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The WritingReader is on vacation for 2 weeks, but while I’m gone, enjoy this visual prompt. Create whatever it inspires in you!
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Photo by Jesse757.
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The WritingReader is on vacation for 2 weeks, but while I’m gone, enjoy this visual prompt. Create whatever it inspires in you!
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Photo by h.koppdelaney.
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by emdot on Flickr.
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The walls were kittens and puppies… – Lydia Millet, Ghost Lights: A Novel
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem using the first line above.
Journaling Prompt: Write about an interesting room that you’ve seen.
Art Prompt: Kittens and puppies
Nonfiction / Speech Writing Prompt: Include some uniquely memorable visual elements in the opening of your story / speech.
Photo Credit: Sarah_Jones on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to KindleWelcome to the Carnival of Creativity for March 25, 2012. All links will open in a new tab or window, so feel free to click through and leave some love in the comments. Once you close that window, you’ll be right back here for more linky goodness.
Sharing Our Work
Siobhan Sullivan presents We Will Not Go Quietly into the Night at Wonderland, saying “This is my favorite moment from the movie, Independence Day.”
Eula McLeod presents Oh Pooh! at View from the Winepress, saying “My dog never listens to me!”
Emi Bauer presents The Exact Wrong Thing to Say at Confessions of an Incompetent Blogger, saying “Perhaps loyalty is overrated.”
Wilma Rich presents Play Ball! at Writing for Riches, saying “Writing and baseball are the perfect match.”
Liz Shaw presents You Can’t Make This Stuff Up at Liz Andra Shaw, saying “The office supply wars take a humorous turn.”
Writing Quote of the Week
“Story is to human beings what the pearl is to the oyster.” – Joseph Gold
Writing Tips and Prompts
Charlie Jane Anders presents How Not to be a Clever Writer at io9, saying “Focus more on telling a great story instead of being clever.”
Many famous writers, including Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, and Margaret Atwood share with The Guardian their Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.
Podcasts
This week Writing Excuses brings us Writing the Omniscent Viewpoint.
Visual Arts
Stan presents The Nature of Man posted at Apocalyptic Photo.
Sarah presents Illustrated Missed Connections posted at Natsumi.
The Business of Creativity
Derek Pankaew presents Can’t Find Time to Blog? Here’s What to Do at Concentrix, saying “Here’s four ideas that will help you make sure that you will always have great content on your blog.”
Spam of the Week
Hi, nice location, i over hither something correspond to to this give but i don’t have anytime again, but really it’s greatly gracious
That’s all for this week. Be sure to submit your article for next week’s Carnival of Creativity by Friday at midnight!
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Kids love dogs. Dogs love kids. I don’t think the results of this study should surprise us at all.
…second-grade students with a range of reading aptitudes and attitudes toward reading were paired with dogs — or people — and asked to read aloud to them once a week for 30 minutes in the summer of 2010.
At the end of the program, students who read to the dogs experienced a slight gain in their reading ability and improvement in their attitudes toward reading, as measured on the Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS), respectively — while those who read to people experienced a decrease on both measures.
Another surprising result was the high rate of attrition among students in the control group. Of the original cohort of nine, a third failed to complete the program. No students left the dog-reading group. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write about a dog helping a kid. Doesn’t have to be reading. Could be Lassie getting Timmy out of the well. Just work on that dog / kid relationship.
Journaling Prompt: What has your pet helped you learn?
Art Prompt: Kids and Dogs
Nonfiction / Speech Writing Prompt: Write about a way that dogs help humans.
Photo Credit: catnipstudio on Flickr
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Where do you stand in the debate between free will and determinism? More importantly, as a writer, where do your characters stand?
“Look at bumblebees dancing some time. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they talk about. Solar elevation, topographic cues, time-stamps—they write roadmaps to the best food sources, scaled to the centimeter, and they do it all with a few butt-wiggles. Does that make them free agents? Why do you think we call them drones?
“Look at the physics of a spider spinning its web. Hell, look at a dog catching a ball—that’s ballistic math, my man. The world’s full of dumb animals who act as though they’re juggling third-order differentials in their heads and it’s all just instinct, man. It’s not freedom. It’s not even intelligence. And you stand there and tell me you’re autonomous just because you can follow a decision tree with a few dozen variables?” -Peter Watts, Maelstrom (The entire Rifters series is available free on Feedbooks courtesy of the author. It’s dystopian sci fi.)
Writing Prompt: Write a debate between two characters with opposing viewpoints on free will.
Journaling Prompt: Do you believe free will? What influenced the formation of your ideas about it?
Art Prompt: Choices
Photo Credit: D133H on Flickr
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I grew up among cats. My parents tried dogs, but failed to house train them or break them of chasing cars. Cats are easier. I stuck with cats for years as an adult, but about 8 years ago, a beautiful Catahoula came into my life. Now I have 2, and I’ve never been happier. I like how my dogs care about how I’m feeling and what I’m doing. Here’s a quote from an interesting study on dogs and wolves:
They showed, for the first time that wolves, like domestic dogs, are capable of begging successfully for food by approaching the attentive human. This demonstrates that both species — domesticated and non-domesticated — have the capacity to behave in accordance with a human’s attentional state. In addition, both wolves and pet dogs were able to rapidly improve their performance with practice. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write about a human-wolf or human-dog interaction.
Journaling Prompt: How have pets impacted your life?
Art Prompt: Wolves
Photo Credit: plasticrevolver on Flickr
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I’ve had a love affair with proverbs for many years. Many proverbs have cousins in other cultures, but there are some proverbs that are unique to the culture where they were born. I love this Scottish proverb. I’ve included the explanation for it, because if you’re not from Scotland it’s probably nonsensical.
Like Cranshaw’s kirk—there’s as mony dogs as folk, and neither room for reel nor rock. -from The Proverbs of Scotlandedited by Alexander Hislop (free for your Kindle or Kindle software)
“In a remote pastoral region, like that of Cranshaws, lying in the midst of the Lammermoor hills, it is or was usual for shepherds’ dogs to accompany their masters to the church; and in times of severe stormy weather, few people except the shepherds, who are accustomed to be out in all weathers, could attend divine service; and in such circumstances, it may have occurred that the dogs may have equalled in number the rational hearers of the Word. We have heard the saying applied by bustling servant girls to a scene where three or four dogs were lounging about a kitchen hearth, and impeding the work.”—G. Henderson
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about dogs in church.
Journaling Prompt: What do you believe about animals and the after-life?
Art Prompt: Dogs
Nonfiction / Speech Writing Prompt: Use a little known proverb to inspire your message.
Photo Credit: brownpau on Flickr
Send to KindleWelcome to the Writing Reader
I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
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