Weekly Writing Prompt — October 21, 2015 Edition

October 21, 2015Announcement, Weekly Writing Promptbook launch, sheri J. Kennedy, Sno Valley Writes!admin

Folks:

There’s a bit of a literary walk today, which happened purely by happenstance, but we should just take advantage of it. Your prompt is to do all you can to support it.

Beginning at 6 p.m. at Pioneer Coffee in North Bend, our long-time fellow author and Sno Valley Writes! Board Member, Sheri J. Kennedy, is releasing her second book, LIKENESS! There will be books, cake, and more!

Please be there.

Here’s more details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1665551160391281/

After that, plan to head to Boxley’s to support our other member, Gary Schwartz for his middle-grade book launch.

More details here: http://snoqualmievalley.macaronikid.com/calendar/event/north-bend-middle-grade-book-launch-party/2015-10-21/c4429104/

And now your moment of Writing Zen:

“Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen.” ~Pete Carroll

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

Casondra Brewster
Moderator/Founder
Sno Valley Writes!
Helping Writers Reach New Literary Peaks Since 2008
http://www.snovalleywrites.org
Check us out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SnoValleyWrites

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — October 7, 2015

October 7, 2015Weekly Writing Promptadmin

Writers:

Get out your calendars. And put this on the calendar:

Also, are you thinking about NaNoWriMo but not sure what to write? Or are you intimidated to try it for the first time but want to know more? Have you written it before and can’t wait for it to start? Come to SnoValley Writes! Intro to NaNoWriMo workshop meeting at North Bend Library on October 17th (Saturday) from 10:30-noon. Meet your ML’s (municipal liaisons) for the Snoqualmie Valley Region, get some tips on how to get started and a sneak peak at this year’s event-filled calendar.
This is not the official Kick-off…that will be a First Words Party at Pioneer Coffee on Halloween starting at 10:30ish PM and culminating in starting our new novels at midnight! Put it on your calendar now!

That’s your prompt. Be there on October 17th. You get a gold star if you fit in some writing cafes between now and then.

Now your moment of Writing Zen:

“There is never just one thing that leads to success for anyone. I feel it always a combination of passion, dedication, hard work, and being in the right place at the right time.”~Lauren Conrad

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — September 30, 2015 edition

September 30, 2015Weekly Writing Promptadmin

Writers:

Fall is most certainly here, so says the crunch of leaves as I did my morning outdoor chores. I hope you all are learning that the cooler weather is some prime writing time.

But, it’s also time to do inventory. What stories do you have? What manuscript is ready to see the light of day? Don’t know? Time to know. Do an inventory. If you don’t have any, get cracking, get writing. Finish something. Then… Send things out. Try a goal of at least one thing a month. If that’s too easy, try once a week. But send it out. Send, send it out. (Are you singing yet? ::send it out::) Be brave. Do it.

And now your moment of Writing Zen:

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” ― Erma Bombeck

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — Sept. 23, 2015 Edition

September 23, 2015Weekly Writing Promptadmin

Greetings fellow authors and friends:

Just a quick update today, as I’m off to the dental specialist here pretty quick (what is it with writers and weird dental ailments?).

Those of you who attended Saturday’s workshop, I hope you are doing the prep and excellent advice provided by Tara Brouwer in getting ready for National Novel Writing Month. Some of us are in a whirlwind of trying to finish a book so we can start the next one. For those that unfortunately missed it, you might want to check out the many books on noveling in 30 days.

At any rate, here’s an exercise: your character is stuck in a dental chair, in a lot of pain. They feel like they are going to throw up, but there’s a seemingly crazed dentist working in their mouth. Describe it all. What the character sees, feels, tastes, hears, smells, and wants to do, does. Why is the dentist working furiously? Is this some villainous situation or is there a life at stake? Or is he just backed up on patients? What? Why? Make the characters do things that create new situations. It sounds elementary, but sometimes we have to go back to the basics to make sure our writing is full of action and both external and internal growth for our characters. It’s the decisions they make that create action, both directly and indirectly (make sure there’s a good balance of that), for which creates the story arc and the platform for character development.

And now your Moment of Writing Zen:

“Each of us has about 40 chances to accomplish our goals in life. I learned this first through agriculture, because all farmers can expect to have about 40 growing seasons, giving them just 40 chances to improve on every harvest.”~Howard Graham Buffett

Blessed Mabon, Beautiful Yom Kippur, and Autumnal Equinox!

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — September 2, 2015 Edition

September 2, 2015Weekly Writing Promptadmin

Writers:

Welcome back from Summer Sabbatical!

Locally, the kids go back to school today. Also means as writers its time to start finishing up summer projects and getting prepped for the rainy days of indoor and much more writing time (we hope!)

September 19th at 10:30 a.m. the illustrious Tara Brouwer will be doing a workshop on preparing for NaNoWriMo. Not only good info for November, but whenever you set about to make time for writing and noveling. Please RSVP your attendance.

Meanwhile, the weekly cafes at Little Si Cafe (Wednesday Nights) and The Black Dog (Friday mornings) are going strong. Take a step out of your solitude and write with fellow scribes and get some motivation, inspiration, and friendship.

Your prompt today is to include a scene at a school in whatever your working on. If you are currently projectless, then just freewrite on school — anything and everything, a memory, our system, your children and school, whatever you like.

Now your moment of Writing Zen:

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” ~Anthony J. D’Angelo

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — August 12, 2015 Edition

August 12, 2015Weekly Writing Promptartists date, journaling, morning pages, NaNoWriMo, sketchbookadmin

Writers!

Artist’s Date Alert: Sketchbook Project is here in Seattle. Several of our members, including myself, participated in this. You can see it beginning tomorrow night through Saturday. Olympic Sculpture Park, 2901 Western Ave – Seattle, WA 98121, August 13: 5:00 — 8:00pm

August 14-15: 11:00 — 3:00 pm. More details here: https://www.sketchbookproject.com/events

I also wanted to share with you that I did a little experiment this summer. I didn’t journal for nearly a month. It was terrible. My creativity was off. I was cranky. Once I started doing my morning pages again, I felt better. If you want to ground your writing life and feel the creative rush, do your morning pages. Don’t know what those are? You need to come to a writing cafe or an upcoming workshop to find out! If you’ve been good about doing morning pages, good for you! You could try your own experiment, except I would say, don’t skip more than three days, instead of three weeks. You’ll see what I mean.

Today’s prompt is about patterns. One of my favorite novels is Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. My husband just returned from a massive ten days amongst his Hacker Tribe with back-to-back conferences in Las Vegas. They talked a lot about patterns and he brought me home all these pattern cipher quizzes and the like. Also, yesterday while on my own personal artist’s date, I began to see patterns I hadn’t noticed before. Clearly the universe is speaking to me. So your prompt is about patterns. What patterns does your protagonist notice, or the antagonist notice. Do you want to wax romantic in a poem about patterns. Just take that word and run with it. Write non-stop for 30 minutes.

As a reminder our dates for workshops with their descriptions are below:

September 16: NaNoWriMo Prep Workshop 1:
Have you always thought about writing a novel but don’t know where to start? This month SnoValley Writes will discuss: How to find a topic and develop it into a plot. Where characters come from and how to get them to do what you want in your novel. How to make time to write in your already busy schedule. And how to do it all in 30 days or less.

October 17: NaNoWriMo Prep Workshop 2: This month SnoValley Writes welcomes you to meet with us to sign up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Meet your Snoqualmie Valley Region Municipal Liasons (MLs). Ask your questions about the NaNoWriMo website, how to plan your novel, etc. and get answers from other writers – some who are starting their 8th NaNo this year. We’re here to help you get started and give you info on local events coming in the 30 fabulous days of November!
As always the workshops are at the North Bend Library Meeting Room from 10:30 a.m. to Noon.

And now your moment of Writing Zen:

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.” ~Bruce Lee

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

Weekly Writing Prompt — July 18, Edition

July 15, 2015Weekly Writing Promptadmin

Greetings Writers!

Someone sent me a very kind note about not giving up on encouraging each and every one of you in the group. It’s timing was brilliant and motivated me to push forward not only with projects for SnoValley Writes! but my own personal writing. Thank you for your kind words, you know who you are. Keep writing.

For this week’s prompt, I’m going to continue to offer you the chance to move your own writing forward by attending the peer-review work session on Saturday, July 18, at 10:30 a.m. at the North Bend Library Meeting Room. Bring a chapter, a short story, a poem or two to receive feed back. Take the time for heads-down writing. However you need the time to push you forward towards your goal.

Also, I want to encourage you to continue with your artist’s dates — go to a reading, a book launch, a town hall, an art show, a theatre production. Go. Get out. Do it. Recharge your creative energies.

Enjoy the sunshine. Write. Be.

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — July 8, 2015

July 8, 2015Weekly Writing Promptpush out of your comfort zone, Sno Valley Writes!, work to do, writing life, years togetheradmin

Wow, every time I type the date for one of these I”m amazed by how long we’ve been together encouraging one another, helping, boosting, critiquing, and becoming friends. I have much love and respect for this group. I hope you all feel the same.

However, there’s still more to do. Still more growth to happen, more pushing of boundaries for our writing lives.

What did you push this week? What have you pushed this month?

Your writing prompt is to answer that question, to yourself, in reply to me, and with members of the group as you see them at cafes, at the July 18th peer-review critique meeting, or around the valley.

If you can’t answer that question, you have work to do. If you can answer it, how can you push further? Make a plan. Get to work.

And Now your moment of Writing Zen:

“That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can’t control life, at least you can control your version.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Stranger than Fiction

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — July 1, 2015 Edition

July 1, 2015Weekly Writing Promptcalendar items, kill your fear, make a plan, writing down the bonesadmin

Happy July Writers!

Today’s prompt is about FEAR. Oh, what a four-letter word it is for writers. It very much is the thing that blocks us from doing what we love, what we’re supposed to do — tell our stories. What are you fearful of? The story itself? Rejection? Criticism?

One way to get over that is to join a group like ours — one where we are focused on your strengths and work from a foundation of encouragement to help you hone your craft and constantly improve. Use the group for feedback, to learn, to go out of your comfort zone and grow. You will learn that you are the only blocker to your success as an author — not your schedule, your life, your ability, or that misnomer of writer’s block. I hate to sound all cliche — but, it’s true: you can do whatever you set your mind to do. The only thing holding you back is fear. There’s no better time to be an author. Therefore, today — yes, today — I want you to sit down for just a brief 15 minutes (I encourage you to set a timer) and list what is blocking you from your writing goals. List them all — since for the most part, we all have more than one thing that holds us back. Don’t worry about format or punctuation or anything, just let it flow, kind of like morning pages. After 15 minutes stop and re-read what you wrote. Then I want you to spend the rest of today and through the weekend thinking about it. Then on Monday, sit back down with pen and paper or at your computer and write down how you’re going to combat your fears. Make a plan. Set a goal. Make a list of actionable items (e.g. get up earlier every day to write for 30 minutes, or send out that short story I like, or research agents). Then go do it. Will the inner editor, or the crazy makers continue to try to hold you back and create new fears in your writing life? Yes. Move forward despite. Or repeat the exercise when necessary.

Finish reading this email and then go to work.

July 18th is our heads-down writing time at the Library from 10:30 a.m. to Noon. Feel free to use it as an excuse to escape the heat and be left alone with your stories.

Now your moment of Writing Zen:

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” ~Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones.

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron

Weekly Writing Prompt — June 24, 2015 Edition

June 24, 2015Weekly Writing Promptwriters writeadmin

Writers:

I’m going to be kind of harsh right now, all prompted by a conversation I had in a cafe this week. I was introduced to a new member of the community as “that writer lady.” I do not take umbrage with that label in the least. Huzzah. People see me as I see myself. But the person said, “Oh, a writer! I want to write a novel.” Many of you on this list have said the same to me and have joined the group, or labor quietly in solitude and get solace and encouragement virtually from SnoValley Writes! Therefore, many of you will recall me asking you when you write, how often, what you write, etc. etc. etc. I did ask the same of this person as well. Like many of you, this individual said, “Oh, I’ll have to do it someday down the road; I don’t have room for it in my life.” Now, to be fair, there are days I don’t/can’t write. But, I’m thinking about my work in progress; I’m creating scenarios, or just plain living life for future story fodder. Then I get back to it. Or I’m editing. Or I’m reading. All things a writer must do. If you want to write, all I can say is write. If you’re not writing, you should be revising and editing. If you’re not writing, you should be daydreaming. If you’re not writing you should be reading.

Otherwise, you’re just being polite when you talk writing with me. Writing is work. It takes effort. It takes discipline. Wanting to do something and doing it are two different things.

For those who took my hints as encouragement, and the permission I gave you to write, Huzzah to you, too. Keep at it.

So, what did you write today?

And now your moment of Writing Zen:

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”

~Bradley Whitford

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What did you Write today?
~Casz

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” ~ Lord Byron