Inktober52 2023: Angel

“Where you going, pretty lady?” the tallest of the trio called out. One of the others laughed, one of those full-mouth-open laughs that sounded almost like a hacking cough.  Angelica turned away from them, pressing her phone against her cheek. There was nobody on the other end, but these guys didn’t know that. Didn’t need …

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Inktober53 2023: Shadow

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure how to end this, but I'm not mad. Wisps of darkness cling to the ground where Ryker stands. His body is taunt, the muscles in his back rippling like a sail billowed with wind. “Ryker?” Wren’s voice is a whisper but it echoes over the deck of the ship. Rip’s …

Inktober52 2023: Puppet

This drabble kind of ran away from me and the focus (puppet), but I'm okay with it because it's helping me understand my characters and their world better. “Wren?” a voice piped up from beyond the tent flaps. A voice of honey and sugar and all things sweet. Eliza. With the golden curls that Wren …

Inktober52 2023: Build

My cold fingers scramble to light the match that will build this fire into a blazing inferno. Over and over, I scrape the match against the rough red of the matchbox. But again and again, the match snaps in half. Unlit. I toss away the broken pieces, adding more kindling to the growing pile of …

Sunday Snippets: Opening Line Prompt

This past week I gave my teen writers an opening line and then they had to write what happened next. Of course, I participated in the writing exercise as well and I didn't expect to go Jurassic Park on everybody, but here we are. The opening line is italicized to distinguish what I came up …

Sunday Snippets: Show vs Tell

We discussed show vs tell, briefly, during my last meeting with my teen writers. It's a tricky element of writing that is super important but hard to grasp. So I had them do a fun exercise where I gave them three phrases to pick from and then they had to write a scene that depicted …

Sunday Snippets: Dialogue Exercise

It's been a while since I shared a writing exercise. This one was paired with a mini-lesson on avoiding info dumps in writing for my teen writers at the library. Basically, I challenged them to write a scene that explains the culture // world // time // etc. a character is living in entirely through …

Sunday Snippets: Haikus

The Teen Writing Club I run at my library decided to continue with poetry for a little while. We'll be going over the more popular forms of poetry, exploring the specific structures as well as the poets that are known for writing those specific forms. And we'll also be experimenting by writing some of them …

Sunday Snippets: 5 Words

I lead a writing club for teens at my library. Almost every time we meet, I give them some kind of writing prompt to challenge them. This past week, they picked a random slip of paper with five words that they then needed to incorporate in their writing in some way. Since I usually participate …