Your Year in Reading: 2020
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Discussion questions: Have you hit your 2020 reading goals, if you made any? Did you read anything that moved you? Do you have any titles you want to recommend to me and your fellow WriteByNighters? Let me know below.
2020: Your Writing Life, Your Goals, and Your Best Passage
Discussion questions: How has this wild year of politics, pandemic, and protest altered your writing and reading life? What have been your biggest challenges? Your biggest successes? With two months left in the year, are you on pace to achieve your 2020 literary goals? Let’s talk about it in the comments. And while you’re there, care to share with us the best passage you’ve written in 2020? read more
Prompt: Write About a Scare
Discussion questions: Write about a scare. What has been the scariest moment of your life? Have you ever had a near-death or near near-death experience? A medical scare? A particularly creepy visit to a haunted house? What’s the scariest piece of literature you’ve ever read? The scariest thing you’ve seen on a screen? Go to the comments to share your scariest moments. read more
“Stay Connected to That Part of Yourself”: Q&A With M.E. Solomon
Discussion questions: What’s the oldest writing project you consider to still be in-progress? What makes a “real” writer? When it comes to feedback, what’s more important, quantity or quality? What do you do to “stay connected” to the writer within you on days you can’t work on your project, or can’t write at all? Random, I know, but it’ll make sense soon. Answer as many as you’d like in the comments.
Prompt: Write About a Scent
Discussion questions: Write about a scent. Something from your past that triggers a memory and the feelings/thoughts/images it summons. What do you smell right now? What is your favorite smell? In what ways do you use scent in your fiction? Your nonfiction? read more
Prompt: Write About Your First Job
Discussion questions: Has your work life ever colored your fiction? If so, in what way(s)? Have you ever written nonfiction about your work? I’d also like to learn about your first job and what it taught you.
You & Your Character: Who Holds the Reins?
Discussion questions: Do you sometimes look at your characters as entities outside of your control, or do your characters never do or say anything you haven’t given strict permission for? Do you control your characters, do your characters control you, or do you and your characters operate together? read more
Group Writing Exercise: “Oh Girl”
Discussion questions: This week we’re going to try something new, a cumulative group writing exercise that could be super fun and/or super chaotic. Together you all are going to write a story, or hopefully several stories, that begin with a line I wrote and end with a line I wrote — and everything in the middle comes from you. read more
Prompt: Write About a Scar
Discussion questions: Write about a scar. Internal or external, real or fictitious, literal or figurative. read more
Micro Fiction Contest: “What Happened in 2020?”
Discussion questions: Using fifty words or fewer, write a short story or scene that answers the question, “Grandma/Grandpa/Whoever, can you tell me that story again about what happened in 2020?” Write or paste your story (or stories — enter as many times as you wish!) into the comments.
Recommended Reading
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- Tonight at the Texas Book Festival Lit Crawl, the winner and finalists of the Texas Observer's short story contest… https://t.co/w4F8GM2XJR
- This week’s Texas Observer contest finalist is “Oblivious” by Rudy Ruiz (@Rudy_Ruiz_7), who does a hell of a job ta… https://t.co/f1h53csUDJ
- RT @TexasObserver: .@thedutchsimmons’ "Solitary," a finalist in the Texas Observer story contest, recounts the thoughts of a character stuc…