December 2015 Writing Prompts, New Book, Goodreads Giveaway

I hope that those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving last week had a wonderful time with family and friends and are enjoying your leftovers. If you were part of NaNoWriMo, I hope that you made your word count goals, and if not, made progress on your project that will carry on to completion soon.

My NaNo plans were prompted by a workshop that I was to be running at the local library. Sadly, participation was too low and the workshop was cancelled. Since my motivation for NaNo (wrapped entirely around working with and encouraging a group of young writers for a month) fell through, and so did my “novel.” Instead, I finished the project closest to my heart, A Journal for Teen Writers.

51fSKVUK2lL._SX385_BO1,204,203,200_The journal is filled with blank writing pages, encouraging quotes from writers, brainstorming pages, coloring and doodling pages, and 50 new writing prompts. I’m very happy with it, and especially happy that it’s been #1 in it’s category of new releases for the past week at Amazon.com. It might have been there longer, but the first day I looked at it was last Tuesday. Take a peek here. My next challenge is creating journals for genre writers. I’ve started working on one for mystery writers, but until a freelance contract and my teaching semester are done, that one is going to be on hold until the new year.

My anthology of short stories for boys, written with my co-author Jean Mills, is part of a Goodreads giveaway until December 8th. Drop by Goodreads to enter to win an autographed copy.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Dude! by Heather Wright

Hope you have a wonderful month ahead. If you have time among the holiday prep to do any writing, I hope these writing prompts give you the inspiration you need.

Use one, some, or all of these words in a story or poem:

  • music, jar, creature, forest, wise, fear
  • jump, stress, sunshine, shadow, left, wind
  • sun, photograph, last, shine, memory, river
  • rhythm, race, share, joy, defeat, call

Here are some opening sentences for you to try:

  • Stop! I can’t keep up.
  • Today Carol’s hair was blue.
  • I’d only been here ten minutes, and already I wanted to leave.
  • When I asked Henry what was new, I inwardly prayed for some positive news.
  • Where did that map come from?
  • I fell through a wall that wasn’t there.
  • I’m an astronomer. I know the skies and night–but not tonight.
  • It’s 7:15 and Henry is never late.

See if one of these titles inspires a story:
The Winder, King’s Ransom, The Fan, Bookworm, Mountain Mystic, The Club, The Story of Two Dreams, When One Door Closes, The Cats and I, Race, Tornado

See what scenes you can create from these lines of dialogue:

I’m so proud.
Of what?
Resisting the urge to scream at you right now.

Whose dog is that?
What dog?
That one.
Oh.

You don’t believe in dragons, do you?
No. Why?
I think I’ve found a way to change your mind.

Have you seen Helen’s new boyfriend?
No.
Well, neither has anyone else.

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