prompt.

Post it on your blog.

Come back here and leave me a link in the comments so I can read it!

I'll post my own response on Monday.

Have fun!

~ Ruthie ~ 

Creative Nudge #6 - Meet Levi

Due to my back injury I was never able to respond to the last Creative Nudge I posted - or to post a new one! To catch up I'm both going to share what I wrote and give you a new Nudge - all in one post. Sorry if this gets a little bit long!

Creative Nudge #5 was to interview a character from one of your stories. If you didn't get a chance to respond to it but still want to, feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments of this one! For now... Here's mine :)

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Levi is one of the characters from my NaNoNovel 2011 which I'm currently referring to as Misfits (although I'm thinking maybe Pack of Misfits instead?) Levi is a Wolf. Wolves in Maerdon are sentient, have a range of psychic and magical abilities, and years ago began learning to shape change to enable them to more easily communicate with the members of other races that weren't comfortable (and sometimes not capable of) using telepathy. Levi has a tortured past, and when we meet him in Misfits he is choosing to live out among the other races in the shape of a man. He's big, 6'2" in human form, with black hair and blue eyes. I've had him answer these questions based on his life before the book starts.

Question #1: What's the hardest part about shape changing?
The small things. At first that means things like getting the fingers and ears right, but then once you have learned the form that becomes much easier. Then you are tripped up by things like facial expressions, mannerisms, even the way you walk. I've spent enough time among the other races that I've learned to imitate them fairly well, but I still forget that most humans can't smell the way I still can while in human form. It takes a lot of focus not to be constantly sniffing the air.

Question #2: What's your favorite thing to do?
Hunt. I love the hunt, and, based on experience, it's something I won't really be able to explain to you.

Question #3: Since you've chosen to live among the other races and not with a pack, how do you make your living?
I hunt. I've learned out to take down a kill without ruining the hide and I then tan and sell the hides. 

Question #4: Where do you live?
I travel a lot. Never stay in one place long, but I do have a cave I take the hides back to so I can tan them. 

Question #5: Wolves are a pack society, is it hard living as a lone Wolf?
Yes.

I could ask him more questions - but this post would get rather long (because of my questions, not his answers obviously, did you notice they got shorter as we went?).  

Erin Morgenstern's Website

Creative Nudge #6: The Circus! I'm currently reading "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern and I can barely put it down (but I know I have to do my own writing too!). So write some thing about a circus, or a clown, or something else you associate with the circus. 

Go write! Then Blog. Then come back here and leave me a comment so I know you did! I will not be using the linky tools that I was previously using (don't want to pay for it) and I'll be looking around to see if I can find another one before next week.

~ Ruthie ~

Creative Nudge #5 And A Fun Picture!

Remember my review of Prison Nation and my author interview with Jenni Merrit?  We've been chatting a lot and went out for coffee today! I was thinking maybe one or two hours chatting... Three and half hours later we were no where near running out of topics and we are planning on getting together at Powell's soon. What's better than two writers talking about books and writing in a book store?

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I was a bad girl and never wrote a response to my own writing prompt this last week. Ooops. It's been a bit of a crazy week, I'll write up something for this week's Nudge though!

Creative Nudge #5: Take a character, it could be one from a story your writing or just one you make up on the spot, and do a Q&A session with them! You'll get to know them a lot better along the way - I promise! Ask what ever questions you want. Have any you want me to throw at one of my characters? Leave a suggestion in the comments!

~ Ruthie ~

Creative Nudge #4 and My Response to the Last One

Oops - I never got around to posting my response to the photo-nudge from two weeks ago! Sorry guys - I've been sick and it's been kicking my tail. Slowly getting back to normal though. Here's the picture as a refresher (don't forget you can buy a print here!)

"Don't touch the presents under the tree or the evil Christmas Tree Squid will come and clamp on your face while your asleep AND you won't get any presents this year!"

A mouthful, I know. That's my mom for you. Full of warnings and, um, an overactive imagination. The funny thing is we believed her when we were little. I never touched so much as a single present before Christmas morning. It was torture. So many tantalizing packages in red, green, gold, and silver, so many strange shapes, and I couldn't so much as poke them let alone shake them!

I was in middle school before I started realizing that my Mom's stories might be a bit strange. I clearly remember telling little Bobby Walker in our art class about the little children living on the other side of the moon who wouldn't have any teeth if we didn't stick the one's we lost under our pillow for the tooth astronaut to take, and his look of complete confusion. At first I thought his tale of a tooth fairy was really weird, but then we started talking, and I found out about all those little stories most children grow up with, and I had never heard.

Still, it wasn't until I was in highschool that I conquered my fear of the evil Christmas Tree Squid. I had my boy friend to thank for that. We were talking about my weird Mom and he asked me why I had never drawn any of the strange creatures she had told us about. Took me totally by surprise, but I guess he had a good point. I mean, at that point I was drawing everything I could, on everything I could, so why not that?

The first version of the Christmas Tree Squid was drawn on a paper napkin that had grease stains from what the cafeteria called pizza, but soon I had drawn him over and over again. Now I'm a world famous children's author, and most of my stories are based on the tales I heard as a child. My Mom is incredibly proud of me, and she has co-written a few of the stories with me, but I've also learned that I have her talent for the absurd, just look at my story about the Ninja Goldfish!

Thanks Mom. Merry Christmas.

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Note: that story is a complete fabrication! While I DO have a very active imagination (obviously) I can't draw. Oh well. 

Creative Nudge #4: "Leather." That's right - one word. Simple and sweet. What are you going to do with that one word? 

Once you write a response don't forget to come back and leave a link in the linky tool below! I've included a link for the last Creative Nudge.

~ Ruthie ~ 

Charlie Brown Understood

I was going to post this yesterday - but I got all caught up in spending time with my best friend who's in town for the holiday's and completely forgot! Oh well, since this is my response to last week's Creative Nudge it counts as posting a piece of my writing right? Plus, just look at this coffee mug she got me! It's perfect for today's post - and just ignore the coffee drips at the top that are evidence of how much I'm enjoying using it.

(In case you can't read it: "Every Time You Think Things

Can't Get WORSE They Get Worse!)

It is said that art and life often imitate each other, and while I have found that to be very true, rarely has it been more true than this week! I assigned the writing prompt, "have things go wrong!" and then quickly got busy so it didn't get tackled as quickly as I would have liked. I had a few vague ideas about how I was going to tackle it, but nothing super concrete beyond, "take the characters from my story, Jemnath, drop them in the woods, and have something go wrong! Probably have them attacked."

Yes, brilliant. I know. Well thought out to eh?

I never could seem to get to writing it though.

Why? Well it started the day I assigned the post. I had spent half of it taking care of car troubles. Our car's fuel pump was failing, and dealing with it took up my entire day on Saturday as I rode the bus down to Wilsonville with my hubby (he had left the car there the night before), got it towed to the mechanics, and then waited to find out what was going on and how much it would cost me.

Then I was ambushed by Christmas. I think that's something that all of us have been dealing with in one way or another, but it seems like everything I've tried to do for Christmas this year has gone wrong! My Christmas card idea failed, shopping took way longer than I had expected, and I literally went to 12 stores on Tuesday trying to track down a couple of simple items that I thought would be easy to find. Boy was I wrong...

That's not so bad however, the real kicker that day came when I tried to make dinner. I was exhausted from shopping so I planned on making some taco salads (or a burrito for my hubby if that's what he wanted. Now, to give you some background, burritos were a staple in my house growing up. Along with spaghetti, there's no meal I've made more frequently. So I shouldn't have been able to ruin it right? Wrong.

I was absent-mindedly throwing spices in (I don't have to measure for this dish) and kept thinking, "huh, why am I smelling cinnamon?" I was turning my lazy-susan spice rack trying to make sure I hadn't missed anything when I spotted the chili powder. "Wait, I thought I..." That's when it trickled into my exhausted brain that this was NOT the shape of the bottle that I dumped at least a tablespoon's worth of spice from (thinking it was chili powder of course). Right behind that thought came the realization that this could have something to do with why I was smelling cinnamon...

Now, I'm told that a hint of cinnamon in taco meat can be quite good. A tablespoon mixed with lots of garlic and cumin? Not so much! That got thrown in the trash, and when I picked my hubby up from the bus stop later I petulantly explained that we were having fresh pizza from Bellagio's because I was so tired I had managed to fail a can't-fail-meal. He was amazed that I could fail at burritos...until I explained to and he started laughing so hard his face turned red.

Ok, so looking back on it, I can see why he laughed. At the time I was considering grabbing the frying pan when we got home and then eating all the pizza myself.

To top it all off, Wednesday morning I took the car back into the shop to have it fixed (our car guy had shown us how to keep it working for a short time, basically by beating the gas tank if the car wouldn't start) and discovered a curb on the way to the bus that I didn't know was there! I ended up on hands and knees with a fire starting in my ankle. Best part? There was a guy walking nearby who kept walking after I told him that no, I was most definitely not alright!

I may have to be nice to my characters for a few weeks, obviously my love of mischief in writing has decided to visit my personal life! And yes, Charlie Brown most definitely had it right.

BTW - my ankle is healing just fine :)

~ Ruthie ~

Love Creative Nudges? Check out the picture I used for this week's Nudge!

Creative Nudge #3 - Plus Excitement!

I'm so excited! Do you see that beautiful pile of paper to the left? That's Misfits - my NaNoWriMo Novel! My best friend printed it up at school (shhh...don't tell anyone!) and brought it to me when she came home for the holidays. When she gave it to me I just hugged it to myself for awhile.

Now I'm going a little bit crazy. I really, really, did I say really yet? want to start going through it! I have it right there after all. Still, I promised myself no editing until the 1st (partially so I can start working on Jemnath again, which I have) so it's just going to sit there for now. Still... I think I know what I'll be doing as soon as I have my coffee January 1st!

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Creative Nudge #3

This week is our first photo prompt! 

Before I say anything else - let me tell you that I got this fun and zany Christmas Squid from my friend Carapace's Etsy Store. You can buy it here - it's only $5!

So what now?

1. Stare at the picture long and hard - then write! What will you write? I don't know! That's up to you :)

2. Post what you wrote on your blog! 

3. Come back here and leave a link in the Mr. Linky Tool below! Feel free to leave links there for previous Creative Nudges as well. I'll list the first two nudges in the link tools below in case you want to check them out. 

That's it! Have fun writing and with the madness of finishing getting ready for Christmas! 

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. I'll be putting up my post to last week's Creative Nudge tomorrow!

WIP....Thursday?

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Yes, I know, WIP Wednesday is, well, Wednesday! Today is not Wednesday obviously, but yesterday I had the great fun of spraining my ankle (don’t worry - that was sarcasm). I’ll tell you all about it later this week in my response to my writing prompt for the week, it turned out to fit my life this week in more ways than one!

This last week (when things weren’t going wrong) I’ve been reading through the first book I ever attempted to write (adjust for whether I completed that read-through or not). I did this read through it with the intent of picking it back up and finishing it. It’s been a strange experience.

I posted on Twitter the other day that, “Reading through an old piece of writing is like finding a $20 left in your pocket. ‘Why hello there! Where did you come from?’” It’s been about a year and a half since I last looked at this, and I hadn’t really touched it much in the half of year before that, which means it’s just long enough for some of it to have fuzzed in my brain. There are parts that I remember clearly, and other’s that I look at and go, “Wow! I wrote that? That’s good!” and then sit there and wonder if anyone else would agree with me.

Doing this read-through is an education in of itself. I’m realizing just how much I’ve learned since I started “Jemnath” (working title) four years ago. That’s encouraging as I contemplate finishing something I was completely stuck on for a long time. At the same time I’m realizing how good what I already have down is. I’m not trying to say it’s worthy of any prizes or anything, simply that I’m really enjoying reading it, and that’s comforting. If I am enjoying it there’s a much greater chance I’ll finish it, and that other people will enjoy reading it somewhere down the line!

I finished the read through a little bit before writing this post - and I’m really excited about that! I still have some work before I get to start writing on it again. While I now have the main story in Scrivener (the program I’m now using), I don’t have any of my support files (with character profiles and such), and I’ll need those as I continue working. I also need to do some planning, pulling notes I made while reading together, and figure out what’s happening next.

Still, it’s really exciting! I really love this story, and working on it again, knowing I now have the tools I need to complete it, is a wonderful feeling. Do you have any stories like that? Things you hadn’t completed that you are now ready to finish?

~ Ruthie ~

My Words Mondays - A Plot Ninja

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Ninja Monkey! I love monkey's! I was excited when I found this picture to go with my weekly sharing of some of my writing :) This week I'm going to share a piece I wrote as a result of a Plot Ninja. What's that you ask? At the Kick Off party for Portland area WriMo's we passed around 3x5 cards and wrote Plot Ninja's for each other. They were ideas that we could throw at our story if we got stuck. Well, I never got stuck enough to use mine, so I opened it after it was all over, took one my main characters from Misfits, and used it as a writing prompt! My card said, "Your main character climbs a tree and breaks a leg."

This is the result... 

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Alina had wandered off for some time to herself. Their pack of misfits was a lot of fun, and she loved being with the others, but sometimes a girl just needed some time to herself to think, or not think, and to have no external pressure to do either. The woods she was walking through were lovely, but she only half-noticed them. She was entranced by the fact that she was alone for more than five minutes for the first time in days, and everything else was just peripheries.

She had no idea how much time had passed. It was still afternoon, the light told her that, but nobody expected her back so the time was relatively irrelevant except for realization that she'd been walking for awhile, and she probably should start paying more attention to her surroundings if she was going to make her way back to the other's any time soon.

Looking around Alina realized that she was in a relatively sparse area of the forest. A fire had obviously passed through here some years before, and while there were a few of the big tree's that had survived, the majority of what was around her was new growth. Looking at the old tree's, the one's who had survived through wind, rain, and fire, she noticed that one of them had something purple up in it's branches.

"That's strange." She muttered to herself, and decided to get a closer look at it. She wound her way through the bushes to the base of the tree and started looking for hand holds. From the black marks along the trunk she suspected the old fire had made her job harder, but she'd climbed a few tree's in her day, and soon she was working her way up towards what appeared to be some fabric.

The tree was tall, from it's height and girth it was likely one of the oldest tree's in the surrounding area, and the purple fabric was high in it's branches. It looked like the wrong shape for a kite, but that was about all Alina could tell, even as she slowly drew closer.

Suddenly she heard some loud barking, and even though she should have been used to it by now, she started, losing her footing, and fell. As she bounced off of branches, trying desperately to grab hold (and nearly succeeding) she had just enough time to think, "We were tempting fate when we named that damn dog Trouble," before she hit the ground with a thud.

Alina blacked out for a few minutes, and when she came too Trouble was licking her face eagerly. She glared at him and pushed him away, taking stock of her injuries. Her body was covered in bruises and small cuts, but what consumed her attention was the pain in her leg. From the angle it was lying at the bone was obviously broken. She attempted to move it and blacked out again, but for only a few seconds this time as far as she could tell. Realizing that moving was futile she laid back and tried to figure out how she was going to get a message to the rest so they could come set her leg and help her back to camp.

How could an afternoon that had started out so right end up so wrong?

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I hope you liked it! 

~ Ruthie ~ 

Ps. If you had a plot ninja last month (for my WriMo friends) what did you do with it?

A Christmas Memory

(Picture is of my Grandma-Great, myself, my brother Gordon - Peter wasn't born yet, and my Mom. Christmas '87 I'm guessing.)

Grandma-Great was the center of our family, and never was this clearer than at Christmas. Every year the entire family, in-laws and out-laws alike, would gather in her home to eat good food, laugh, and exchange presents. It was my favorite part of Christmas!

There was always more food than we could eat, although I remember one of my Aunt's joking that the reason the girls went first was because the boy's wouldn't leave any for the rest. I had four older boy cousins, so you can imagine the dent they made! Despite the size of the house, the kitchen really wasn't that big, and looking back at it now I marvel that the adults always managed to keep everything warm using that tiny little oven.

It was a two story house plus basement, and the kids would always gather downstairs to play pool and whatever else we could find to do. I remember one of the cousin's sticking the pool queue in the ceiling when his turn was done. It stuck. I thought it was hilarious (and later had to try it).

I was young enough that I really only have what I'd call "snap-shot" memories of those parties. I remember particular instances, little pictures, but no big stories. The big things I do remember is the warmth, both of the room, and of the company, and Grandma-Great.

Grandma-Great was the Queen Bee of the party (and the family). She made everyone feel loved, and my favorite parts of the Christmas gathering usually involved her. I remember showing off to get her attention, and she must have known that's what I was doing, but she always handled it with grace. Other's might yell at me to stop goofing around, but never Grandma-great! 

I remember noticing after we lost Grandma-Great that it seemed like the heart had gone out of the family. She hadn't been well in several years, so the big gathering's were already a thing of the past, but I don't think I really felt the difference as strongly until after she was actually gone. It was several years before I saw many of the extended relatives, and I've never spent much time around them since. Oh sure, we have a family party again now, but it will never be the same. 

I miss her.

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. This is my response to my first Creative Nudge (although I hadn't come up with that name yet!). If you have a response post to the first or second week please go to the post for week two and leave a link!

Creative Nudge Week 2 - Things Happen

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Time for a new writing prompt! No, it's not about cars. Car issues are simply my inspiration. You see, apparently my car has developed an issue that means every once in awhile, if the stars align just wrong, the car won't start. It's rather annoying and figuring out what was wrong with the car has taken up my entire day, left me with sore legs from walking too much with the bus, and in general driven me nuts. The end result? Other than an extra layer of insanity in my life? I'm scrambling to get a blog post up!

So.... Instead of posting up my response to last week's prompt, I'm simply going to give you this weeks. I'm tired, I haven't edited my response to last week's yet (I was going to do that this morning before... ya), and I'll post up my Christmas memory on tomorrow's blog post.

Also, instead of calling this a writing prompt I have decided it's a Creative Nudge. Same thing - one just sounds boring and like something a teacher would assign - and the other sounds fun and inspiring!

Creative Nudge - Week 2:
Have something go wrong! There are many different approaches to this, and you don't have to involve a car, so feel free to have fun wrecking havoc! If your in the middle of a longer project (like a novel), I dare you to have something go wrong in your story. Or to take one of your main characters and write a short piece where something goes wrong in their life (you might be surprised what you'll learn about them!). If your not in the middle of a novel, then congrats, you have the entire world as your play ground.

How this works:
1. Go write your response to my creative nudge - do so in the next day or two or life will get in the way!
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Come back and leave your link in the Mr. Linky tool below! If you responded to last week's prompt feel free to leave that link there as well.

Have fun!
~Ruthie~

Introducing Writing Prompts

Before I launch into the real purpose of this post, let me just saw I’m sorry I missed posting my review yesterday. I have a million excuses (some are even semi-valid!), but those aren’t really important. I plan on continuing the regularly scheduled reviews next week with a review of a writing web-site I absolutely love.

Onto today!

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I have recently come to the realization that I absolutely love writing prompts and challenges. I haven’t had very many writing classes, but I always enjoyed the creative writing exercises both because I enjoyed the challenge, and because I often ended up writing about something that never would have occurred to me otherwise. 

Since this blog is all about writing - I decided to include all of you in the fun! Each Saturday I’ll put up a different writing prompt. I’ll try to keep these general enough that anyone can participate, and I’ll come up with some of them on my own, and for others I’ll draw on outside inspiration. If I take it from something else I’ll always let you know and provide a link.

Eventually I’ll have a cool name for these prompts, and a graphic to go with it that you can use on your own blogs, but why wait for that? 

Today's prompt (12/3):

We're headed into the holiday season! Write a story that is based in memory. It can either be a real memory, or something that you've made up, but write it as if the central person is remembering. If you don't celebrate Christmas, feel free to use Hannukah, Kwanza, or simply a December/winter memory. 

Here’s how works: 

1. Take the prompt and write about it. Try to do it within in two days of reading about it or you’ll forget, trust me. 

2. Once you’ve written about the prompt, post about it on your own blog! Please include a link back to this post so people will know where you got it.

3. Come back and leave me a comment so I can read it! 

I’ll be writing right along with you, and each week I’ll both post the next week’s prompt and my own response to the previous week.

Have fun! 

~Ruthie~

Ps. Do you have a writing prompt you’d love to see me use? Or an idea for a name for this weekly fun? Tell me about it in the comments!