The Great Gatsby: Write Now, Write this Summer on the Gold Coast. Writing Prompt #71

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Oklahoma farm, NYC tenement, Gulf Coast fishermen, where were your ancestors in the 1920′s when Gatsby held his parties on the Gold Coast? Would you have been invited? Would you have been serving drinks? Was your family in another part of the world?

Glen Cove Mansion – home of this summer’s writing retreat

I imagine I would have been serving Martinis on a little black tray that matched my apron back then. Or maybe, by some miracle, I would have made the guest list.

Here on Long Island’s “Gold Coast,” the North Shore, Gatsby is very much alive and on camera. We refer to towns as East Egg, hike the rocky beaches, and visit Teddy Roosevelt’s taxidermy specimens at Sagamore Hill.

And at night, parties happen. They still happen. There are places to make it happen.

One of my favorite places for parties and writing is on the grounds of the Glen Cove Mansion. I pretend I live there.

This summer, I will live there with a small group of writers. Will you be one of them?

I don’t like to promote my own projects, but I’m really excited to share this amazing opportunity! My friend and Literary Agent, Linda Epstein, and I will be hosting the  “2013 Writing and Yoga Retreat.” Here’s the deal: Our retreat will be filled with guided inspiration to explore your work in progress, workshops to delve deeper into your writing, delicious food, and the company of other writers who are serious about their writing. There will also be dinner and conversation with some of the publishing industry’s top experts, and the opportunity to participate in twice daily yoga instruction.

Come, write with us – Gatsby style. But hurry, we have a limited number of spots so apply now!

Now, back to our prompts. You may want to have a copy of Gatsby on your desk. Enjoy & keep writing!

WRITING PROMPT # 71:

  • Assuming you were not alive in the 1920′s, imagine where you would be. Look to your ancestors or imagine an American persona. Write a poem or essay that recalls something from the time before the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Pluck from the Harlem Renaissance, Woman’s Suffrage Movement or “Golden Age”. 
  • Let one of your characters read “The Great Gatsby” (or any other novel) and then write down his or her thoughts about the characters and themes that weave through the book. Get into the head of your character by seeing how they read the world. How would he or she feel about Gatsby?  Outraged at the excess? In love with the excess? A little bit of both? Do you and your character react the same? Write the conversation down. What did you learn about your character?

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED WRITING:

Thank you for visiting. I consider each click an honor.

The Desk Shrine: Still Life with Writing Prompt

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desk shrineCalendar, the flowerpot my daughter made in elementary school, post-it pad with library logo, yellow calcite paperweight, Langston Hughes PSA postcard, files beside my desk. Each item is carefully arranged. Each reminds me of the work I have done and the work yet to be done. They remind me who I support and who supports me. They remind me that I’m not alone.

Yesterday, before my students arrived, I flipped to Monday and read from my Louise Hay calendar, “I truly believe that we are here to bless and prosper each other. I reflect this belief in my daily interactions.” Who cheered you on to get you where you are? Who prospers from your help?

WRITING PROMPT #69

  • Make a still-life with words.Describe a desk, table, dresser or coffee table that belongs to a character in a story you are writing. Do the objects want to feed each other in a poem instead? How does a photo of Langston Hughes connect with a flower pot painted by a child?
  • Journal Questions: What have you done to nurture yourself lately? What does your writer-self need to create? Where can you be of service?

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED WRITING:

  • Share your still life. Post your writing here!

Thank you for visiting. I consider each click an honor.

Celebrating Earth Day with a Cicada Shell: Writing Prompt # 68

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It rained most days that week two summers ago, but since we were poets, the weather was perfect. On the first morning of a five-day workshop at Omega with Marie Howe, we were asked to go outside and really notice. Our job was to slow down, stop, zoom our lenses then write. (I’m paraphrasing)

I walked toward the lake. Ran toward the lake. Lakes, I reasoned, are good for poets too.

I don’t know if I was really aware of my pace, but when I tripped and fell, I flew pretty far.  It was the top root of an oak that at first glance resembled an old man’s knobby knee.

I heard someone say, “What’s the rush?”

No rush. I’m going to dust off and head on back toward the footbridge. See you later, lake.

That’s when I saw him stuck to tree bark: a bug with eyes as large as its head, mouth open wide. His arms and legs clawed the tree in mid-action, like a rock-climber but there was no action, he was a shell – the most animated exoskeleton I had ever seen.

What was he trying to tell me?

© Troy Bartlett – http://naturecloseups.com/usage

WRITING PROMPT #68

  • Welcome spring, the season of  Earth Day. Get outside and have a conversation. Don’t make a mess and don’t let the city speak for you – talk to bugs and shelled exoskeletons. Where are they going next?  How does it feel to be left behind?  Listen carefully for an answer. Then write from the voice of an animal, bug or HUMAN who has shed his or her skin, left it to rot, and walked away. Use National Geographic for more behavioral insight and visual inspiration: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/cicada
  • Journal Question: What are you shedding right now? What do you want to leave behind?

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED WRITING:

-       Come see Marie Howe read at Queens College tomorrow night! PSA New Salon in Queens, Queens College Library at 6:30 pm.  Click here for more info.

-       Check out Troy Bartlett’s nature photos. I just discovered his site while search for cicadas. Thank you, Troy, for the picture.

-     If you enjoy these free prompts, apply to my Writing and Yoga Retreat running this summer July 25-28th!  Follow me on Facebook, visit www.stefanielipsey.com or Writing Yoga®  to find events and share ideas.

Thank you for visiting. I consider each click an honor.

 

Finding Ease, Again: A Writing Prompt

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“They hit you where you feel at ease so you won’t feel at ease, ever.” - Chris Matthews

Another national tragedy and our hearts go out to victims and their families. Ripples of people: the Sandy Hook families for whom the marathon was dedicated to, the ones on the sidelines, runners stopped by bombs and runners stopped by the sound of bombs. London announcer on the BBC explains the sequence on 1010 Wins, our NY news station, and for a minute we flash to the Tube, the underground, the tube of television sets long buried in landfills.

Where are we? What is this world? I’m taking my notebook and dog for a walk, visiting the sea.

morgan park glen cove

Morgan Park, Glen Cove, NY, April 15, 2013

WRITING PROMPT: When something awful happens, our mind connects the dots. Memory sinks from a choked up throat to tightened chest, to swirl in the stomach and aches through ground. Describe how a time of sadness feels in words without ever writing what happened or why. Write from a place of ease.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

Sending thoughts of ease and healing to Boston –

True Story: me, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Brad Pitt and a Parking Lot (a Writing Prompt)

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Which is the true sign? Which is the “True Story”?

Are you walking Palisades Park, a movie set, or a beach with a sideways view of the Bronx?

palasades park sign A week after crying goodbye to palm trees and raw foods in Santa Monica, I find that James Franco and Jonah Hill have followed me home. Brad Pitt too.

No, they didn’t actually follow me, but funny that two days after returning home from LA, a film crew takes over the town on Long Island where I work.

What were the signs? Four big white trucks with cameras strapped to the roof?  A crew turning into the beach parking lot? Security guards not letting me eat my lunch on the beach?

No, this was it: someone actually changed the sign to read, “City of Newport Beach.”  At least three signs in town were swapped in the middle of the night. Your mind is tricked for a moment. But here’s the big secret: we’re not in Newport Beach.

bayville sign: newport

I don’t think Brad Pitt will care that I tell you this. There are no secrets in movies.  Four huge trucks meant it wasn’t indie or documentary, but a trail from last week’s trip to LA. Like the stars you don’t see walking on a street in Hollywood or Beverly Hills, you ignore shiny rental cars parked in front of the local amusement park and deli.

The film, “True Story”, tells the story of an Oregon man who murdered his family (based upon a book by Michael Finkel). It’s a case of stolen identity. What were the signs for that?

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • What happens when one part of your life crashes into another? You think you are seeing things. You think you are going slightly insane. Write a poem, story or essay where signs point to everything but what is physically written right in front of you or your speaker’s eyes.
  • If you live in NYC or LA movie filmings are a fact of life. Don’t think you’re safe if you live anywhere in between the coasts. No part of the country is exempt, because quaint little towns and smaller cities get invaded by big white trucks too. What would you do if you ran into Brad Pitt at the local deli? Write a scene with your favorite movie star. Ignore him (or her) or not.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

Thank you so much for stopping by, writers, poets and star stalkers. I consider each click an honor. See you on the beach!

The Storyteller and the Poet: a St. Patrick’s Day Writing Prompt (revisited 2013)

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Ireland on busImagine you’re traveling by bus along a beautiful road, just a short distance from Dublin, Ireland. The driver stops, let’s small creatures pass by. He gets off the bus as if to see which realm they are from. You decide to get off the bus too.

You walk for miles. You aren’t tired. You’re not thirsty, hungry, wet, or cold. A river’s walk takes you to places greener than all places you have even been to before and finally, you reach the home of the storyteller.

Is the storyteller there?

Yes, he has just finished outsmarting a giant and is now having a cup of tea to relax. Please sit, he says. So you do. The storyteller works in an office in the city now,  but he used to travel from house to house where he would be fed and put up for the night. Luckily, his investment in stories has paid off nicely.

How did he do it? Well, it was just one story that changed his life because it is always just one story. You lean in closer. He sips on his tea. You sip on yours.

The story was told one way when he was young, but then, like the river, it changed over time. Even the master storyteller never tells it the same way twice.

But, still, you must hear how that story sounded on the day it was born, if he could just tell it right now, you would leave and never ask another question! Luck is with you today, the storyteller says….

WRITING PROMPTS:

  • I tell my students that on March 17th, they all get to be Irish. This week, you get to be Irish too, but since you are a storyteller, please take the whole week to enjoy your temporary identity (should you choose to accept the challenge). Read myths and poems old and new. Let your imagination go until, just like a true weaver of tales from any culture or tradition, you are fully convinced every single word is true.
  • Listen to some Irish folk music while you write. It’s easy to find on Youtube, but support the musicians by purchasing a song that you really like. It’s okay if you get up and dance with the a few of the leprechauns outside the door – just as long as you make it back to your desk.

WHEN YOU FINISH WRITING:

  • Were you one of the 11,000 writers by my side at AWP in Boston a few days ago? Did you hear the keynote speaker, Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney?  In his conversation with Rosanna Warren and poet Derek Walcott the narrative turned to traditions, family, and politics in Irish writing. He spoke of his admiration for the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. Read Heaney’s work for pleasure, mastery, and story.
  • Spend some more time with the stories, myths, music, poems and artwork of Ireland or any culture outside your own. Get immersed. And if like me, you do have some Irish blood, read and write on this theme beyond the 17th. Who are your favorite Irish poets?  I have had the pleasure of seeing Eavan Boland and Paul Muldoon  live. Of course, there’s W.B. Yeats  and James Joyce living in the Irish poets’ collective unconscious.

Thank you so much for stopping by, storytellers. I consider each click an honor.

If You’re in a Bad Mood, Please Don’t Share Your Crap: a Writing Prompt

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Is it ego that makes people cranky? Life changes? Bad Marriages? I want to believe that the crankiest of us all have good reason to lash out at others on a regular basis. In fiction they always do, but in life – what gives?

I had the misfortune of being used as a verbal punching bag today.  I know it was nothing I did wrong. It was a reaction to a conversation about a project that the “lasher” and I are working on together. Before approaching her, I ran through my mind several options of how to say what needed to be said.  I thought of three possible ways to begin the conversation and opted for the most benign. It didn’t matter; I got yelled at anyway.

I wonder when she decided it is acceptable to say whatever is on mind in an aggressive and obnoxious manner? Sadly, she wasn’t always like this but now her reputation precedes her.

After taking a deep cleansing breath and handling the confrontation with as much love and light as possible, I got angry too. I walked away, but couldn’t shake the negative cloud.

Anger is a writer’s gift, I decided. It’s fire. It’s fuel. It moves forward. It makes the pen do crazy things. It’s hard to go around spreading love & light and then write something that doesn’t sound like a fat marshmallow.

Are you ready to purge a little anger and frustration? Good. This one’s for you. Please drink a lot of water. This stuff’s toxic.

WRITING PROMPT # 64

  • What makes someone become so bitter?  Write a persona poem or short story from the point of view of someone who really hates life, but has every reason not to. How do you create sympathy for such a character?
  • Take a page from Louise Hay’s playbook. Hay is a writer and healer in her 80’s who looks incredible and has more energy than most quarter centenarians have. She preaches the practice of daily affirmations that many people find corny to say aloud, but man, do they  work. “Life loves me,” is my favorite. Write a list of the reasons why “life loves you.”  Go ahead, brag about your greatness because no one is looking.  Choose one quality from your list and write a dialogue with someone who is trying to knock you down. You are now not you, but a character and for the sake of poetry, and ONLY for the sake of art, the hater wins.
Louise Hay signing books with lightbeams, Feb. 2013

Louise Hay signing books with lightbeams, NYC, Feb. 2013

 

WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED WRITING:

Thank you for reading and keep writing!