*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1370: Wednesday 18th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: match, picture, frame, because, noble,
- Random: mix today’s prompts
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Not looking for love…
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1374: Wednesday 18th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1369: Tuesday 17th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: strange, fresh, request, thirteen, keys
- Random: is it good or bad?
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Master of the City
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1373: Tuesday 17th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1368: Monday 16th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: strike, doze, tonic, needs, dog
- Random: pick an item from today’s / the weekend’s news
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: first-person poem about finding a purpose
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1372: Monday 16th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Hello everyone. Last month I received 23 entries from 15 authors. One story was disqualified for being sent a month too early. It also means it can’t be resent in April (it’s in the rules) but is then free to be sent elsewhere. Some were heavily influenced by the theme (superstitious), others less so but there was, as always, an entertaining and impressive mix of tales.
The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way), or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly).
You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).
A new recent feature… there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.
*The theme for April is ‘a children’s story’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Monday 30th April.
So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.
*
First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18): justin rulton with ‘Mini Winnie’
‘Eating unshapely food means your baby will be ugly,’ Steph said with a grin.
Rachel examined what was left of the punnet of strawberries she’d been guzzling for the last fifteen minutes, picking up pieces of the fruit and grimacing at their uneven contours. ’That’s just old superstitious rubbish,’ she replied, laughing it off.
Three months later she was blessed with a baby boy, a small pink thing that looked a great deal like Winston Churchill chewing a nettle.
‘Isn’t he adorable?’ she asked her friend.
Steph took a bite from the smoothest, roundest of apples, pretending not to hear.
*
Second place (winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14): Barbara Young with ‘Animal Magic’
Steve glances at his cards. “Raise.”
He throws two bedraggled magpies onto the table.
Dave smiles. “And again.” A rabbit’s foot lands with a dull thud next to the birds.
“I’ll see you,” says Steve.
He tosses a scrawny black cat into the pot; it arches its back and hisses at the magpies.
I can no longer contain my outrage: “I represent the League Against Luck Games. You will be detained indefinitely. These innocent talismans will be rehabilitated and returned to their natural environments.”
I glance at the blood oozing from the rabbit’s foot.
I swallow. “Well, most of them.”
*
Third place (winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):Amanda Hard with ‘Step on a Line, Instead’
It happened as they always said it would: his foot, his fault. While his mother recovers from surgery, he is especially careful with the salt, avoids all color of cats (just to be safe), doesn’t wish on stars or clovers, nor plucks petals from daisies — he already knows she loves him, despite the incident with the crack.
When she calls, he waits three rings before answering.
Her tired and lonely voice implores him to visit, but he makes the busy excuse.
He has no car, no bicycle, and there are too many cracks on the road to risk another trip.
*
Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitions course worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:
- D J Shine with ‘Lucky Blond’
- Andre N. Lepine with ‘Modern Bathory’
- Liz Smythe with ‘Mr Frigg’s Superstitions’
- Christina with ‘Paraskevidekatriaphobia’
- Jennie Gardner with ‘These Eaves’
*
Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:
- Angela Greenwood with ‘Step On A Crack’
- Ishika with ‘The Church of Luck’
- Jane Broughton with ‘When Good Luck Goes Bad’
- Sebastian with ‘Aunt Sadie’
- Valerie Griffin with ‘Shopping With Gran’
*
Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.
If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.
Tags: Barbara Young, creative writing, drabble, Ernest Hemmingway, flash fiction, Flash Fiction Fridays, free 100-word competition, free competition, free copy editing, free copyediting, free editing, free short stories, free writing competition, Jane Broughton, Jennie Gardner, Justin Rulton, literature, Liz Smythe, micro fiction, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, novelist, short stories, short story, story author, story authors, twitter fiction, Valerie Griffin, writer, writing, writing advice, writing tips
*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1367: Friday 13th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: three, losing, both, out, candles
- Random: holding out her hand
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: partner
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1371: Friday 13th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1366: Thursday 12th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: brown, better, things, bread, Albania
- Random: a year or two older
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: An Albania holiday
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1370: Thursday 12th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
*** If you enjoy these prompts, or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript, do take a look at my seven online courses… five currently half price and and two FREE! (coupon codes on the online courses page) and / or my Writer’s Block Workbooks… my best-selling eBooks – now available in eBook and paperback format!
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs. As you’ll see by the heading numbers, you may have missed a few but the links are listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there. So here are your poetry and short story exercises…
Poetry Writing Exercises 1365: Wednesday 11th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts, do take a look at my online courses… six are currently half price (when using the coupon codes on my main blog’s online courses page) and another is FREE!
Time yourself for 15 minutes per exercise, having a break in between each one or move on to the next. When you’ve finished, do pop over to this blog’s Facebook Group and let everyone know how you got on.
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
- Keywords: relative, unwanted, bad, good, empty
- Random: mix today’s prompts
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Digging a hole…
Have fun, and if you would like to, do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on! Remember though that it counts as being published so don’t post anything that you would want to submit elsewhere (where they require unpublished material).
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Story Writing Exercises 1369: Wednesday 11th Apr
Here are your four story exercises for today. If you enjoy these prompts (or are looking to improve your writing or submit a manuscript), do take a look at my online courses… five are currently half price and the other two are FREE (when using coupon codes)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, creative writing courses, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, online courses, online creative writing courses, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Below are the four – you can do them in any order.
