This Week’s Prompts*

1. With each plink, plink, plink, coins accumlated in the bottom of the tin.

2. "Light fabrics," she typed, "vivid prints and...unconscionably bad fashion."

3. In retrospect, the biggest mistake made was probably that Helmsley was trusted at all.

4. Some flowers bloom the same anywhere, but hydrangeas change their shade to let you know exactly what they think about where they've been planted.

5. Describe a library that doesn't lend books, and instead lends something very unexpected.

6. Cheering abrubtly fell to a whisper as the grandstand saw just what was under the dogpile.

7. Tiny gold strands spilled from a hole in the bottom of his totebag, as if molten gold had begun leaking out and suddenly solidified into links and chains.

*How to Use These Prompts: The italicized prompts let you create your writing entirely from scratch; the non-italicized prompts are intended as your first line and jumping off point. But, at the same time, there are no rules. Write on!

Book(s) We’re Reading This Week

Wreck by Catherine Newman
This is Newman’s second book chronicling this family (though you don’t have to have read the first) and it reads like a memoir. The main character, Rocky, is navigating middle age, caring for her adult children and her widowed father, mysterious health issues, and a local accident that’s hitting her hard. For such heavy issues, it’s almost breezily readable and definitely a good one for a weekend read or a bookclub pick.

_{Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon}

Top (Published) First Line of the Week

The parties at the Tuñóns’ house always ended unquestionably late, and since the hosts enjoyed costume parties in particular, it was not unusual to see Chinas Poblanas with folkloric skirts and ribbons in their hair arrive in the company of a harlequin or a cowboy.

From Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garca

_{Grab it on Bookshop.org (and support local bookstores!)
Grab it on Amazon}

P.S.

Writers, as a group, are concerned about AI but copywriters (marketing and advertising writers) might be most so. The good news? It’s not a tool that’s going to take their jobs; it’s a tool that’s going to enhance them. Here’s a podcast episode about why AI just can’t do what real people can.