Category: blogging

Weekly writing prompt challenge: Crackle

What crackles? How does it feel to touch something as it makes that noise? What is the texture of a thing that crackles? Write 100 words about crackle!

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly writing prompts challenge: Hair

Okay, a light topic after last week’s! Write 100 words about hair.

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly writing prompt challenge: Power

Okay, it’s another big concept this week. What will you come up with? I’m looking forward to finding out!

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly writing prompt challenge: Mask

A mask is a hard-working literary metaphor that can be used for a whole range of things. What will yours represent? The identity confusion a mask can cause? A face mask? The mask of a superhero? Of a nurse or doctor? Does wearing a mask stifle you? Make you feel safe? Feel like your freedom is being violated? Do you have a character whose whole persona is a mask they hide behind, perhaps with a personality disorder? Or are they hiding a deep secret, such as that they’re a killer? I can’t wait to see the range of perspectives on this one.

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly writing prompt challenge: Cheese

This week, write 100 words about cheese. Will you hone your research skills and write about an unusual cheese, or perhaps practice describing cheese? Or maybe this could be an exercise in writing stronger point-of-view. How would a vegan think of cheese, compared to a professional cheesemaker?

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly Writing Prompt Challenge: Hope

This week’s theme is hope. Write 100 words about hope. What can you come up with?

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100-word response to the challenge, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Weekly writing prompt challenge: Shine

This week’s challenge is “shine”. It could be the sunshine, or the gleam of an object in the light, perhaps the inner glow of a person with a kind soul. I leave the interpretation up to you.

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100 words in response to the prompt, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Thursday Writing Prompt: Reflection

Welcome to my new Thursday writing prompt! Today’s writing prompt is “reflection”. If you care to participate, write 100 words about a reflection. It could be literal or metaphorical.

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Write a post, including your 100 words about this week’s theme, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  2. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  3. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!

Thursday Photo Challenge is Changing.

I’ve been doing these photo challenges for six months, now, and despite the fact that I’ve been part of the photography wordpress community, I wasn’t prepared for how bitchy and cliquey people can be. So far, I’ve had to delete more than a handful of really nasty, shitty comments from people who think they’re photographers, people sending me emails telling me who do I think I am running a photo challenge, and people telling other people to avoid participating in my challenge. In six months of running the Thursday Photo Challenge I have had ONE person share their (awesome) photos with me, and that was via Twitter.

Until I started this challenge, I always thought the WordPress Photography Community was a welcoming place where anyone could participate. Obviously, I was wrong about that. Apparently you have to be approved by the right people to be allowed to do photography on WordPress these days. It wasn’t like that when I started this blog in 2014, and I never got that vibe in all the years I participated in other photo challenges on WordPress, but times they have a-changed and some shitty, bitchy people have installed themselves as gatekeepers.

With that in mind, and given that my blog started 6 years ago so I could share my travel photos with my friends and also keep a log of how I did certain things like put up curtains in my car campervan, I’m going to continue posting my photos in relevant travel articles. Since I’m also a professional author and I largely don’t care to be part of the photography community if they’re going to be fifty-something men acting like the thirteen-year-olds in Mean Girls, I’m going to change my weekly Thursday posts to writing prompts.

Let me be clear. Nothing is STOPPING me from continuing to blog, but I can blog about anything I damn please and I am not interested in the pathetic drama that the photography community is sending my way so they can all get stuffed. Perhaps bitchy comments is why the original weekly photo challenge died a death. I’m sure a fiftysomething man called Roy will be along any minute now to enlighten us all about the things us mere female mortals could never possibly understand.

Mystery: Join the Thursday Photo Challenge!

Welcome! Come and join the Thursday Photo Challenge, a weekly photography challenge for everyone who likes to take photos! Oh, wow, I can’t believe this challenge marks six months of Thursday Photo Challenge! Time flies when you’re having fun.

This week’s challenge is a mystery.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.

Neil Armstrong

What photos can you take to depict a mystery? My photo comes from Angkor Wat, Cambodia. There are few explanations for anything at the huge site as you walk around. It’s all a mystery. You can learn more about Angkor Wat at the museum in Siem Reap, though.

Here’s how to take part:

  1. Take a photo or search your files for one that represents the week’s theme.
  2. Write a post, including your photo, any words of explanation or inspiration you wish to share, and a link to this challenge page.
  3. Comment on this post with a link to your page so others can see your contribution.
  4. That’s it! Super easy.

This challenge will stay open for one week, then next Thursday, I will post the next challenge!