Summer 2015 Writing Prompt #3

Have you ever dreamed of living in a tower? 

If we can't really live in a tower, we can do the next best thing. For our writing prompt this week, let your imagination roam among the bricks and turrets of this magical place. 

Set a story in this tower. Don't forget to include a hero and a villain. 

A dragon would be a nice touch, too! 

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! 

Remembering on Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day, a day we remember people in our lives who have died. We may also remember people we didn't know--people who gave up their lives for important causes.

Do you remember someone special? A grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a pet? 

A great way to remember those people or pets is to write about them. 

Here are ways to get started.

1. If you could do something with your special person or pet right now, what would it be? Describe it. I would ask my mom to make a batch of brownies with me.

2. If you had to describe your person or pet in 5 words, what would they be? My words for my cat Zoey would be funny, furry, curious, homebody, and chatty (yes, she loved to "chat"). After you write your 5 words, pick one and write more about it.

3. If you could say something to your person or pet, what would it be? I would tell my grandma that I wished I understood Polish while she was alive, so that I could talk to her.

As its name says, Memorial Day is a good day for remembering the people and animals we loved. Happy writing. 

Animal Poetry

I love poems about animals.

JooHee Yoon must too, because she has compiled a fun, innovative book of poems called Beastly Verse. 

Her bright illustrations in yellows, oranges, reds, and greens make the poems jump off the page. (Good thing the animals don't jump off--they only seem to.) 

Some of the poems are long. Some are short. Some are serious. Some are silly. Some rhyme. Some don't. All celebrate the wonderfulness that is the animal world.

Do you like to write verse about beasts? Try using one of these poems as a model:

The Friendly Hen by Arthur Waugh

Some birds lay eggs in towering trees,
And some in fens conceal them;
The hen seeks friendlier haunts than these,
Where every child can steal them.

Or if caterpillars are more your thing, here's a poem for you:

Caterpillar by Christina Rossetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly. 

Let your poem squawk like a hen or crawl like a caterpillar. Invent your own beast--a henpillar or caterhen. Whether your verse is beastly or ghastly or ghostly, have fun!