Are you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? These are the basic needs of humans, teetering on a pyramid. If you don’t have the foundation … these fundamental Physiological needs of air, food, water, shelter, clothing and sleep, you can’t fully realize the next level of needs. They are required for human survival and without…
Blueberry Jam
Writing Daily Prompt – Write about blueberries. I climbed over the boulder and grabbed a mossy crevice to hang on as best I could with a plastic pail hitched over my arm. My flimsy flip-flops were no match for damp forest bed. Digging my bare toes in to the lichen and moss, I looked for…
Why I Write
Exercise 7a: Why I Write… Write a paragraph inspired by famous authors’ essays on why they write. Answer this (simple but very complex) question: Why do you write? Why do I write? I’ve been learning the building blocks of language since early childhood. I learned words, letters and sentences. I don’t recall the exact moment…
Grime
Creative Writing Exercise 6A: Setting & Detail Write a description of the place you called home when you moved out on your own perhaps for the first time—apartment, rented room, dorm, crash pad, etc. As you write your description, don’t just list off the basics. Close your eyes and find this place in your mind—feel…
Protected: Silence
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Look In The Mirror
She laughed as she read his comment, and handed the phone back to her dinner companion. “When he gets his own shit together, then he can call me a coward.” Derek* chuckled and agreed. “It’s amazing who cries the loudest. Those are the cowards who have the most to hide, don’t they?” “Really, they are!”…
Free Condoms
Daily Writing Prompt – 8 March 18 Write a conversation between two people about an inappropriate birthday gift. “Mom. Please stop.” My almost adult son facepalmed, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “You have to stop taking condoms from the Cancer Centre.” “Why? They are free?” “For you cancer patients. You don’t have to outfit a…
Beach Glass
Daily Writing Prompt – 6 Mar 18: Write a scene that involves a bear, a windmill, and a piece of beach glass. The elders had gathered our families around the fire to listen to tonight’s story. We sat, one circle of children inside another circle of adults, to stay warm. Winter’s fierce Wind still…
Protected: Hot Ride
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True Love
Daily Writing Prompt 2.20: Write about the first time you met your significant other (300 words). They say that true love hits you like a bolt of lightening out of nowhere when you least expect it. It’s magical. It transcends logic, time, and perhaps space. It’s that fleeting one instant in nine hundred sextillion others…
University of Toronto Creative Writing 1
Whoop! I have finally started my Creative Writing program at the University of Toronto. Originally, I signed up for the summer workshop, but the dates conflicted with my chemo treatments. I deferred until the winter semester and changed the course location to on-line vs the downtown campus. For homework, I have lots of reading and…
Heart of Ash
Today is Valentine’s Day, and it is also Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent. Since my family didn’t follow Lent, I am uneducated in most biblical protocol and did not know that the observance of the forty days had begun. Last night, blissfully unaware that I was serving up a Fat Tuesday dinner,…
Fox Diaries 