Summer Writing Challenge: Day 24


Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the sanI bet you are wondering how I come up with the daily prompt for this writing challenge. Come on, it’s been keeping you up at night, hasn’t it? Well, sometimes I’ll be inspired by what is happening in the day around me.  I’m pretty sure I was having a rather wonderful day when I gave Day 11’s prompt of DELIGHTFUL.  And I probably wasn’t so happy on day 6 when I gave GRUMBLE. But most days I take a more removed, semi-scientific approach to finding a prompt.

I grab whatever reading material is closest to me (the newspaper, a book…) and open it randomly. I count down the number of full lines on the page days of the challenge (today I went down 24 lines) and count over 15 words (for 2015). Then I find the closest “promptable” word.

Some words just will not make a very good prompt. Conjunctions, for example, kinda suck as promptable material. So do pronouns and proper names. Verbs are good, as are adjectives, adverbs and some nouns.

So for today I randomly opened The Annotated Emma by Jane Austen (Annotates and Edited by David M. Shapard, published by Anchor Books) to page  142. Following the formula I get to the word “my” a pretty lame prompt. So looking around that word I’ve got “coachman” nice prompt, but kind of limited and dated and “foot-path.” Yeah, “foot-path” can take me it a couple of different ways I think I walk that way.

So today’s creative prompt is…

Foot-path

English: The foot path to Boode on the left of...

English: The foot path to Boode on the left of Buttercombe Lane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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About ritalovestowrite

Freelance writer, graphic designer, musician, foodie and Jane Austen enthusiast in Northern Baltimore County, Maryland. As a writer I enjoy both fiction and non fiction (food, travel and local interest stories.) As an advocate for the ARTS, one of my biggest passions is helping young people find a voice in all the performing arts. To that end it has been my honor to give one-on-one lessons to elementary, middle and high school students in graphic design and music. And as JANE-O I currently serve as the regional coordinator for JASNA Maryland and am working on a Regency/Federal cooking project. View all posts by ritalovestowrite

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