I know it’s a little odd for me to link to the same blog in two successive posts, but Chip’s Quips once again has some great quotes that make me want to pass them on. This time they’re quotes from Euripides in which Sterling has found some relevance to today. For example,

O gods, spare me the sight
of this thankless breed, these politicians
who cringe for favors from a screaming mob
and do not care what harm they do their friends,
providing they can please a crowd!

  –Hecuba, 255-259, William Arrowsmith translation

Today, do any of the following:

• Write about one of the quotes in the linked blog article and its relevance (or not, as you see it) to today’s world and events.
• Write a scene or story inspired by one of the quotes in the linked post.
• Pick out one to three other quotes from at least 500 years ago that you also believe have great relevance to today’s events.
• Carry out one of the first two options but use a quote from the third.
• Write about the eternal nature of mankind—our politics, governmental struggles, wars, and so on, whether in essay format or fictional format.

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The other day I discovered a post on Chip’s Quips that included the following:

Paul answered my Blogging Tips meme-tag with a veripun: “Persistence is fertile.”

veripun, n., a truth embodied in a pun. From L. verus, “true” + “pun”. I just made that up.

This particular made-up word really tickled me for one simple reason: unlike many other made-up words I’ve seen, it would be very easy to mistake for a real word that you just hadn’t stumbled across before. (Not to mention it’s just a cool concept all around.)

Today, make up a dictionary entry for a made-up word. But do everything you can to make the term and its definition seem as real as possible. Also try to make it a word for a concept that you think really should be represented by a single term—something that our language has overlooked until now, or something that we haven’t had reason to quantify in a single word before now. All ‘real’ words were made-up by someone; try to come up with something so useful and vocally interesting that you could actually imagine it being incorporated into the language.

I recently found a wonderful blog of inspiring and thought-provoking quotations and such: Travis Eneix. In particular the following quote caught my attention:

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. Once you have determined the spiritual principles you wish to exemplify, abide by these rules as if they were laws, as if it were indeed sinful to compromise them. Don’t mind if others don’t share your convictions. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer.
— Epictetus

Today, do one of the following:

• Write about an ideal you’d like to get serious about. Write about how you might make it a rule of your life. Write about how you can abide by it as though it was the core of your deepest religion.
• Do the same as above, but from the point of view of a fictional character you’d like to write about.
• Write up a set of ideals as though they were the laws of a fictional land. Be as idealistic, optimistic, and grandiose as you like.

Despite the lack of entertaining randomly-generated spam subject lines these days, I finally got another one that was worthy of inspiring a writers’ exercise: “The Narcissistic Dungeon.” Write this phrase at the top of a piece of paper (or document file), set a timer for 10-30 minutes, and start writing. I can imagine a wealth of literal, figurative, and partially figurative ways in which this might be taken, as inspiration for journaling, philosophical musing, or fiction.

As a side note, it can be a helpful exercise in its own right to look to something in your life that’s as annoying or inconvenient as spam emails and find a way to get something helpful, inspiring, and provocative out of it. If there’s a small thing like this that drives you nuts from day to day, try to find a way to derive something of benefit from it. Anything can act as inspiration, particularly if it irritates—just as a grain of sand provokes the formation of a pearl. Not all inspiration must come from something that is beautiful.

blank journals

I admit it, the site design over at WritingFix makes me dizzy thanks to its overly-busy look and wild array of colors. However, it has a ton of prompt categories that you should take a look at:

Daily Writing Prompts provides a very nice random prompt generator that chooses one from over 500 possibilities, such as:

“What can we learn from contrast? Write a description of something very dark (like a crow) in a very light place (like a field of snow). Make the dark thing seem innocent and the light thing seem ominous.”

Right-brained prompts includes a wide variety of visual sparks, poetry prompts, sentence creators, alliterative sparks, story starters, and more. This example comes from one of the Serendipitous Word Games options:

• Setting: the top floor of a building
• Character: an artist
• Conflict: the ground is covered with something awful

Poetic prompts are prompts just for poets, such as the random poetic phrases generator.

Left-brained prompts make use of the logical side of the brain to get your fingers moving. For instance, you might try the Start and Stop Game, in which “your writing’s first and last sentence must contain the same word, phrase, or clause.” I love the first one I generated:

“if I knew any better”

If that isn’t enough, the site also contains:

• Picture book prompts
• Chapter book prompts
• Literature prompts

Use one of the above prompts or go to there and generate your own. Either way, make sure you visit their site. Hopefully someday they’ll pick some colors that are easier on the eyes.

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.
—Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

I can imagine a good handful of exercises based on Mr. King’s quote:

• If you prefer to journal about issues that are important to you, try journaling about what this quote means and/or how it applies to you, your role models, today’s politicians and celebrities, various famous people from the past, and/or the person from your life you consider to be the most wise.
• If you prefer to write non-fiction essays, write an essay about what Mr. King meant and/or how it applies to you, your role models, today’s politicians and celebrities, various famous people from the past, and/or the person from your life you consider to be the most wise.
• If you prefer to write fiction, write a story that includes a fool who proclaims himself into obscurity, and a wise man who forgets himself into immortality.
• Write a character sketch of a fool who proclaims himself into obscurity, and/or a wise man who forgets himself into immortality.
• Write about the nature of foolishness and wisdom or obscurity and immortality.
• Explore how you might forget yourself into immortality.
• Explore whether you believe this quote to be true, or, if it was once true, whether it still is now.

At Word Imperfect, you’ll find a daily word posted. You’re invited there to create a new definition for each word as it’s posted, and then folks can vote on their favorites. Today, visit and check out the most recent word. Contribute your own definition and look at other posters’ definitions for inspiration afterwards. To warm up, come up with definitions for these recently posted words:

• pilose
• kymograph
• mattoid

A variation on this would be to create nonsense words out of random letters and define them. Here are a few to get you started:

• evelyse
• marifosic
• callax

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Apply this Emerson quote to the main character of your current story or novel–how does your character’s opinion of the world reveal his character? What might it reveal that he doesn’t want revealed, or that he would deny if it was brought to his attention? How can you use this to subtly explore him within your writing without having to spell everything out for the reader?

You could also journal about how this quote applies to you. How do you see the world? What might this reveal about you? Try to find at least one difficult truth about yourself in Emerson’s quote.

“I don’t tell my characters what to do. I just take dictation!”
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Write “hope” and “despair” at the tops of two sheets of paper–one word per sheet. Under each, list and/or free-write anything you associate with that term, or which you feel could be used to thematically represent it. Try to fill each sheet completely without stopping. When you’re done, look through both sheets and try to find one item, thought, or image from each that particularly appeals to you or strikes you. Work both of these into a single piece of work: a short story, a poem, a piece of artwork, a journal entry, an essay, or an article. Try to contrast them in some way, or use them to offset each other.

Today I have another quote from Michael Michalko’s second edition of Thinkertoys (reviewed):

In Greek, the word dialogue means a “talking through.” The Greeks believed that the key to establishing dialogue is to exchange ideas without trying to change someone’s mind. This is not the same as discussion, which from its Latin root means to “dash to pieces.” The basic rules of dialogue for the Greeks were: “don’t argue,” “don’t interrupt,” and “listen carefully.”

Today, treat every conversation–including those you hold online–as though it fell under the old Greek definition of a dialogue. Force yourself not to argue or interrupt. Listen carefully to those you speak with. Offer up your thoughts and ideas for consideration without attempting to convert or change the minds of others. Treat those you speak with as your equals in conversation and examine their opinions accordingly.

At the end of the day, write about your experiences. How easy or difficult was this? How well did you succeed? How did it change the dynamics of your conversations? What did you learn from it?