Week 48

When I was a kid I used to fantasize about running away to live in a department store.

Random Writing Exercise # 11

Use these three words in a short story: merry-go-round, somersault, tangerine.

Quote

"It's nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state others are paying large sums to get rid of."

~ Shirley Hazzard

Week 47

Pauline first noticed the toaster was missing on Saturday morning when, after sleeping in late, she padded into the kitchen, still in her pyjamas, intending to fix herself a full breakfast.

Secret Diary Writing Exercise # 4

You work for a fortune cookie company and your job is to write the fortunes! Cool job, huh? Or is it? Is it a dream creative job or just an overworked, underpaid grind? How do you dream up those fortunes? Are you secretly using them to spread your own subversive message to the world? Write a diary entry describing your job.

Bonus exercise: If you're feeling really creative write five fortune cookie fortunes.

(Okay, I'll admit it - I love the fortunes in fortune cookies way better than the actual cookies. I frankly don't understand desserts without chocolate. My all-time favourite fortune is: "Be kind to pigeons. One day there will be a statue of you." I swear I really got that one. I carried it around in my wallet for years.)

Week 46

September always makes me think of Drew.

Quote

"You must write, not just think you're going to...And you must widen your vocabulary, enjoy words. You must read widely, not in order to copy, but to find your own voice. It's a matter of going through life with all one's senses alive, to be responsive to experience, to other people."

~ P. D. James

Random Writing Exercise # 10

Read your horoscope for today. Write a short story using the predictions as inspiration.

Week 45

When I think of my grandparents' house the first thing that comes to mind, before the memory of the dim almost aquatic light, before the constant noise of the television set, before even how it felt to be wrapped in my grandmother's soft embrace, is the smell.

Week 44

This was the worst birthday Simon could remember.