Prompts
Charlotte Rains Dixon  

Inventive Writing Prompt Round-up #49

Happy Fourth of July to those of you in the United States!  I hope you have all the freedom as a writer that you desire.  Here is the latest collection of prompts from my Tumblr blog.  Have a wonderful day and be careful whatever you do!  (It is so hot here and has been for so long that it is dry, dry, dry and everyone is hoping people restrain themselves with the fireworks.) 

#337  She liked change.  She liked changing her wardrobe, rearranging her furniture, changing her job.  But most of all she like changing husbands.  However, this time ….. 

#338  Huh.  It was so puzzling.  She could have sworn she hadn’t forgotten to do that, but apparently she had.  

#339  The woman started down the path into the forest, then turned, smiled, and beckoned him to follow.

#340  What is the one thing your main character (or you) cannot live without?

#341  When the sun rose that morning and lit the landscape, it revealed what the dark of night had not showed. 

#342  In the United States, today is Independence Day.  What does freedom mean to your main character? What are the ways they are free? What are the ways they are not free? 

Are you celebrating today?  How's your writing going?

0 thoughts on “Inventive Writing Prompt Round-up #49

  1. J.D.

    I thought about going with #339 but this blog usually has a family flavor. #342 I’m celebrating. Through some alchemy I will never understand, I was born in the United States. Moses Palmer cherishes freedom, more so than I. Even so, he believes it is a complicated business. We both believe the USA is the best country in the world. Isn’t it odd, though, that the people of Italy and France feel the same about their own land? The citizens of Egypt, as bad as things have been for them since 2010, aren’t lining up in gofundme, raising money for a plane ticket. Those in England still scoff at us. Hispanics come here to work but battle to preserve their culture. There are some truly bad countries loved by no one but their rulers. All of us in the world share one thing: the universal evil of politics and politicians. The sleight of hand they have used forever–waving the flag. Happy 4th.

  2. Charlotte Dixon

    I'm with you all the way, J.D. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I sometimes get choked up singing the national anthem.  And I'm not a crazy right-wing conservative, either.  I remember years ago hearing Isabel Allende speak and she talked about how we take our freedoms for granted here.  How in so many other countries of the world it is a radical act that is life-threatening to be a writer.  So I try to remember to be grateful.  Happy Fourth!

  3. Dyoung

    The National Anthem SHOULD choke EVERY American up.

    It’s the heart and soul of what our country was founded on. Though we are strayed somewhat far from that at times now….it’s the heritage of foundation that brings us all together and keeps us remembering we share the common thread, no matter our differences today.

    (and no, I’m not crazy right OR left wing either)

  4. Charlotte Dixon

    Love this.  Thank you.

  5. Dyoung

    I remember even back in the 80’s, my grandpa would say….”I’m not sure where this country is headed- but there’s one thing for sure, we all should remember what we came from.”

    And I’m sorry- I reread my comment and it seemed a bit gruff.
    Not political. Just feelin patriotic 🙂

  6. Charlotte Dixon

    I didn't take it as gruff at all!  And I love your grandpa's comment.

  7. J.D.

    Celebrating the 4th should be straightforward but I find ways to screw it up. I don’t have a flag pole. Just raising a flag and leaving it out there bothers me. It should be raised at reveille, taken down, folded properly, and put away at dusk. I don’t fault others for displaying the flag 24/7 in their yard. It’s just that it’s in me to do it as I saw it done for six years. Because of work–that’s what I say–I haven’t raised a pole. Maybe I’ll put one up when I retire. I didn’t go to Viet Nam. I was half a mile off shore. We had a gun that would shoot five miles. We fired all night at “suspected” targets. In the day we met a tender in deeper water and loaded the magazine with another supply of ammo. That night we would fire it all. I never looked the enemy in the eye, just saw them running on the beach. They were within range of our .50 cal. machine gun but we fired it only once.
    I was no hero. I was in the Navy because it was a cowardly way to avoid the Army. My cousin was in the Marine Corps, not because he was patriotic. He said screw it, the way someone drunk crawls on a motorcycle: If I die, I die. He was half of a two-man mortar team. He shouldered the heaviest part of the mortar. Throughout his whole tour, he carried and fired it near the demilitarized zone. When we were both back home, we partied. In those times he was still foolish and drove like he served, flying down the back streets at 100 mph. He died about ten years ago at age 55 of Alzheimer’s Disease, brought on early, the doctors said, by his repeated exposure to agent orange.
    Last night, watching fireworks, I talked to a veteran who was in Nam with his Air Force unit. He said without the least bit of animosity that his brother spent five years in Canada to avoid the draft. I see people now wear their caps (And I don’t mean to offend anyone) from that era. And God bless the Marines and the Rangers who fought there. I see people like me– Then, it was hell to wear your uniform through an airport and I see them in these caps. I struggle to sort it out: my own act of cowardice and the sacrifice of others. I can’t imagine a more poorly conceived war, and Robert McNamara, however smart he was, came up with a simply stupid plan.
    So, one day per year I struggle. I don’t have the right to fault anyone’s view from that time. I’m fine now. I’ll be fine the rest of the year. I was fine yesterday.

  8. Charlotte Dixon

    Um, I'd hardly call joining the navy to avoid the army an act of cowardice.  Far from it.  My Dad was a navy man, and I always liked the idea of being on a ship.  Of course I was born in an era when barely any women joined the armed forces for any reason.  Anyway, I'd also consider being half a mile offshore as counting as being there.  You're way too hard on yourself.  You remind me of a certain fictional character I know whose initials are MP.  Anyway, those Vietnam years were crazy and weird and hard, really hard for a lot of people.  I sympathize.  Have you read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried?  It's terrific about it all.  Besides my Dad being in the navy, we've never been much of an armed forces family, like some are.  But when my son-in-law got deployed to Iraq a few years ago, I got a whole different look at it.  And a whole new respect.  I now thank service men and women in uniform and cry on planes when the pilot announces there's a serviceperson on board.  It's a huge deal to serve.  Huge.  

  9. J.D.

    Thank you.

  10. Dyoung

    Your honesty here is a brave act in of itself.

    My cousin became a sea-bee back in the late 80’s. His partying life during free time convinced him to go A-wall. My half brother did the same.

    Not sure what they thought or hoped they were getting. Something for nothing probably.

    Everyone has a circumstance and a story.

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