Prompt 38 ~ Sleep

This week's prompt is sleep.  And here are some quotes to get your imagination going...

I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.'
- Woody Allen

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?
- Ernest Hemingway

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
- Victor Hugo

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
- George Bernard Shaw

~

Ok, now go do your thing!  Poetic prose, pulsating poetry, incandescent free writing, writing in your sleep...pick your poison.

As ever, if you'd like to share, post a link to your writing in the comments below and we'll come over and read it.

Have a good week my pretties...

(Apologies for the weird font size - it's not me, it's blogger)

Prompt 37 - starting from a song

Music has a way of gnawing into our souls at times, at least it does with me, quite often. Think of your favourite songs, those lines that make you think, “wow....so few words, but really well said...” Take one such line, and use it as the first line for a poem or story. Try to be sure that your poem/story is not overly influenced by the song. Make that line your starting point, allow it to take you off in your own direction, the one that you feel inside whenever you hear that line. See where it takes you.

If you want to share what you've written, let us know.

Prompt 36 ~ Cut up a poem

Take a poem or two and print or photocopy them onto separate sheets of paper.  Cut out at least half of the words from each poem.  Then, either swap some of the words around from each poem or take words and put them together to make a new one, or two or three.

If you’d like to share what you’ve come up with, however rough or polished, post it on your blog and leave a comment below with your post's url.  At least one of us will come over and read it.  Honestly, we will.

Prompt 35 - over to you...

Okay, I'm going to be a little cheeky this time!  :)  Just a little, but here goes...

Heartful and I have been enjoying , are still enjoying, posting up prompts here... and we get excited when blogger tells us that we get several visits, and from several far-flung places too! It really does make us very happy.

Sometimes, well quite often really, we invite you visitors to write a prompt and send it to us, we could perhaps post it here one week (of course we'd say who wrote the prompt, and also link to your blog/website etc. if you so wished). As yet no-one has taken us up on the idea. That's okay, we haven't run out of ideas yet. Maybe people are shy? I guess I'd be shy. Anyhow, prompt 35 is an attempt at creating more dialogue with visitors to this blog... and if it doesn't work, then at least you might get a new writing prompt out of it...   :)

So, what's the prompt? I really don't know. 'Don't have a clue. ...You tell me (or not, if you don't want to - but you have to choose a prompt this week, all the same).

This week's prompt: write a writing prompt that you would find really interesting/challenging/fun. If you'd like to share it with us, we really would be over the moon with delight. But you don't have to (though if you did, we'd be oh-so-super-dooper-excited  ...oh, did I mention that already?).

Anyhow, write the prompt and then, ideally, do your piece of writing based on your prompt. If you are part of a writing group, then perhaps you could all write prompts, stick them in a nice big hat and choose them, all nice and random. Whatever, just play at writing prompts.

Have fun!

Prompt 34 ~ Forbidden words

In this prompt I’d like you to think about the power that words can have and where that power comes from – specifically with words that are forbidden.  These forbidden words will be different for everyone – they can range from swear words to words related to sex or sexuality, religion or even family secrets.

Are there words you were forbidden to use as a child or things you were forbidden to talk about?  How do you feel about using those words now?  Do you?  Are there words you choose not to say as an adult?  Why?

For however long you need this week, I’d like you to give yourself permission to use those words.  Write something using those words or about those words – whatever the prompt evokes for you.  Write as freely as you can – because you do not have to post this writing.

Once the piece is written, replace the forbidden words with other words, ones you consider innocuous and which are not related to the forbidden ones.  It is this version of your writing I'd like you to post (if you wish to).

Can the meaning of the forbidden words still be gleaned even though the words have been replaced?  Has the taboo been lost or strengthened?  Did it feel liberating to change the forbidden words, or scary?

How did this exercise go for you?  Tell us about it.

Respond to the prompt however you want to - freewriting, poem, story, etc.  Whatever it brings up is fine, you don't have to follow the instructions to the letter.  If you'd like to share what you've written, however rough or polished, post it on your blog and leave a comment below with your post's url.  At least one of us will come over and read it.

Thank you!