Drop And Give Me 20!

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My daughter's ELA class, formally known as English to us old folks, does an exercise on Thursdays called "Drop and give me 20." The teacher puts a writing prompt on board and the kids write for twenty minutes. This is my daughter's favorite part of class. She's ten going on 40, so you never know what she will come up with.  She loves to write and draw. I can see great things in her future.

When I was in high school I took a creative writing class, and we did the same thing, We had writing prompts. I always came up with some totally off the wall stories for my assignments. We were assigned a picnic scene, I wrote about ants. We were to write about a dark room. I wrote a ghost story with a twist. I couldn't write a normal story. My teacher loved them.

So, fast forward to my wonderful writing group. We had a writing prompt for an assignment. We were to post a picture and each member of the group was to choose one, write 500 words, and send it out for critique. We would meet Saturday and discuss our work. This was my picture.

Courtesy Flickr Adam Ross 

My five hundred words turned into three thousand. It would have been more, 

but it was getting longer that I had intended, and I needed to finish.  I apologized to my group for being so wordy, but I was told not to apologize. When the muse hits you gotta run with it. The story went over well. Everyone loved it, but the most important thing is that I loved writing it. It was so much fun.

Writing prompts are about stretching your imagination outside your comfort zone to see what you can do. Sometimes it's a bunch of crap, but most of the time something wonderful will come come out. 

My group is encouraging me to publish the peep story. It's a detective story, with the main character being named Phillipa Marlowmellow. I may just do that. We'll see. 

I encourage everyone to do writing prompts. Stretch yourself. See what happens. You will have a lot of fun. Now, drop and give me 20!