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Writing Prompt: Dependence
The prompt was random, with 30 minutes to write this time, so here’s my take on it. Not fiction this week. Dependence I knew when I decided to move to a rural town with fewer than a thousand residents that I’d be entering a new world of dependencies. Most people think of rural folk as […]
Writing Prompt: Thunder
With only 20 minutes to write, I’ve learned from my writing group not to obsess over naming a character. I take character names seriously and they have to feel right before I can continue. That’s a problem with 20 minutes ticking down. So I’ll go with “she.” That said, I lucked out last week with […]
Writing Prompt: Yellow Jacket
Because I often write nature essays, my writing partners thought for sure I’d go with the insect for this prompt. But I want to stretch my science fiction muscles. There isn’t much to this—we only have 20 or so minutes to write, then countless minutes getting the Zoom connection up for the meeting portion of […]
Writing Prompt: A Fight
Here’s what came of my most recent writing group session… A Fight There’s a meme going around Facebook where you give yourself a point for everything on a list you haven’t done. One is “punch someone.” I suppose I have. You can’t get through toddlerhood without punching someone. The only fight I remember never made […]
Writing Prompt: I’m from…
This week’s prompt also said to use the five senses. I strayed from the prompt, as we are allowed, though I agree that using all the senses makes, well, sense. I only had 20 minutes, and, frankly, ran out of steam before that. Here ’tis: I’m From… Kate stared at the young woman sitting […]
Writing Prompt: Rebellion
Twice a month, I get together with some other writers. We pull a prompt from an envelope and write for 30 minutes, then read to each other and chat. Now, with Covid, we do this remotely–one has the envelope and emails the prompt to the rest. We write then Zoom the rest of the meeting. […]
On Completing a Second Draft
Last spring I wrote about finishing my first draft. Yay, me! That was a significant milestone, so I’m told. Pat yourself on the back. You did it! So the second draft might be a bit anticlimactic, but it feels important to me. As I foreshadowed in that piece, I did finish it by fall. But […]
A Writer, an Editor, and a Reader Walked into a Bar
I started the following essay when I heard about the call to fill the wonderful anthology, Our Happy Hours, edited by S. Renée Bess and Lee Lynch (aka “Story Collectors”). Then I heard Cindy Rizzo was going to write about Boston in the 1970s and knew she’d do a much better job than I could […]
On Completing a First Draft
I haven’t written about writing in a while. I’ve been working on a novel since approximately the dawn of written language. Almost three years ago, I wrote about breaking through a block (“The Insecurities of Being a Writer”). Last fall, I waxed enthusiastically in “Writing Is like a Fungus” about the guidebooks I used to […]
Winter Notes
In the evening when it’s dark and the stars shine bright, I like to stand by an open window and listen and breathe and look into the night. Winter air can be odorless. Or a pocket of scent might startle me, usually when walking through the woods. It could be the mild skunk-like musk of […]
Elaine Burnes 