Tag: bloganuary

Memories

Daily writing prompt

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

Grandmother’s are magic, and my grandmother was a witch.

With her her cupboard full of paper wrapped soaps, handkerchiefs, cards, crayons, and lavender satchels, there was always something for me to look at, to touch, to explore.

Her gardens were wild. Snapdragons turned princesses and roses turned prisoners with butterfly guards and praying mantis wizards that filled my days with whimsy and laughter.

It was not the thing I was attached to the most. It was going to her house, drinking milk and eating cookies, unwrapping rose scented soap, spinning in the gardens, and closing my eyes while she told me about little girls all in a line and a little one called Madeline.

Tags bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-10, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1813

writing Writing Prompt

103

Post author By mshipstory
Post date January 8, 2024
No Comments on 103

Daily writing prompt

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

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We are, all of us, the keepers of history. Family history, personal history, even world history. Each person reading this is the primary source of their life. When others are gone, you are the one who will remember them.

But age comes with problems that surpass aches and pains. Age comes with loss: of friends, of family, of work, of self-worth.

We should value the stories of elders, but in a hyper-productive capitalist society, stories of complicated lives aren’t condensed into 7 second clips meant to hold our attention.

But I encourage you to listen.

Tags bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-08, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1811, History

Writing Prompt

Different

Daily writing prompt

What could you do differently?

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Different is a round word with sharp sounds. To say the word, I have to twist my mouth in ten directions and hope that the “t” at the end comes out soft like a purr instead of crashing in my mouth like a cymbal from a drum set.

Different is hindsight or nostalgia or wishing on cold air for a summer wind. Different implies choice. The choice to leave, the choice to save, the choice to change jobs. Different requires time. The time to work out, the time to read, the time to create.

Different is often a privilege. But it can be a mindset, too.

Different can mean present, mindset, outlook. Different can be noticing the funny way your partner breathes when they are almost asleep, or the goofy smile of a child who’s about to tell a joke.

It’s an incongruous word, at once difficult and done with ease.

Tags bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-07, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1810, Poetry

writing Writing Prompt

Billboard

Daily writing prompt

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

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Nothing and everything.

Tendrils of color in sweeping brushstrokes would reach for the sky, communing with the varied moods of sunrise or dusk or stormy weather.

I would hang art that clashed with black snaking roads and gray exhaust. Art that soothed hurried commuters rushing from home to tomb and back to home again.

Art. Paintings. Poems. Photos. The advertisements of the soul.

Tags bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-06, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1809, Poems, Poetry

Flash Fiction Poems Writing Prompt

Past

Post author By mshipstory
Post date January 5, 2024
2 Comments on Past

Daily writing prompt

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

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It’s early summer and I thumb through an old diary peppered with half faded photographs whose memories are expiring like soured milk.

With her hair curled and her dress perfectly pressed, my grandma smiles out from one of pictures. A lopsided farmhouse imposes on the background. They said I looked like her, but I don’t see it. Her neck is long and her lips full, while both those things are scrawny on me.

But her Y’s look like mine, and her heart yearns for something she can never define. It’s like we both lost something along this journey, and have spent lifetimes searching for it.

To a historian, the past informs the present and serves as a prediction for the future. For a grand-daughter, the past is carried with us. It lives in our hair and our skin, in our smiles and our longings. We are the tellers of history and keepers of memories. We prevent the flame from flickering into smoke.

Tags bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-05, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1808

Writing Prompt

Gift

Daily writing prompt

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

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Sun kissed cheeks lifted up in a smile and a reluctant chuckle burst from his chest like an evening star whose light outshines a cloud. It was a step, delicate as sea-foam and precious as memories, but it came tinged with childish whimsy and love.