If you haven’t seen Living Literary, the new feature on my Patreon page, let me tell you how it works.
Living Literary consists of writing prompts. If you are a writer, you know all about prompts and have probably responded to them in the past. They are those suggestions that present an idea or describe a situation in a graph or two and then urge you to begin writing with that as a starting point.
Whether you have writers block, or are just trying to keep your hand in with a little warmup writing, prompts are a godsend.
But writing prompts are not just for the committed writer. They can be fun for anybody.
One prompt that I offered in February:
The famous Ringling Brothers circus is closing down after 146 years. A Big Top is like walking through a gateway into the past, back to the days of innocence where we sat there big-eyed and watched the handlers do things with lions and tigers and bears and elephants oh my, and it never occurred to us to wonder what happened to those animals after the lights went down. Once we did, it became impossible to continue enjoying that kind of show. There will now come a day when a generation of kids will NEVER have been to a circus. Have you ever been to a circus show? What stays with you, if you have?… Do you remember circuses…?
The prompts that I offer come in two parts. The first is the prompt itself, and that is for everybody. Just go to my Patreon site to try it out.
The second part contains the essay that I wrote from that prompt, and that can only be read by my patrons. (You can become a patron for as little as a $2 monthly pledge.)
I hope that some of you will share your thoughts about my essay, or share the pieces you yourself write from the prompts in the comments section.
The latest prompt went up today.
When I was growing up, the International Day of Women was a big deal. In grade school, the teachers lined us up according to height, boys and girls, and each boy would have to produce a “gift” for the girl opposite him. I remember one time particularly well because I lined up with the boy who was my crush that year. In the grown-up world, men brought flowers to their wives or girlfriends.
It was a BIG DEAL, but the message was mixed – women mattered, and also, women were these pretty sheltered things to whom offerings of flowers was all you needed. Have you seen much change for women in your lifetime? Tell us what you think.
Check out my Patreon page HERE
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Rebel Girls has a new video: The Ugly Truth of Children’s Books.
It is an eye-opening and very disturbing demonstration of how girls and women are portrayed in children’s books — if they are visible at all. Watch it and I’m sure you will be as appalled as I was.
Most of my books are noted for strong female characters and I itched to put some of them in the bookshelves the mother and daughter in the video are unloading. My books would have stayed on that shelf, dammit. My Worldweavers books would have, anyway, for that age group. Rebel Girls, have you met Thea Winthrop yet?
Watch the video at Rebel Girls HERE
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Quote of the Day
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‘Children of a Different Sky’: Stories of war and exile — A crowd-funded anthology from great authors. Any money collected beyond the costs of publication will be donated to help the dispossessed human tides of our era. Give what you can at the crowd-funding website HERE
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