Day 7- Fourth Grade Spelling List by Julie Duffy

Cram all these words into a story, and tell your inner editor to hush…in today’s StoryADay Writing Prompt

The Prompt

Use these words in a story:
poison
kingdom
keyboard
castle
garbage
vocal
syllables
seventy
mountain
return

In the past I’ve used spelling word lists from my own children’s 3rd Grade (https://storyaday.org/write-on-wednesday-third-grade-word-list/) homework. Sadly, those children are way too tall for spelling homework anymore (and let autocorrect do most of the work for them), so I’m upgrading you to a spelling list for Fourth Graders that I found online.

What is the point of writing a story from such a silly prompt, I hear you ask?

The point is that it is silly.

As soon as you start to practice your writing consistently, the voices in your head begin: “You must write something good if you’re going to spend this much time alone with your imaginary friends. You must justify your time by writing deathless prose that will win awards, and you must do it now.”

And those voices are the ones that will block you, stall you, send you running from your desk not to reappear for months or even years.

Today’s writing prompt encourages you to lower the bar.

Today’s triumph is that you manage to write something — anything — that resembles a story and contains these words.

Simply writing, is your goal, today. Not writing something good. Just writing.

Have a go. You might even like it!

Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is the founder of StoryADay and takes silliness very seriously.

Bingo!

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make sure you set your printer to print this at original size, not full-page!

Here’s your next Bingo Piece. Download the pic, print it out and paste it onto your bingo sheet. Then share a picture of it on social media with #storyadaybingo

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Day 23 – I’ve Got A Little List

Julie Duffy Writing Prompt

The Prompt

Two options today: write a story in the form of a list, OR use this list of words in your story: gallery, contemplated, identity, point, behind, tastes, followed, forty, like, generations.

Challenge Plus

Go deeper with enhanced content, videos, & training from StoryADay’s Julie Duffy

The Author

Julie Duffy loves to make lists.

Read A Book, Support An Indie

Reads & Company Logo

This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.

Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!

2019 Day 22 – Word List

How did you get on yesterday? Did you write a story?

Remember, set your own rules, and stick to them. If you miss a day, don’t try to catch up. Just keep moving forward!

The Prompt

Write A Story Containing These Words

distinct, weak, volunteered, slow, coming,
time, duress, suspected, shimmy, listened.

If you’re feeling brave, post the story in the comments, or on your own blog and link to it (like so many of you have been doing already).

Underline or bold the key words, or just let us read the story without noticing them.

This is a silly exercise designed to lower the bar on your expectations. But you may be surprised at what you manage to do with this prompt!

Go!

Check back every day for more prompts, and don’t forget to come back and leave a comment to celebrate your writing successes, every day!

[Write On Wednesday] Word List Redux

It’s a crazy time of year. You’re busy. You don’t have time to write. You certainly don’t have time to write anything good.

Great. Write something silly today. Write a story that can’t possibly be good because it came from a ridiculous prompt.

The Prompt

Use these words in your story:

Sea kelp, annointed, onion, flabby, twist, anachronistic, bing, fly, bauble, sun

Tips

  • Write a story and highlight the words as you use them.
  • Allow yourself to write something silly, ridiculous, bad.
  • Set a timer if you have to.
  • Marvel at how, even in this ridiculous exercise, you managed to write at least one line you were really pleased with
  • Post your story in the comments if you dare (it’s fun to see what everyone else comes up with). But remind yourself, you do not have to show it to anyone.

Go!

Fourth Grade Spelling List

This is a ridiculous and fun little exercise. Try it!

Here’s another prompt that’s going to make it difficult for you to try to write a brilliant story. We’re focusing this week on productivity, quantity not quality. And here’s the secret, when you’re not too worried about the quality, you quite often find that your writing is better than you expected.

The Prompt

Write a story containing all of these words from a fourth grade spelling list.

  • Blame
  • State
  • Frame
  • Holiday
  • Relay
  • Waist
  • Pail
  • Gain
  • Raise
  • Mayor
  • Airplane
  • Remain

Continue reading “Fourth Grade Spelling List”

[Writing Prompt] Word List Silliness

This is an extremely silly way to start a story, but it always seems to work — maybe because it removes any pressure you may be putting on yourself to write something “good”. Today you write a story using these words from my Third Grader’s spelling list.

The Prompt

Use These Words In A Story: Lettuce, Happen, basket, Winter, Sister, Monster, Supper, Subject, Puppet

Tips

  • Don’t worry too much about this one. Just write something!
  • Don’t forget to give us a character who want something (perhaps a lettuce? A sister? A monster?).
  • Post your story somewhere we can see it (in the comments or in the community) and read everyone else’s stories. Revel in the weirdness!

Go!

Did you remember to post your story in the comments or in the community? Did you have fun with this? Was your story, nevertheless, serious? What does that tell you about writing in general?

[Writing Prompt] Borrowed words

Today’s is a silly prompt designed to get you to lighten up about your writing.

One of the best ways to become blocked is to put pressure on yourself to write something good.

Today’s gift to you is a list if words it’s going to be very hard to turn into a good story.

So write something silly. Have some fun:

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[Writing Prompt] Sunday Silliness – and a check-in

We’re almost there! This is the last week of StoryADay May 2013. Stay tuned on Thursday for news of another, short-term challenge to keep you writing.

Also, I’d love to know who’s been writing this month. Please leave a comment on this post if you’ve written at all this month, and let us know how much/often you’ve managed to write. Spread the word to friends who might have fallen off the wagon. Tell them to check-in and celebrate what they have achieved so far (and maybe come back for the last week?).

As always, thank you for playing. Without out you, this challenge simply wouldn’t be any fun! You inspire me and each year’s participants influence the shape and content of the next challenge. So thanks!

The Prompt

Write a story that includes these words:

  • official
  • corpulent
  • totem
  • panic
  • scratching
  • delicious

Tips

  • This is a silly prompt. Feel free to write a silly story.
  • The chances are, if you’re still here, you’ve started to take your writing quite seriously, in a good way. However, there’s always a danger of ‘serious’ becoming ‘solemn’. Use today as a break from whatever you’ve been writing and write https://storyaday.org/prompt-fros/ that is purposely silly, off-the-cuff, not to be taken seriously.
  • Consider posting your story in the comments here so that we can see how everyone chose to use these words

[Writing Prompt] Word List

A silly and simple word-list prompt today:

The Prompt

Write a story that includes the words

Enflame, nugget, jingle, spelling and flight.

Make it short, make it long, but make it happen!

Go!

And when you have written your story comment on this post and let us know how it went.