Daily Prompt – May 5: Cinco de Mayo!

Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival.

It’s Cinco de Mayo, which people in the Americas know as an excuse for a party, thanks to immigrants from the Mexican state Puebla (according to Wikipedia it  “commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862,”

Mostly now it’s an excuse to don over-sized sombreros and drink Corona. But it brings us to today’s prompt:

Festivals

It’s hard to grow up anywhere without attending some kind of cultural festival, whether it’s the English village fete, a religious festival (St Anthony’s Feast in the North End of Boston, for example) , or a nationality-based one (a Burns’ Supper in Scotland, St Patrick’s Day in the US).

Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival. Add details from the activities, colours and smells of the festival to make your story real.

Daily Prompt – May 3: Gadget Lust

Write a Story Featuring A High-Tech Gadget

I love my gadgets.

But even if you’re not a gadget freak, an early-adopter, a lover of all things tech, you can’t really escape the stuff.

So today’s prompt is

Write a Story Featuring A High-Tech Gadget

It could be a cell phone that accidentally redials, and gets the owner in big trouble.

It could be an iPad, a Kindle, a GPS unit.

Maybe the hero of the story hates technology. Maybe she loves it.

OK? Go!

Daily Prompt – May 2: Obituaries

…Obituaries are wonderful sources of lifestories, character sketches, intriguing stories.

I know, kind of morbid for a spring day, but obituaries are wonderful sources of lifestories, character sketches, intriguing stories.

I like to think of stealing from the obituaries less as grave-robbing and more as creating a tribute to a life lived. So, today:

  • Go to Obituaries.com (yes, it exists!). Pick an obscure newspaper, Ignore the celebrities. ‘
  • Try to find the most ordinary person, or the person with the most detail. Think about what it might have been to live their life, know them, encounter them once.
  • Write a story based on one incident in your person’s life, including at least one detail your learned in their obit.

[Could you write about Bonnie and a great-grandchild on their first trout-fishing afternoon together? Would it be a perfect moment? A farce? A dramatic turning point? What did the river look like, sound like? What did she notice?]

Go!

Daily Prompt – May 1: Wikipedia Newest Articles

Today’s prompt: go to the Newest Articles section of the front page of Wikipedia…

 

Today, go to the Newest Articles section of the front page of Wikipedia.

  • Choose one. Scan the titles, stop at the first one that grabs you and click. Don’t second-guess yourself.
  • Read the article. As you read, look for some detail or phrase or idea that strikes you.
  • Write your story. Don’t try to retell the story as it was told in the article. Focus on the idea or detail that caught your imagination. Turn that into a story.

GO!

Four Days Until Story A Day in May – Some Thoughts and Links

So, only four days left until we begin our Story A Day challenge.

Nervous? Thinking about backing out?

Yeah, me too 😉

panicked eye
Don't Panic!

So, only four days left until we begin our Story A Day challenge.

Nervous? Thinking about backing out?   Yeah, me too 😉

Some Things To Expect From Me

Daily Prompts

I’m going to be posting a daily prompt, which you should feel free to use or ignore. The prompt will be on this blog, but you can also

(I think I’ve got most of my bases covered there but if you have somewhere you’d like it to appear, let me know and I’ll look into it.

Articles & Interviews

I’m also going to continue posting articles on the craft of writing.

There might be videos and audio, and you should certainly feel free to post the same kind of things.

I may not post my actual stories every day, but I will be posting a log of my writing at in my personal Story A Day journal.

Places You Can Post Your Progress

If you’d like everyone here to know that you have written your story for the day, post about your progress in the Victory Dance group.

You can also post in your personal Story A Day blog or on your own blog, if you have one.

If you need inspiration, check out the posts on this blog, the resources page, and the various Story A day groups.