Writing Prompts--a new feature of this blog
This year I also want to introduce a kind of structure—which
may or may not become quasi permanent—and that is Hot Flash Friday. Not just
for post menopausal women! On Fridays I’ll send out a prompt—this prompt is not about writing only but to prod memories, disturb them from their sleep,
awaken your memory. With a hot flash it is here, then gone—but while in the
sizzle and heat of the moment, let yourself go to unfurl words. Soon you will
have a whole collection of these flashes. Perhaps enough for a flash portfolio
that might serve as building blocks to a longer piece such as a memoir, a short
story, a vignette.
Admittedly you might have to be of a certain age to
immediate latch onto the nostalgia, the history behind some of these prompts,
but all in all I believe they are universal. They all will touch a place inside
of us longing, longing for . . . .
Today’s Hot Flash Friday is: the Sunday newspaper.
Remember the Sunday newspaper, delivered to your doorstep,
tossed into the hedges and bushes or at the end of the driveway. Did you ever
have to deliver the Sunday paper?! Even a single one was of such gargantuan
weight that it never was far from your mind about dumping the mess of them into
the sewer and riding your bike back home. The advertising insert alone probably
weighed 10 pounds. Oh, but the hours and hours spent immersed in the Sunday
paper, spread out on the floor, each one diving for a section. What about the
funny papers? How many of us remember lounging around on a Sunday catching up
on the news we hadn’t had time throughout the week to absorb. Today “news” is
everywhere, but does it mean relaxing, family time, slow mornings? What does
the Sunday newspaper mean to you?
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