Life in progress

Tag Archives: writing prompt


by 95 Comments

Just Jot It January 1st – Persnickety

It’s a dilemma I deal with every time I write a blog post: do I write freely and not take hours poring over my grammar and choice of wording or do I edit my posts to death? To be persnickety or not to be persnickety? That is the question. I wonder how persnickety Shakespeare was? Then again, he probably had an editor.

Seriously, I’d love to be able to just write and release. But for the interests of my writing career, should I have a paid one one day, I demand perfection (or near perfection) from myself. After all, I never know who’s going to come looking. Perhaps someone famous or even better, someone who can get my proverbial foot in the door of the publishing industry will visit my blog. A line or two is all it takes to make an impression, and I want it to be a good one.

I know I’ve asked this question before, but it’s been at least a year so I think I’ll ask again. Who knows, maybe those who have already answered have changed their practices. Oh, the question? It’s this:

How many times, on average, do you edit a post before you hit the publish button? And how do you do your best editing – in the window you write in, or the preview? If I didn’t have the preview screen I’m sure my posts would all be a mess. What I really want to know is, how persnickety are you?

The “Persnickety” prompt is brought to you by Sirius Bizinus at his new home, An Empty Pen. Make sure you go say hi!

JJJ 2016

To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 1st post here!


by 452 Comments

Just Jot It January 2016 Rules

Here are the rules for JusJoJan:

1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back either to my daily JusJoJan post or here, to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it. To ping back, just copy the URL from this post or the daily post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and come back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section.

3. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.

4. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!

5. This year there are prompts for every day that’s neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday. You’ll find the list below. You can, but you don’t have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you.

6. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge in your post so that others can find your post more easily.

JJJ 2016

7. Have fun!

My Prompts (you can use them too)

Jan 1 – Persnickety (Sirius Bizinus)
Jan 2 – (SoCS – pause/paws)
Jan 3 – Frozen (Helen Espinosa)
Jan 4 – Dachshund (morgaine620)
Jan 5 – 2016 (Fiona)
Jan 6 – (Cloud -TanGental)
Jan 7 – Robust (summerstommy2)
Jan 8 – Honorable (Corner of Confessions)
Jan 9 – (SoCS – title)
Jan 10 – Sane (John W. Howell)
Jan 11 – Effortless (Dan Antion)
Jan 12 – Skulls (Dean)
Jan 13 – (Sacrifice – mewhoami)
Jan 14 – Motivation (Aaron)
Jan 15 – Leadership (Tessa)
Jan 16 – (SoCS – start your post with “What”)
Jan 17 – Collection (Deborah)
Jan 18 – Elegance (jetgirlcos)
Jan 19 – Climate (Joanne Corey)
Jan 20 – (Surreptitiously – KG)
Jan 21 – Mittens (Candy)
Jan 22 – Felicity (Fun Simplicity)
Jan 23 – (SoCS – odd/even)
Jan 24 – Compelled (willowdot21)
Jan 25 – Prestidigitation (quiall)
Jan 26 – Oneness (writersdream9)
Jan 27 – (Mendaciloquent – Coralee)
Jan 28 – Serendipity (jan)
Jan 29 – Ghost (ghostmmnc)
Jan 30 – (SoCS – “an” as a word or at the beginning of a word)
Jan 31 – Clumsy (Judy Martin)


by 24 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – This Is Irony

The definition of irony:

Finally getting the puppy to go to sleep so I can sleep, only to wake him up with my snoring.

CAM01236

_________________________________________________________

Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Have fun!


by 12 Comments

Just Jot It January Prompts

I still need four more single words to prompt me for the month of January. The spots for the 26th, 28th, 29th, and 31st are still open so please click here now and leave me a word. Just make sure you read the post first, so you enter your word correctly. If you get there fast, there’s a link to your blog in it!

Edit: All the spots are filled up! Thanks to everyone who contributed to my prompts. I look forward to seeing what I make of them when the time comes.

P.S. Watch for the Just Jot It January Rules Post on December 31st. It’s gonna be fun!


by 83 Comments

And Now For Something Slightly Different

Due to the overwhelming response I’ve received for Just Jot It January 2016 participation, I’ve decided to go ahead and run it. Hard to believe it’ll be starting in just a few days, isn’t it? Anyhow, I’m working out ways to make it a little easier this year for everyone to connect. This is what I’ve come up with so far:

  1. I’ll schedule every one of my posts for early in the morning so you have the option of linking to a daily post instead of the Rules Post at the start of the month. This will make the ping backs easier to find. However, if you want to schedule your posts ahead of time, you can still link to the Rules Post – when I see it, I’ll link to the daily post for you. I hope to make this new addition to the rules less confusing when the time comes, so if you don’t understand what you just read, don’t worry about it. 😛
  2. Because I’m going to be on more of a deadline (see #1), I’m going to ask for prompts from you. Yes, you. The first 22 comments on this post that include a single word will be my prompts for the 22 days in January that I won’t be writing my own prompts (aka One-Liner Wednesday and Stream of Consciousness Saturday).  If you write more than one word in your comment, for example, “My word is antidisestablishmentarianism,” I’ll ignore it. Same thing if you try to slip in two, even in two different comments. Having said that, if I get the same word twice I’ll only accept the first person who got to it. If you’re the second, feel free to try again. And please, remember this is a relatively G-rated blog, so nothing too risque. The sixteenth word will be a special one. If you can figure out why, kudos to you.
  3. I’ll link back to the blog of whoever gives me a prompt on the day I use it, so make sure you get your comment in early!
  4. I’ll be sure to post my prompt word in the title of my post each day so if you need a little prompting yourself, you’ll be able to use it too if you want.

That’s all I can think of for now. The full list of rules will go up on January 1st, so get ready!

Now all I have to do is squint, hold my breath, and hit publish on this post. Let the prompts roll in!!


by 35 Comments

SoC’S Socks – #SoCS

I had an entire laundry basket full of odd socks. Can you imagine? Only a few of them matched. And I didn’t even have a dryer for them to get sucked into oblivion into! So I threw them all out except I didn’t have any bag tags. Here where I live it costs $2.50 to throw out a bag of garbage – you have to buy tags to stick to your bags. So my garbage bag of socks was sitting around the house when I got this guy

CAM01235

Winston, sleeping on his back

and of course he found them. Two have been adopted by the pup.

So this is the first time I’ve been online (apart from a few minutes yesterday) since Thursday. And then it was only for a couple of minutes too. It’s been a crazy, mixed up Christmas this year with dinner happening (the big dinner that is) on Christmas Eve and not much sleep due to the festivities. But it’s been fun. I’m thankful for SoCS. It’s made me get on the computer long enough to say thank you… and that’s really what I want to do. Thank you to each and every one of you who have joined in, even once. I appreciate this community on WordPress more than I can express. You have kept me sane more times than I can count.

I hope everyone has had a happy holiday. Cheers to another year of SoCS!

SoCS badge 2015

Stream of Consciousness Saturday can be found here: https://lindaghill.com/2015/12/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-2615/ Join in today!!


by 41 Comments

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Dec. 26/15

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Fantastic Festivus! Cheerful Friday! Whatever you’re celebrating, it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. This week’s prompt is an idea I’ve had for a while. It’s actually appropriate, since many of us are emptying them this morning. Or at least our kids are. But when I mention the word, my family knows I’m usually talking about whatever I’m writing on the weekend.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “socks.”  Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

SoCS badge 2015

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


by 40 Comments

One-Liner Wednesday – A New Puppy!

How does one eight week old, two pound dog make it feel like I have five toddlers in the house?

Winston

Winston

_________________________________________________________

Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Have fun!


by

To Do or Not To Do Tuesday: Week 8 (sort of)

If you’re still on the fence about JusJoJan and/or you’re looking for a new weekly writing prompt, check out Deborah’s post!
Note: Click on the original post and comment there. Thanks!

Deborah's avatarContainer Chronicles

admin-ajax.phpIt has been weeks 8 since I’ve started this feature, but it’s only the 7th post because, well last week’s unwritten To or Not To Tuesday post could easily have been about whether or not to write a To or Not to Tuesday post that day, and we all know (or can easily find out) that such a post did not occur.

But hey, that’s the beauty of it. It can go either way, and last week I obviously needed a break. Everything sort of got lost in a blur of depression that I tried to largely overlook. But depression would have none of that. The good news is that the cloud lifted a bit (a few days later than I had hoped for), but that’s another story.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure what this week’s post would be other than I’ve been thinking a lot about my blog and what…

View original post 534 more words


by 55 Comments

Gotta make a decision

January is almost here, so I think it’s time to decide whether or not I’ll run “Just Jot It January” (JusJoJan) again this year. It’s been quite a success for the past two years running, so it seems a good idea to keep it going.

For those of you not familiar with it, JusJoJan is a challenge to write a blog post, whether a thousand words or just a few, every day in January. The benefit of joining in is that you can link your post to mine so more bloggers find and read yours. It’s a fun community event during which I and many other bloggers have made friends and gained followers.

So my question to you is this: are you up for it? Let’s see a show of hands!

JJJ Part 2015