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[Guest Prompt] Therese Walsh – Magnetic Words


THERESE WALSH is the author of The Moon Sisters and the cofounder of Writer Unboxed. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children.

The Prompt

Imagine your protagonist has just opened a large magnetic poetry kit. Which words call to him/her? Will s/he put these words on the refrigerator in a random scattering or compose a sentence? Share your words and sentences here.

Tips

  • If you don’t have a magnetic poetry set (what?!) you can play online
  • You can write a whole story based on the words you select or you can show the scene where they select words.

GO!

14 thoughts on “[Guest Prompt] Therese Walsh – Magnetic Words”

  1. … Their desire for dialogue mattered little to her, though. Equations were best solved in silence, she thought. So she stared at the board in front of her, categorized and organized the words it contained in the quiet of her small quarters.
    Her fingers slowly stirred the syllables, tested their validity in each space and then placed them in their correct order.

    We watch a dark forest grow,
    His mountain rustle.
    Sanctuary feels too full.

    As for the rest, she discarded nothing—only held them as remainders for later use. As many words never need speaking, many more were meant for future reading.
    ____
    I didn’t have enough time left in the day to lay out the rest of the words the online kit provided. So I folded the leftover words away into the story as foreshadowing ; )

  2. Great prompt. I actually finished mine, but went a different direction and just posted the magnetic words in form of a poem (didn’t say it was a good one), but a poem nonetheless at http://sarahcain78.com. Sarah

  3. So cool, Shan Jeniah! I have family in upstate and lived there a few years myself. The humidity killed me, but dang, autumns are glorious!

    Today’s prompt: I was in luck. A friend who was visiting just the other week left me a magnetic word kit. These words called to me, and I am obviously still working poetry through my head from last month, but here goes:

    As we live for
    spirit, there be
    harmony together

    give peace all voice
    to make
    a world of calm.

    And, the radio coverage of the May Day protests woke me up this morning, so maybe that’s my response to that! *grin*

  4. He glanced at the office fridge. The message was clear. The little magnets they all played with lined up and she had been in there last. He felt his face warm and flicked an impatient look at the clock on the wall. It felt redundant to check an analogue clock, they all had time on their consoles but he liked clocks especially this one ticking away the minutes until the rendezvous. The moving hand made the shift in time more real than a flicking digital display. He smiled as he finalised documents, closed files and folders and turned off his computer. He rearranged the magnets. 105

  5. I also live in upstate New York with my husband and two children (and furry housemates). It’s a Story A Day coincidence! =D

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