Friday, October 19th, 2012

Writing Prompts – Spooktacular Ideas

I’m sitting here sorting through all my boxes of Halloween decorations and watching Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride with my foot propped up.

(Surgery update: My foot looks like a corpse foot. Stitches are out, and it’s blue, green and purple. But it’s on the mend. Yay!)

I’m definitely in the mood for Halloween, my favorite holiday. So, to get you in the mood…

Here Are Some Prompts:

  • The clock struck midnight and…
     
  • Write a recipe for a witch’s brew, a mad scientist’s potion, a magic spell or a Halloween treat!
     
  • Write about something possessed, or about being possessed.
     
  • You walk by the abandoned house in your neighborhood and see a light on in the upstairs window…
     
  • You don’t believe in ghosts, but suddenly, you see one.
     
  • You’re sitting home one night when the lights go out, and your dog suddenly starts to whine.
     
  • Before lunch, you get out of bed on the wrong side, break the vanity mirror in the bathroom, walk under a ladder, and have a black cat cross your path. What follows all these ill omens?
     
  • If you journal, try these journaling prompts:
    • The thing that scares me the most is…
    • The best (or worst) Halloween you ever had.
    • Talk about candy you remember getting as a child, but can’t find anymore.
    • You won’t believe this story, but I swear it’s true…
    • Bobbing for apples.

Good Luck!

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Writing Prompt – Talismans and Lucky Charms

Picture of an airplane breaking up in the sky.It’s possible I’m dead right now. Check the news. I’ll wait.

Did you see anything about a plane crash? One heading to Oregon from the Eastern Seaboard? If so, I might be on that plane, and therefore dead.

It would also mean that all the lucky charms and talismans I stuffed in my pockets before I left, did not work.

(You might have figured out that I have a fear of flying. I don’t know where it came from. I’ve flown to Europe on more than one occasion, have been up and down the East Coast and as far west as Colorado…and I enjoyed each of those trips. But somewhere along the line, my brain wrinkled.)

I’ve been advised to take a pill and have a drink.

Instead, although I’m not normally a superstitious person, I’m carrying with me:

  1. Several rosaries.
     
  2. A scapular.
     
  3. A lucky sea bean.
     
  4. An acorn.
     
  5. A wad of Patron Saint, Miraculous and Bleeding Heart medals that I inherited from my grandmother.
     
  6. Some medals of my own, purchased at the Vatican on Easter Sunday – which makes them holier, right?
     
  7. A tiny, tiny statue of statue of Saint Christopher, inherited from another grandmother. It’s encased in brass, no larger than a bullet (and very easy to carry in my pocket).
     
  8. I have also made a promise to donate money to a charity upon my return. Because according to Jewish wisdom, there is extra protection given to someone who is en route to perform such a mitzvah.

If it offers protection. I’m game. I just hope they can all work in harmony. I’d hate for one lucky charm to cancel out another.

Here’s Your Prompt:

  • Write about your good luck charm.
     
  • Take a character in one of your stories and give him a good luck charm. Think of something unusual for the charm or talisman. Write the back story for it: why does he carry this particular item?
     
  • Write about:
     
    • a lucky shirt
    • a four-leafed clover or bamboo
    • lucky sigils, crosses, runes or rings
    • a lucky ‘piece’ (a penny)
    • a horseshoe – with the luck run out!
    • lucky runes
    • crickets, lady bugs, dragons, or scarabs
    • acorns
    • a rainbow

  • Find a penny, pick it up
    and all day long, you’ll have good luck!
     
  • Write about someone who throws a coin down a well, and gets his wish: but not exactly the way he wanted it to happen.
     
  • “Luck of the Draw,” his tag read. She stared at him, and he stared back. Now how was she going to get him home?
     
  • …Star had sent to them as its messenger. The bird was stuffed and preserved as a powerful talisman. They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed… ~ From The Golden Bough, 1922. Chapter 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops by Sir James George Frazer.
     
  • Write a scene (or more) from the point of view of person who is very superstitious.
     
  • Luck can change in an instant. Write a scene where a person’s luck changes by the end of it.
     
  • His mother pleaded for him too, but it was not needed. He had enclosed in his letter the strongest talisman of all, a letter written by Elizabeth in the long ago when we were children together. ~ From The Making of an American, 1901. Chapter V. I go into Business, headlong by Jacob A. Riis.
     

Good luck!