Summer 2015 Writing Prompt #2

If you've ever gone to the post office in another country, you know it can be an adventure.  

Here's a mailbox in Warsaw, Poland. ("Poczta" means "mail.") 

For our writing prompt, we'll take ourselves to another land. 

Write about sending a letter in another country. You're homesick. You lost your phone. And you don't speak the language. You walk into the post office and….

Summer 2015 Writing Prompt #1

During the summer, Yellow Pencils likes to keep things simple.

Each week, I'll post a Summer Writing Prompt with a photo. Take your notebook and pencil to a comfy spot--under a tree, on your front steps, or to the beach. 

The photo and the prompt below it are to inspire. What is your story or poem? 

Write about three mice in a fountain.

Have fun! 

Summer Vacation!

School's almost out for the summer! 

Maybe, if you're lucky, you're already free to sleep in, head for the beach, and….write!

We can't all go to the ocean, but we can celebrate summer in our own way. And we can make writing part of that. 

What would you like to work on this summer? Finish that story? Write poems? Explore ideas in your journal? Or write from a prompt each week?

Starting next week, Yellow Pencils will post a writing prompt each week to keep our pencils moving. 

For today, I offer a tribute to the wonders of summer. What are yours? 

Remember to use all five senses. What are the sights, sounds, smells, feels, and tastes of YOUR summer? 

Summer Brings Its Joys

Sun slants through the porch

Books fill the hours 

Shade cools my skin 

Grass tickles my legs

Crows cackle in the trees

Strawberry ice cream lingers on my tongue

Low tide releases its smells

Sunglasses slide down my nose

Summer brings its joys. 

Making Up Words with Shakespeare

According to Jacqueline Morley in William Shakespeare: A Very Peculiar History, Shakespeare probably made up about 1,700 new words.

Here are some of them: assassination, courtship, outbreak, fashionable, and exposure.

And a few that didn't make it: insultment, unbuild, and exsufflicate (which means puffed up--whew, glad that one didn't catch on). 

If the greatest writer in the English language could make up new words, why can't we?

Get out a piece of paper--any old kind where you can make a big mess and scratch out words. 

Next, find a dictionary--a paper dictionary works best for this. 

Open the dictionary, stick out your finger, and randomly choose three words. I picked: 

fugleman: a leader

campus: the grounds of a school

louver: a slatted, ventilated opening

Now it's time to create our very own word. Choose one syllable from each word to create a brand new one, along with its meaning:

fugcamer: a camera that works especially well in bad weather 

puslouman: a person who works in a hospital

leloupus: a French pastry

You try! We may not be the next William Shakespeares (or maybe we are), but we can have fun adding our own words to the English language. 

Mancamlou! That's "Yellow Pencils" talk for good-bye!