Clothes Lines (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

I’m reading Clotheslines, A Collection of Poetry and Art,  edited by Stan Tymorek, and Love, Loss, and What I Wore, written and illustrated by Ilene Beckerman—two thrift store treasures about clothes, everything from Tymorek’s own “white shirt and mud brown pants and tie” parochial school uniform made “cool” by donning white socks and penny loafers (4), to James Agee’s description of a pair of overalls “that are the map of the working man”  (56), to a very low-slung but sophisticated dress Beckerman’s grandmother bought her for a high school party that almost got Beckerman in trouble (or she thinks it was the dress, anyway) (68), to the ties she wore, a la Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn, that she tossed once Annie Hall came out and then everybody  wore them (120).

What article of clothing do you remember? Your own grade school uniform? How about the pink dress you wore to the prom, the exact same dress that two other girls wore? The bell bottoms on which you embroidered a many-rayed sun and modified to accommodate your second pregnancy? Or the suit you rented at the last minute for your cousin’s wedding and it was too tight so you stood up by the wall near the bar which is where you met your future wife who came to refill her champagne?

Or that outfit that got YOU in trouble?

YOUR TURN

Rummage around in your closet, your attic, or your memory and write a story or poem about what you find there.

***

Images and photos from the public domain

Sandstorm in Kuwait: A Soldier’s View

I offer these writing prompts for extra credit opportunities for my writing students. Here is a response to the “Writing Out the Storm” prompt that I persuaded one of my students to share. He generously agreed to do so. I believe you will find this description of a sandstorm in Kuwait, where this young soldier was stationed, a captivating, up-close-and-personal view of a climactic event few readers will ever witness. It also gives Americans a unique glimpse of some of the realities our honored servicemen and servicewomen encounter on their tours of duty. For these reasons, I decided to pull it from the comments section of the prompt post and feature it “up top,” here. Phyllis Nissila

Sandstorm

Trevor Blankenship

NASA image of dust storm in Kuwait, 2005

The barren wasteland that is the Middle East seldom offers a natural wonder that would leave one breathless. In 2006 I was a Private in the United States Army who had just arrived in Camp Buehring, Kuwait. My knowledge and experience in the Middle East was non-existent, at best. I had only heard stories of the sand storms that occur there resulting in everything from company-sized elements being stranded for hours if not days, the storms’ ability to turn day to night, to the sand blasts even wearing the paint off of vehicles. Little did I know what an incredible force those sand storms actually were.

In Other Words (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

“The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.” (Mark Twain, in a Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888).

Explore that adventure book of synonyms and nuance, the Thesaurus, for help discovering the perfect word for what’s on your mind. See how it works:

• Maybe Aunt Bethany was upset when Junior spray-painted the lawn pink. But odds are she was more fit to be tied, freaked, or furious. (synonyms found in The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus. 2^nd ed. 2001. 927-928.)
• Before Brother Partridge took up the bagpipes the Monastery was such a calm place. But tranquil and serene seem the better descriptors now for that blessed time before Brother P. began filling his every spare moment practicing the darn thing.  (synonyms found in http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/calm)

YOUR TURN

Look for words that might be snoozing inside your sentences, paragraphs, poems, or stories. See if a more apt noun, verb, adjective, or adverb will make your meaning pop.

Or start a new project with some intriguing synonym for “nervous” (distressed, edgy, uneasy) built around a plot involving, say, a mutant zombie robot (or whatever topic is trending today).

Or perhaps you’ve run out of endearments for your Ode to Odella, although she is not tired of hearing the “love” word.  Try desire, infatuation, longing, yearning, ardor, adoration.

***

Image from the public domain

Related articles

• Find synonyms fast! (cpitlibrary.wordpress.com)
• What’s a Thesaurus? (techlearning.com)

Page 78 (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

In 150 words or less, write the second paragraph from page 78 of your autobiography.

Some decisions to make:

Am I writing from the future or am I writing about the past?

Am I commenting on a relationship, a career event, a storm in Michigan, or the day my mother knocked on my bedroom door and I somehow instantly knew she had come to tell me my grandfather had died?

Is this paragraph written in type, print, cursive, crayon, lipstick, or  graffiti?

Is it stained with tears, or resonant with the kind of laughter that makes your stomach muscles ache for hours after?

Is it written in “first person” (“I,” “me”) or “third person” (“she/he,” “her/him”), or is it an aside by a supporting character in the drama of your life to date: your sister, friend, or the doctor preparing to tell you the lab results?

YOUR TURN

Turn to page 78…

Need a few starters?

I recall…

I never once imagined…

The biggest surprise of all…

So, I decided, against all odds, to…

It certainly hadn’t turned out the way I had hoped, but…

And all this time I had thought he/she really…

So this, I thought, is what they meant…

***

Image from the public domain

Write Off the Page (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

Here’s a quick and dirty prompt if you’re stuck in the middle of some writing project and good ideas have suddenly drained from your brain.

Pick up a book. Any book. Open to a page. Any page. Pick a sentence, a phrase, or some string of words and see if they can give you a fresh idea for your story, essay, poem, or journal entry.

Here are a few examples from my library. You can swipe them if you want:

“My life is not as happy as it was.” (Twain, Mark. “Extracts from Adam’s Diary.” Essay and Sketches of Mark Twain. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1995. p. 190.)

“Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair.” (from “Eve’s Diary,” Twain, see above, p. 198).

“Otherwise, why bother?” (Levitt & Dubner. Freakonomics. P. 181.)

“(Don’t) try and scrimp or it will be very hard work and you’ll end up with a sub-standard end result.” (Hanafin, Kerrie. Women’s Home DIY. P.74).

“It was wild, there, then, and it is wild there still.” (Fulghum, Robert. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. P.37.)

WARNING: SPOILER

“We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.” (James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Last page.)

YOUR TURN

Grab a book, a magazine, a scrap of a text, twitter, or Facebook entry. Or really, anything with words on it. Grocery store receipts could turn into a piece about an odd meal. And there’s always travel brochures, car repair manuals, pizza parlor sales flyers, your kid’s wall posters, or that promotional from the funeral parlor (“Dear Current Resident, We take great pride in our attention to your unique needs and preferences…”).

You’re sure to find something intriguing!

Oh: be sure to give credit where it is due and cite your sources, if/as needed.

***

Photo from the public domain

Treasures, Treasures, Everywhere! (Writing Prompt)

Driftwood (Photo credit: kempton_s)

Phyllis Nissila

A writing conference presenter shared this story.

He had so enjoyed, one night, walking on a driftwood-strewn scrap of beach along the Pacific Ocean that he returned there the next morning with his camera to photograph the numerous piles and stacks of wood flung to shore amid some recent or distant oceanic turmoil. What he found stunned him.

Someone or some ones during the night had visited the beach, too, and had fashioned numerous big and small “sculptures” of the myriad pieces of driftwood. He was amazed at both the number and the creativity of them, and shared his photos with us, some of which resembled the driftwood constructions, below, and above, from other shores and environs.

From the public domain, take a look:

YOUR TURN

Take a walk on a shore, a hillside, a sidewalk, or a backyard near you. Consider the “natural sculptures” or “enhanced” sculptures there, and let them whet your creativity with a poem, a story, an essay, or a reflection on the treasures to be found everywhere!

A Rectangle of Wool (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

In a museum in a little town near here enshrined in a glass case is the wool coat that a local woman wore on the Titanic. It bears the vestiges of age, wear—and her own hand. A piece of the faded cloth is missing where she cut out a piece for later use.

As fascinated as I am by the Titanic connection (Miss Marion Wright was so young on her way here to meet up with her fiancé, Mr. Woolcott, and to start a new life in a little town in the Pacific Northwest) I am equally fascinated by the missing rectangle of wool and the woman herself.

After the exhilaration, adventure, and shock of the last century’s most famed and celebrated sea tragedy, how did the rest of her quest go?

How was it to come to a new land to meet up, at length, with the ordinary everyday that exists everywhere? To endure perhaps even more world-class challenges when, right in the middle of raising her family, the land-tragedy of the Great Depression hit? And then, when the Second World War exploded on several fronts? This is where we find out what happened to that missing rectangle of wool.

From a newspaper story linked below featuring an interview of one of her sons, here is the rest of the story:

At one point, however (after not wanting to dwell on the Titanic tragedy), she did draw on the tragedy for strength, Bob Woolcott said. As his mother’s coat hangs now, a long rectangular piece of cloth is missing from the right front panel. When her three sons left for World War II — John served in the South Pacific in the Navy; Bob as a bombardier in the Army Air Corps in Italy; and Russ as a pilot over Germany — Marion Woolcott gave each of them a pouch made of a piece of the coat, with a New Testament tucked inside.

“I think she thought the coat had protected her once, and it would protect us then,” he said. “We all came back.”*

Let the historians and movie-goers romanticize. Here, preserved behind glass, is a prompt for a more accessible story: a real-life heroine quietly tackling myriad real-life tragedies, both great and small, and (really) living on. Like most of us. Without any Oscar-worthy background music. Sometimes re-purposing worldly treasures for other-worldly. A more essential story—hopeful and reassuring. Necessary.

And maybe for one or two viewing her old, battered wool coat through the glass, a chunk of it missing, it becomes just the right scrap of inspiration for poetry, prose, or just a good ponder of a rainy museum-going Saturday afternoon.

YOUR TURN

Rummage around a bit in your cupboards, drawers, “hope chests” (remember when girls filled those for their future homes?). Or maybe your focus lingers a moment on that single sock or torn blanket scrunched in the dirt along the side of the Interstate or that bit of old, yellowed lace folded carefully and tucked inside a moth-pitted, half-filled diary musting in the attic…

What does it remind you of? Where did it really come from? Who owned it–and the story that goes with it?

The discarded or carefully preserved bit of cloth might be just the “scrap” of inspiration you need today.

***

* http://projects.registerguard.com/web/livinglifestyles/27791726-41/titanic-woolcott-cottage-grove-ship.html.csp (Marion Wright Woolcott’s story)

Off The Wall (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

The inspiration for this prompt comes from the Renaissance (although I can’t recall the specific attribution). The writing instructor, back then, told his students, class-roomed in a centuries-old Italian edifice long showing its wear, “I want you to gaze at one of the cracks in the wall until whole civilizations emerge.” (Does somebody know who said this? Please tell. I love it.)

At the time, I was teaching creative writing in the basement of an old church showing its wear, too. (Perhaps the weight of all the sin left behind at the altar upstairs proved too much, at length, for the plaster on the ceiling basement; perhaps the Joy of the Lord in song, instrument, and dance threatened the integrity of the beams…)

At any rate, there was no lack of interesting shapes, sizes, and inspiration on the ceiling and walls of the old First Baptist for me to update the master’s instructions. Pointing to a few of my favorite stains embossing the ceiling, I told my students to let the shapes and colors spark their imagination for a story. My absolute favorite was a water mark that resembled either the typical mushroom-shaped “cloud” that emanates from an atomic bomb explosion or a newly-burst flower or fruit tree blossom.

I told them to also consider any other pattern of interest such as the grain of the veneer on a wooden door, paint-chips and all, or the metal grate covering the heat vent (and WHY was that piece in the middle broken and twisted like that?).

I call this my “off the wall” (and ceiling, and hallway, and door, etc.) writing prompt.

If you write or teach in some pristine, unmarred, thus boring, building or classroom, consider these inspirations to get you or your students started on a story, essay, poem  or writing warm-up (photos from the public domain):

What’s in YOUR “Junk Drawer”? The Plot Thickens (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

“Junk drawer”: cabinet drawer, usually in kitchen, containing assorted items tossed, “filed,” placed, shoved, squeezed inside. Typical contents might not have any relationship to purpose of kitchen. Typical contents might include but are not limited to: keys, shoe horns, crayons, lipstick, old receipts, bent bottle caps, “Hello Kitty” refrigerator magnets, reading glasses, pencils, heart-shaped erasers, magnifying glass, spare change, more keys, wrinkled photo of Uncle Bill, piece of old gum, etc.

Directions:

Remove drawer (or just contents) and place in front of writing area. Consider the possibilities:

1. What clues to the mystery are found on the old receipts?
2.  Why was Uncle Bill hiding his hand in his shirt in that photo?
3. Who put that shade of lipstick in there? You’ve NEVER worn “lollipop”.
4. If a rumpled paper bag filled with some or more of these items were all that was left in a corner of the recently vacated room on the second floor of the building on the corner of Skid and Row, the most recent abode of the primary suspect, what might you deduce about him/her?
5. What door does the rusty key with the number “205” unlock?

This is a fun prompt for student teams, too.

Options:If you don’t have a junk drawer, consider the contents of a cabinet, purse, wallet, pocket, or backpack.

Your Turn

What’s in YOUR junk drawer/cabinet/purse/pocket/backpack/wallet?!

 

Until Stella Sings: On Slow Writing (Writing Prompt)

Phyllis Nissila

I was greatly encouraged when I came across Oscar Wilde’s famous quote: “This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.” It must be the slogan for the “slow writing movement” (if there is such a thing) (and if there isn’t, there should be). It’s my slogan.

Not that I wouldn’t want to be as productive in my genre as is an acquaintance who pops out teen stories and romance novels every few weeks. But my muse “Stella” will not, it turns out, be hurried.

Stella will insist on lifting every jot and tittle to the light to make sure of its exact heft and hue. She keeps me up at night, wakes me early. But she calms me.

Just when I think I really ought to respond asap to some spin-infused, pop-think, politically-correct (or incorrect) IM, tweet, or FB post as it whizzes by because I worry the sound-byte genre might be truncating the collective mind of man, or something like that, I breathe, roll up my sleeves, fill a generous mug with steaming fresh coffee, and savor the words.

I ponder the heft, the hue, the commas.

And I don’t stop until Stella sings.

Your Turn

Annoyed or inspired by some comment whizzing past?

Breathe, fill your mug, beckon your muse (or call for mine if she’s not busy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q3fBK6LbCc).

Savor the art of slow writing.

Here are a few recent bytes that tempt me:

“Those (insert name of ethnic/religious/political group, here) are all f#@!*&g idiots!”

“I made up my mind at the age of six that the whole God thing is dumb.”

“I hate haters!”

(Breathe…)

***

Image from the public domain