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You receive a letter at your workplace from a high school classmate, who is now in prison. “I know I’ve caused you a lot of grief,” the letter says, “but there’s something I need that only you can get for me. Don’t tell anyone about this.”

Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

Want more creative writing prompts? Consider:
The Writer’s Book of Matches

You’ve agreed to give a talk at your child’s school for Career Day. Not only do you hate public speaking, you found out yesterday that you’ve been fired from your job—and you haven’t told your kid yet. Write what happens when you go to the school to present.

Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

Want more creative writing prompts? Consider:
The Writer’s Book of Matches

Needing to get something off your chest, you head to the confessional at church. After laying out your misdeed to the priest, you are given an unusual task to perform as penance—not creepy, just unusual. Write this scene. Read more

While hanging up your Christmas lights, you are flagged down by a neighborhood kid who offers to help. As he helps you, he tells you about the Christmas ghost that haunts his house. What's odd is that you've noticed the same things happening around your house. Write this scene. Read more

You've been convicted of a crime, but the judge recognizes that this is your first offense. Instead of sending you to jail, he hands down an extremely unusual punishment. What's even more unusual is, after it's over, you come back to thank him. Why? Read more

Writing prompts can be canned starts to writing, but they can also be invaluable if you have writer's block. You can take a writing prompt and get hundreds of different story ideas - depending on your mood, your personal experiences, and how you connect with the idea at the moment that you read it. You can recycle the same writing prompt over and over again, writing from different points of view, different settings, and different situations, and then you could give the writing prompt to a classroom full of 9th graders and get another 40 stories that you didn't even dream of when you were writing from the same prompt.

If you have a goal to write something very day, then writing prompts are a good way to fill in on the days when you just can't think of anything good to say.

This writing prompt comes from "The Writer's Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction" Written by the staff of Fresh Boiled Peanuts at www.freshboiledpeanuts.com. In the book's introduction, it says, "Light a match and start a fire. You work with a prompt, you start a story."

A few writing prompts to chose from:

• "Well, if you could accuse anyone of being downright evil, it would be him."
• "I just had the weirdest dream about you."
• A man aspiring to be a pro bowler loses to his young daughter
• While digging in a cereal box for the toy surprise, a child makes a grisly discovery.

More writing prompts from "The Writer's Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction"

• "Being around you people makes me feel like a genius."
• An army private learns that he has to go back to war for a second tour.
• "I . . . love you?"
• A man sneezes painfully. He looks into his handkerchief and finds something that looks like a microchip.

Pick one that speaks to you and get writing! Find more information about this book at www.freshboiledpeanuts.com

by Scott Rhoades

If you're a writer, you know how popular you are at cocktail parties because of the vast stores of knowledge in your head. You also know how much mail and e-mail you receive from people seeking enlightenment.

You also know that the above paragraph describes one of your fictional worlds.

In reality, you know all this stuff, or have read interesting information, and you wish people would ask you the right questions, so you could share your knowledge. But you're holed up in your writing room, counting paddle ball hits while you avoid writing, so nobody ever does.

One of the great influences on my own writing, a brilliant columnist for the local paper where I grew up, the late Ray Orrock (that's his picture over there), used to occasionally write columns full of answers to questions he wished people would ask. I'm going to borrow a page from his legendary act.

So here, now, are some insightful answers to questions I'll never be asked, from my mailbag that's always empty.

Dear Mr. Roach: Love your blog and read it at least a couple times a year. Here's my question. My writer's group always says my stories need more emotion, but where I come from, we hide our feelings. I'm not even sure what emotion is. Where can I learn more about emotions? --Bob, from La Verkin.

Dear Bob from La Verkin, I'm glad you asked. I recently found a web page (you do have Internet down there in La Verkin, I trust) that discusses several emotion models, and how different emotions relate to each other. Although good writers don't actually name the emotions their characters are feeling, it's good to know which emotions are available to them. http://www.deepermind.com/02clarty.htm is a good place to start.

Hey, Rotz-Dawg, I have a question por voo, see voo play. I want to write a book and I have lots of idea, but I can never seem to get started. Do you have any suggestions? -- Stan the Man from LeVan.

Dear the Man, you are not alone. Most people with an idea for a novel or story never start. But I'll assume your problem is that you're just not sure how to to start, and not that you like the idea of writing better than actually doing it. The best thing to do is just start. The beginning of your story is the part that will probably be rewritten the most, so don't let a bad beginning stop you. Just get something down, and get going. Or, you could do as the good folks at The Writer Magazine suggest in this week's writing prompt, and begin at the end.

Mr. Rhoades, This letter is to inform you of a pending law suit--

Wait. How'd that one get in here? Next.

Dear Mr. Rose, You know all, so I thought I'd ask you before I asked anybody else. What is the future of publishing? P.S. Are you related to Pete Rose? Phyillis, from Flowell.

Dear Phyllis, if I were a betting man, I'd bet that I'm not related to Pete Rose, since we don't have the same last name. I'm Rhoades, not Rose. As for your question, there's lots of hand-wringing these days about the death of publis

More writing prompts from "The Writer's Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction"

• "Hold on to something. This is gonna be wicked."
• "She's in the backroom," he told the ambulance driver.
• "Can you recommend a good book?"
• After learning to play chess during his incarceration, a rehabilitated felon sets out to join the U.S. Olympic team.

Satire on false perspective, showing all of the common mistakes artists make in perspective, by Hogarth, 1753 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People talk about attitudes every day. The subject is always revealing. This morning I came up against it yet again, but in a different way. Let me explain.

I was brushing my teeth a while ago when I heard the toilet flush. Ours is a split bath with the lavatory separate from tub and toilet. I was startled because I’d not noticed Sister moving past me, either going or coming back.

I immediately inquired if she’d done so, to which she said, “Of course!”

Color me surprised. I replied, “I must have been really focused, since I didn’t notice you walking past me.”

Her response was, “Oblivious would be a good choice of word, too.”

I’ll tell you what I told her. “I choose to take a positive stance on this one, rather than see it as negative.”

This whole exchange may sound silly, but it addresses an everyday choice we make as humans. I prefer to think of the episode as “being focused.” The opposite take is “being oblivious.” I was focused on what I was doing and what I was thinking at the time; which just happened to be what I was going to write for this blog post today.

Sister considered it as less aware. One the one hand, she’s correct. I was unaware of her presence behind me and of her proximate activity. From her perspective, what I was doing took little thought and, therefore, I should have noticed her movements.

At the same time, my perspective informs me of my concentrative ability to screen out irrelevant activity while working on the mental plane. This does not happen when I’m in unfamiliar terrain or in uncertain situations. I see it as indicative of how safe and secure I feel in my own home.

Different perspectives? Certainly. Different attitudes? Again, yes, though those attitudes are informed by expectations as well. My expectation was of safety in my home. Hers revolved around momentary awareness of my surroundings.

When we move around our world, we carry expectations, and perspectives based on them, with us and draw conclusions from those factors. Whether those conclusions are viewed as correct are, for wont of another explanation, dependent on how other individuals interpret those conclusions.

The behavior of the world’s populace is based on these factors. Until consensus of perspective arises, there can be little hope for consensus of behavior. At least, that’s how I see it.

If one small action—my brushing my teeth and not noticing someone move behind me—creates a schism between positive and negative interpretation, how much more dramatic are divisions surrounding vast actions?

Give me your thoughts on this question. How do you see perspective and its role in the daily behavior of those two-legged creatures called humans? Leave a comment below and join the discussion.

Until then, a bientot,

Claudsy

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11 Comments on Positive and Negative Perspectives, last added: 6/1/2012

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Meena Rose said, on 5/30/2012 1:44:00 PM

That was a funny episode. What I found intriguing was you validating that it was indeed your sister. Some would have accepted the assumption and moved on and as a result would not have sparked that particular schism between positive and negative.

On to the topic of alertness and obliviousness, there are so of us who by virtue of our life story remain vigilant and alert. Many times we expect everyone else to be that way. Admittedly at times, we tsk tsk the less alert people.

Obliviousness on the other hand implies that alertness to the external environment is diminished. I have noticed this word pick up negative connotations in this day and age of information. Unaware is probably a safer word to use and does not carry the same severity and expectation.

claudsy said, on 5/30/2012 2:42:00 PM

Hey there, Meena. I don’t know that I felt the need to validate who the other person was, so much as to set tone for the experience. I think of words having an undercurrent of negative/positive be the tone used when hearing them voiced. Certain vocal tones connote one or the other to me.

And yes, one’s background does influence how one perceives either perception. I think such experience is also what drives much of animosity/discontent/misunderstanding between people.

The mind’s ability to pigeon-hole emotive stimuli, as often, depends on the vocal tone one hears during conversation as it does visual impression during said conversation or presentation. What a person hears can also be emotively influenced by expectations as perspective.

Circular, don’t you think?

Meena Rose said, on 5/30/2012 3:40:00 PM

I think of it more like a spiral of escalation as anxieties rise with each lap.

What is heard via tone is key as even the nicest words can be said in the most negative way.

claudsy said, on 5/30/2012 4:00:00 PM

So very true, my friend. A compliment can turn into ugly accusation in an inflection. All reaction has the potential to spiral up or down according to personal investment and perceived situational position.

Veronica Roth said, on 5/30/2012 8:40:00 PM

I’m one to talk; today my post was about unhappiness while listening to a program all about hppiness. My partner Robert would say that I’m forever seeing the negative side. It’s true, I’ve thought about it a lot…a lot… but honestly my one bad habit is I write scripts in my mind. You know, scripts which when they don’t turn out the way my brain programmed them, results in disappointment, sadness and negativity. I can def. take a note from your book and chose to see things in a more positive way, I’m trying, but it’s me…and I don’t do this easily. The good thing is I never raise my voice and I always try to take myself away to solitude to minimise the damaging effect I have on those around me.

claudsy said, on 5/30/2012 9:09:00 PM

Veronica, there are many people who can’t quite let go of an idea, regardless of whether that idea worked for them or not. You’re not that unusual in this trait. Perhaps you need to concentrate more on the good turns that the scripts make rather than that turns were made in the first place.

For instance: you’ve got a script about a relationship that’s not working too well–that’s the crisis driving the plot. The twist comes when she realizes that the relationship has always been a bit faulty and not secured on a solid foundation. At this point the main character has to decide whether she really feels the need to “save” the relationship by dumping lots of time and effort into its salvation, or to find out what her life could be like outside the relationship.

If this is the kind of script change that drives you bonkers, you might re-evaluate the situation by realizing that Muse has given you as realistic and plausible an alternative for your story line as possible, one that might actually give you a better story in the long run. Why? Because Muse got a really strong emotional response from you–a response that can be used to fuel it to make your work into a killer script that will be snapped up in a heartbeat.

This is an example of using the positive perspective twist to encourage good things in your everyday work. Just a thought.

cloudfactor5 said, on 6/1/2012 3:33:00 AM

“When we move around our world, we carry expectations, and perspectives based on them”
“This does not happen when I’m in unfamiliar terrain or in uncertain situations.”
By isolating these two sentences that you stated, I would say to you that it is exactly when we put ourselves in unfamiliar terrain and in uncertain situations and then let go of our expectations and perspectives that we stand at the very threshold of magic where the question then becomes do you really believe what you are seeing? This then becomes the starting point where real experience is possible, just look at Carlos Castaneda’s books as a good example of this. I have been there many times in my life when I actually had to question if what I was seeing was real because I was standing in a thick fog of magic. That was the big draw of the Grateful Dead, where people could just show up at concerts, take acid, and watch the known world melt away. What was left was the magical experience of a lifetime, which is why certain Indian tribes still use peyote as a most valid way to commune with god and why these drugs are outlawed because the government would be in deep shit if millions of people woke up to realize that in fact they were god! Which is something we can never know until we leave behind the expectations and perspective’s that are brainwashing our minds daily! So now we arrive at the point of safety, play it safe and you eliminate most possibility, but to quote Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia in their amazing song “Terrapin Station” “I will not forgive you if you will not take the chance” So I say seize the day and wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world !!

claudsy said, on 6/1/2012 7:09:00 AM

Randy, it must just be me then. I’ve never gone anywhere that I recall where I haven’t had some type of expectation, even as a child. In fact, I’ve always heard people say things like “I never imagined anything like that, or I wouldn’t have guessed that this was here.” Surprise at a finding, yes, but there was an expectation, however nebulous, behind the statement; imagination came into the picture and guessing at a possible finding.

You’re very fortunate if you’ve gone anywhere during your life and experienced the wide-eyed innocence of a child within a different environment that your usual fare. I’d've loved to have done that. Perhaps my perspective comes from always having seen the world through eyes too old for my experience level. Or perhaps, it’s simply an expectation of the impossible made real that I’ve always believed in.

I can’t testify to dropping acid at a “Dead” concert, but tribal use of peyote is another matter. From my experience I know that it’s not usual for the average tribal member to use the drug indiscriminately, but rather for the medicine wielders and shaman to use it for vision clarification. I could be wrong, of course. Each tribal group is different in its practices. Peyote is powerful and does intensify one’s experience. Does it surprise and delight? Good question. For one who’s never heard of its effects, I’m sure that it does. For someone who has been briefed before hand, again expectations have arisen. The same can be said for the “Dead” concert and acid. Unless the person had been raised under a rock in someone’s north forty for all those formative years, he/she will have heard something about the affects of acid on the human brain, which returns us to the question of expectations, regardless of how nebulous they might be.

Or have I missed something here? Good discussion, Randy. Thank you.

cloudfactor5 said, on 6/1/2012 7:47:00 AM

Then you have never really gone on a true adventure. When I went to Europe the first time I didn’t even know if I would be able to find food or a place to sleep in some places, and came very close to failing in that respect, and ended up driving 6000 miles in 30 days !! Some of the greatest experiences of my life were when I just got in a car with a bunch of people with a sleeping bag and no expectations and drove !!

claudsy said, on 6/1/2012 7:54:00 AM

I’ve had my own adventures, Randy, with just picking up and going; more times than I care to think about just this minute. Yet, with all of that, I still had imaginings of what I might find along the way or at the other end. There was always an expectation of surprise or confirmation of something I’d been told before I arrived.

That was doubly true during my sister’s and my adventure of five months on the road from Dec. 2010 and May 2011. We expected certain things because of our objectives and our research. None of them panned out. That’s why I’m in the midst of writing a book about the failures that resulted and the blessings and came from those failures.

You’re fortunate, indeed, to have had such an adventure.

cloudfactor5 said, on 6/1/2012 8:29:00 AM

You know for me, the Zen of when I play music,is to empty my mind of all thoughts and considerations as much as humanly possible and see what happens.I still remember the first time I fell asleep with a guitar in my hand and when I awoke my fingers were playing something very interesting. It was the first time I ever had such a profound experience of being outside of myself looking at myself.That’s why to this day I still say my fingers are smarter than me and I do my best to keep my mind out of their way!

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Doing classroom visits with young writers is probably my favorite part of being a writer, narrowly edging out the actual writing. Kids inspire me; they give me new ideas for characters and stories; and, most importantly, they crack me up.

Plus, when it comes to doing classroom visits and giving “writing prompts” to the kids, I’ve got a head start: my first middle-grade book, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, actually has a writing prompt as a central plot element. The ogreish Social Studies teacher, Mr. Melville (spoiler alert: he has a heart of gold) assigns his seventh graders to deliver a report that solves some mystery in their lives. Our enterprising heroine, Bethesda Fielding, tackles the assignment by digging up some dirt on a particular teacher (spoiler alert: her name is in the title), and all heck breaks loose.

The problem is, the teachers who invite me to their classes wouldn’t be too happy if I assigned their students to dig up dirt on them.  Thankfully, I have an alternate prompt, one that touches on another big theme in Ms. Finkleman and its companion novel, The Mystery of the Missing Everything: Music. Long before I was a fiction writer, my early efforts at creative expression came in the form of song lyrics, written for various bands in which I played bass, beginning in middle school and extending through my college career. (One of my former bandmates, a guy named John Davis, is today the driving force behind a terrific pop band called Title Tracks).

Music has remained one of my primary wellsprings of inspiration, and I love to bring it into the classroom and see how it can inspire and excite young writers. So here’s the prompt, which never fails to generate some excited conversation and really interesting writing.

1. I give them the quote, often attributed to Elvis Costello, that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” We bat this around for a while, eventually landing on  some version of the main idea, that the sublimity of music is basically impossible to express in words, and then I deliver the punchline: “but we’re going to do it anyway!”

2. I play some tunes. I then plug my iPod into some speakers and play two pieces of music, one after the other, pointedly not revealing the titles or artists. (You should pick stuff you know and love; I usually do the fourth movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, followed by the deeply weird Tom Waits song “Kommienzuspadt.”) The students are to be either listening carefully or writing the whole time the music is playing. They write either…
a. about the music. “What instruments do you hear? how fast or slow is it?”
b. about how it makes them feel, or
c. a little story INSPIRED by the song.

3. We share.

The sharing is always the really fun part. I never tire of hearing the incredible sentences that come pouring out of young writers when they let themselves be carried away by songs:

“I hear trombones, and about a million violins, and I think someone hitting a piano with a trash can lid.”

“This song makes me feel like I’m super excited, but in a sort of sad way.”

“There’s a bunny, and she’s hopping in circles around a bonfire, and then a train comes rolling by and it’s got her a carnival on it.”

These gems cue up a long and wide-ranging conversation about the special way that music makes us feel, and also the vocabulary of writing about music, the specificity that’s required — and, hey-what-do-you-know, it turns out that that kind of specificity should be a part of all great writing. Other le

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{a sunday writing prompt. If you feel so inclined, link to your own "view from sunday" in the comments, so we can all be inspired!}

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