Category Archives: Humor

A Humorous & Irreverent Look at the Elements of Writing

Plot The place to bury someone’s body in a cemetery.

Sentence What you must serve if you are convicted.

Comma What you are in if you are unconscious for some time.

Paragraphs Two charts used in a presentation to explain a trend.

Period Part of a woman’s monthly cycle.

Story One level of a building or house.

Tale Something a dog, cat, or other animal wags.

Pen A place where you keep an animal from escaping.

Essay How you evaluate the worth of a precious metal, like gold.

Novel Something unique.

Keystroke First sign of heart trouble.

Phrase What happens to children as they age.

First Person Adam.

Second Person Eve.

Third Person Cain.

Symbolism One of the techniques used by drummers.

Parentheses A disciplinary style used by Mom and Dad.

Climax You know, something that’s part of intercourse.

Conflict What happens when a prisoner escapes from jail.

Writer A person who works to correct wrongs.

Quote Marks Evidence that a vehicle went somewhere.

Hero Sandwich you order at a deli.

Composition A place to put garbage and turn it into fertilizer.

Hook What’s used to catch fish or hang something.

Memoir A piece of furniture that is usually found in a bedroom.

Writing Exercises and Prompts

By Lawrence Wilson

Whenever I experience a lack of motivation, ideas, or energy (which sometimes occurs daily), I look over my collection of exercises and prompts to help get started.

Going back to my high school typing class, I did manage to type 40 or so words a minute without looking at the keys. Using this tool as a writing exercise, I sit quietly for a few minutes and then begin to type. Eyes closed. Letting any and everything that fires through the neurons wind up on paper.

If I don’t lose my place on the keyboard, it usually ends with a jumble of words and phrases that may or may not resemble a theme. It really doesn’t matter. It’s spontaneous, gets the mind and fingers working in synch. Most of the time, it gets deleted afterward.

Another exercise is the six-word memoir. One of the more famous of these, “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” (Ernest Hemingway). My own: “Hearing the call, afraid to answer.” Or “I married up, she did not.”

Word prompts are much the same kind of mental exercise for writing. These can either be timed or have a defined word count. I try to make it to 500 words.

I have just perused through some old prompts and found some that are rather good and could be developed.

‘Pitching a Frog’, for example. I don’t even remember what the prompt was, but it has the makings of an excellent short story. Another I found, ‘The Secrete Planet’. I called it “Orangetang”, a collection of all the citrus fruit drinks the astronauts couldn’t stomach and thus, jettisoned them so NASA wouldn’t find out. All prompts do not a story make.

Others have made it into the collection of my book, ‘Catching Chickens’. ‘The Door’, ‘Friends’ (the prompt was something about seeing a man on a ledge).

There are many sources of prompts and exercises available on the Web. Here are just a couple of them.

‘The Author’s Publish Compendium of Writer’s Prompts’, http://www.authorspublish.com/writing-prompts-compendium/
Writer’s Digest Magazine has many links to prompts. In one contest, they provide the photo, and you write the first storyline. The winners are published in the next issue.
As with anything else writing, all you must do is enter the keywords, “writer prompts,” and AI will find more than you ever wanted to know.

Help! I’ve Become a Fribbler!

By Gail Blohowiak

(fribble, fribbler, fribbling,etc are real words)

I have learned to fribble. I’m a very good fribbler. Fribbling and writing are not compatible.

My pandemic life is full of useful and useless items. I try to focus on useful and productive items.

It seems that some weeks Zoom has taken up my life. I Zoom with my two writers’ groups, my two book clubs, and two friends’ groups., and a critique group. I Zoom a lot. I even Zoom Happy Hour with a group of friends.

Other times, I fribble. I fribble a lot lately too.

Fribble is those times when I go to do something productive and end up doing something unproductive.

I make it to my office and open my document files with all the good intentions of doing edits. My motivation is lax and soon I check emails and FaceBook posts. I know I should silence my phone and iPad, but I don’t. I attend each zing or new notification! It might be a video of my youngest grand doing something cute! I can’t miss this!

I get distracted by listening to the news on the radio of on the T.V. playing in the background. I get distracted by the need for coffee, water, or a potty break.

My intentions are exemplary! However, I quickly descend into fribbling away another good hour or two until a Zoom meeting begins, until it is lunchtime until someone distracts me with a lawnmower, trimmer, or garbage collection.

The mail is another distraction – I can now identify the exact time the mail carrier arrives at our mailbox and I can identify the hour the Fed Ex, or Amazon drivers drive our cul de sac. I am vigilant with these tasks. But, when it comes to editing or writing, I fribble!

I never used to be a fribbler! I was always focused on the job at hand. I spent my time engaged in productive endeavors.

Now, on the way to the kitchen for a refresh of coffee, I watch the birds at our feeder, or I count the seeds on the ground and wait for the squirrel or chipmunk to come around for cleanup duties. This isn’t a true fribble. I now call this ‘being in the moment’. It’s not. It’s fribbling!

If any of you reading this has suggestions or a foolproof cure for fribbling, please contact me via an email, text message, FB post, or Zoom Room. I still have my notifications on. I have not gone silent. I will not add this to my lists of fribbling activities. I will count it as an intervention to put me back on track to writing and editing. Please Help!

Green Bay Writers

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Category Archives: Humor

A Humorous & Irreverent Look at the Elements of Writing

Writing Exercises and Prompts

Help! I’ve Become a Fribbler!