Friday Fun-Day Writing Prompt: Nearest Book

Better late than never! Here’s a Friday Fun-Day writing prompt to help get your weekend rolling. It’s a variation on an oldie but a good: taking a line from the nearest book.

Here’s how this version goes:

Grab the closest book you can find. Open to a random page in the middle of the book. Take the first line of the first full paragraph on that page and the first line of the last full paragraph. These will be your opening and closing lines, in that order. Now, write a story in 700 words or less using these lines to start and end your story.

The nearest book can be anything: an encyclopedia, a biography, 1984, whatever. There are no restrictions except that the page must be random, you must use those particular lines for your first and last lines, and it must be 700 words or less. Otherwise, have fun with it.

Feel free to share the lines you got, an excerpt from the story, etc. in the comments. And if you want to suggest a writing prompt, please mention it in the comments or email me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.

Have a great weekend, wonderful writers!

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Guide to Writing Contests from The Writer

Happy Friday, everyone! Pardon the infrequency of my posts lately. Between contests, financial pursuits, my portfolio, and my end-of-year essay, I’ve been rather busy and having a hard time focusing. However, that won’t stop me from providing you with some new contest information from The Writer for Fun-Day Friday.

If you don’t have a subscription to The Writer, I highly recommend it. I’ve learned a lot about writing, publishing, and the writing market since I started reading it. Today, though, I want to point out a free feature from The Writer‘s website: their summer guide to writing contests.

The guide is a PDF with an alphabetical list of writing contests with deadlines this summer. Listings include a brief description of the contest, the contest’s website, contact information, deadlines, etc. The contests come from around the world, albeit most–if not all–are from English-speaking countries.

The Writer will send you the PDF for free, just click on the link I provided above for more information. While you’re there, sign up for their newsletter and look at some of their articles and writing prompts. It never hurts for a writer to read more!

Have a happy and productive writing weekend.

Do you have any contests to recommend? Drop a line in the comments or email me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011