Today’s prompt is called ‘childhood memories’ and it’s from another Heather over at A Creative Journal:

[S]pend some time writing about a safe place you remember from your childhood. This could be someone’s house or at the top of a tree in your backyard. Once you’ve written that one up, also spend time writing about a scary place you recall from your childhood. This could be a particular house you didn’t like to pass on your way to school or a room in your own house.

I particularly appreciate Other Heather’s reminder to only tackle the scary place if you’re ready for it—smart words! You’ll find quite a few interesting prompts and links at her place, so go visit while you’re at it.

Today, from Freelance Folder’s 7 can’t-miss ways to kick-start the writing habit:

Write nothing but headlines. Sometimes the thought of writing an in-depth article is too much for your brain to deal with after a long day (or at the start of one). Spend 15 or 30 minutes just churning out headlines without worrying about how catchy they sound.

So today, write headlines. You might choose an area to write headlines in beforehand (sports, local news, fashion, parenting, pets, farming, health, science) or just go crazy. Check out the above link for more ideas! Or go on and read more of Freelance Folder for plenty of ideas that span the wider world of freelancing.

Still looking for my muse

I recently stumbled across 50 timeless blogging tips. One of my favorites was:

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein

Today, pick something you consider yourself an expert at and choose one small sub-topic or item that you want to explain (make sure it’s something your grandmother isn’t already familiar with, or you’ll defeat the purpose!). Using no more than one side of a sheet of paper, write an explanation you think your grandmother would understand. If you really want to test yourself, show it to her afterward!

I was over at Two-Fisted Freelancing Tales and stumbled across an awesome discussion of the Coen brothers’ movies. I got distracted, however, by the following:

[T]he scene starts in a suburban living room containing a man in an iron lung and ends with Walter destroying a sports car with a golf club while screaming, “This is what happens when you f* a stranger in the a*!!!!” (Or as the censored version on Comedy Central would have it, “This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps!!!”)

Normally the nonsequitors used in place of profanities when the censors get hold of a movie just make me roll my eyes, but this one is hilarious in its own right, just because it’s so silly. So today, pick a book or movie that has some profanities in it (if you try to avoid particularly profane reading material, you can always pick one whose profanities are very mild) and find creative and entertaining ways to ‘censor’ them. Do this to at least three separate profanities (if you can’t find a page with multiple profanities on it, pick non-contiguous paragraphs). Try to free-write possible replacements in list form, then go back afterward and pick the most interesting or entertaining results.

Imagine that you wanted to write more than one book on the same topic, and had to figure out a way to legitimately stretch the topic out over multiple volumes while making sure readers feel they’re getting their money’s worth. First, pick a topic that you know something about. You don’t have to be an expert, but you should at least be moderately well-versed in it, and capable of researching what you don’t know. Brainstorm the various sub-topics you might tackle, the kind of mileage you could get from them, and how many books you might be able to stretch them out across.

Today’s Booking through Thursday meme encourages book bloggers to think about what book(s) they would want to change and how if they wielded the editor’s pen. I can certainly understand the various people who felt that they couldn’t answer that, that by suggesting changes to a book they’d be turning it into a different book. However, I have a different take on that.

First, a good editor knows how to suggest changes that work with the author’s style and voice. Even the best writer needs a good editor, because a writer is generally too close to his or her work to see the holes and problems. Having someone make suggestions for changes doesn’t somehow rip it out of the author’s control; a good author will weigh others’ suggestions and opinions and decide what will work best for his project.

Second, the kind of strong imagination it takes to come up with alternate versions of an existing story is the same kind of strong imagination it takes to create your own stories. If you’re too busy telling yourself that your opinion of what could be changed in a piece of writing isn’t worth anything, then you’ll never learn how to write good material of your own.

So today, do the BTT meme. Pick a book in your chosen field of writing that you weren’t entirely happy with, and detail as precisely as possible how you would change it. Try to make those ideas suit the style, voice, and structure of the existing piece of writing as much as possible.

This morning I came across 50 Writing Ideas I Couldn’t Find on Another List. There are definitely some unusual suggestions there! Today, pick one at random, pick one that inspires you, or, if you need help choosing, try the following, which is one of my favorites from the list:

11. Write a review of a book that hasn’t been written.

Another article from that same blog that you could use is 5 simple ways to get out of a blog writing pickle. Coming up with ideas for writing in your blog can be very similar to looking for ideas for writers’ exercises.

I recently started reading & reviewing titles from J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts’s ‘in death’ series, starting with a random book in the middle, going back to the first book, and then leaping forward to the most recent release. Each book in the series has a title that fits into a certain format (Naked in Death, Memory in Death, Strangers in Death), with the variant word having something directly to do with the mystery at the heart of that particular installment in the series. This is a popular format for the titles within an extended series of books because it makes it easy for readers to know that a given book fits into the series they know and love.

Today, come up with your own base title format that could be used in this manner. It doesn’t have to be for a mystery series—it could be for any genre you prefer, or even a non-fiction series. Then brainstorm at least five different variations on the title and a quick summary of what each one would be about.

This week’s Booking Through Thursday meme deals with female main characters:

Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

For today’s exercise, pick a female lead who captures your imagination and free-write for ten minutes about why you find her so fascinating. What aspects of character make her so intriguing? What about the writer’s style draws you in to her trials and travails?

I got tagged for a you make my day meme in which you’re meant to note ten bloggers who make your day for one reason or another. I occasionally like to indulge in this sort of meme for a couple of reasons: it helps us to share our favorite blogging finds with others (perhaps bringing attention to nifty bloggers who really deserve it), and it can be interesting to stop and think about who in our daily travels influences us and how.

From your own point of view or that of a fictional character, discuss the ten people who influence you most, how, why, and what you think about this. Free-write the list as quickly as possible without stopping to think about it too much. Unlike the memeing bloggers, you don’t have to stick to other bloggers or web sites—you could venture into people close to you, role models near and far, and so on.