writing prompts

Five-Minute Writing Exercises

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

This week’s blog post is related to the week-long project I started on Instagram. If you’re not on Instagram or just haven’t checked it for a while, let me briefly explain.

Life has gotten busy and full, and one of the things I have let slip is my daily five-minute writing practice. (I’ve written about my five-minute writing exercises before. Here’s a link to one such post.)

Since the new school year starts on Thursday, August 14th (at least, schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District begin then, other schools in other districts may have different start dates), I thought this week would be the perfect time for me to begin doing my five-minute writing exercises again. 

Except, I needed some help, some way to be held accountable so I wouldn’t brush it off when I felt too tired or felt like I had “more important” things to do. So here’s the plan — Monday, August 11th through Friday, August 15th I am posting a reel a day on my Instagram account. In that reel, I read aloud a writing prompt — either one from Kicking in the Wall by Barbara Abercrombie or Rupi Kaur’s Writing Prompts – Self Love. 

And me, being a former teacher, decided to keep track of my progress by placing a sticker on the calendar for each day I completed my five-minute writing exercise. 

Today, I am sharing with you what I wrote in response to Tuesday’s prompt — Write about a name that creeps into your heart. The name of someone or something you love — an animal, a place, weather, a song. 

Growing up, my mom’s family called her Honey. In a family of five children, she was the only girl. They called her Honey, even into adulthood, but everything I know about my mom’s childhood doesn’t match with the way they treated her. It doesn’t seem like she was ever treated like a Honey. In the stories she tells and the memories she shares it feels as if her years at home were missing a sweetness and tenderness and love, both explicitly expressed and implicitly felt. 

My mom, now 80 years old, has always spoken fondly of her maternal grandmother. A woman who wore lots of jewelry (like me). A woman who, when visiting California from New York, would ask my mom to polish her nails for her. A woman who called my mom Honeycakes.

Honeycakes. I love that name. It sounds like a delightful dessert. Like something you eat with your fingers and when you’re done eating, you lick your fingers clean, one-by-one, because you’re trying to savor every little bit of the sweetness. It warms my heart,  knowing my mom’s grandma spent time with my mom — hugging, being affectionate, letting my mom know she was a special girl.  

After 50 years of marriage, my 79-year-old dad, still calls my mom Honey. The red heart tattoo on his right arm has the name Honey written inside. 

My mom is Honey. 

And because it’s my mom’s name, I don’t call my husband Honey. 

He’s Honeypie. 

Readers, please let me know if you’re completing these five-minute writing exercises. I’d love to cheer you on!

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.


Trying to Learn to Appreciate My Body

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

You may remember that I regularly complete five-minute writing exercises. (In case you don’t remember, you can read about it in this post.)

Recently, I pulled a random card from Rupi Kaur’s Writing Prompts. Here’s the prompt: “How can you be more appreciative of all your body is doing to keep you alive?”

It’s a powerful prompt, because, at least for me, I’m generally thinking about what my body can no longer do, and what has become increasingly difficult for my body to do, and all the ways my body has changed, and all the ways I’m not pleased with my body in its current state. 

But, stopping to appreciate the work my body does 24/7 to keep me alive? 

It had never even occurred to me before.

Maybe you need this reminder as much as I did — and still do.

This makes me think back to late December, when I was terribly sick with the flu. (I wrote about it here.)

I cried in bed, absolutely terrified that my body wasn’t strong enough to “fight” or “work through” the flu. (Both terms doctors used during Telehealth appointments.) I imagined being one of those outlier cases — someone who is hospitalized and gravely ill from the “simple” flu. I had failed to take care of my body, and now my body was failing me (even more than I felt it usually did on a regular basis).

In bed, unable to eat for several days, I realized I had been pushing myself way too hard. I wasn’t taking care of myself beyond doing the bare minimum. 

Since then, I have tried to get to bed earlier. I have tried to give myself time to do something that isn’t a chore or on a deadline or isn’t anything anyone else is expecting from me. 

Yet, I don’t do these things on a daily basis.

And if you ask me if I am appreciative of all my body does to keep me alive? I would have to say No, no I’m not.

So, what can I do to be more appreciative of all my body does to keep me alive?

For one, I can stop the negative self-talk. I would never speak to my husband or son or closest friends the way I speak to myself.

If I’m stopping that action, I can start another — I can say one complimentary thing about my body each day. And not something like “Those earrings look really pretty on me today,” but something more like, “my hands are strong enough to hang birthday decorations around the house.”

That’s what I’m working on.

How about you, my dear readers? “How can you be more appreciative of all your body is doing to keep you alive?” If you feel comfortable, please let me know in the comments.

Please note: I am including a link to buy the box of writing prompts that I mention in this post. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.


Breaking Down Walls, 5 Minutes at a Time

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Back in March (doesn’t that feel like so long ago?), I was set to begin a class offered through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. When everything shut down, my class switched from in-person to virtual. 

At the same time, we were figuring out how to best help our son with distance-learning because Los Angeles Unified schools had shut down as well. So I dropped my writing course before it began. 

Since March, I have been writing. Sometimes more than others. 

And since March, I’ve been published. Again, sometimes more than others. (You can check my Published Work page for a complete listing.)

But lately I have felt like something was missing. 

And I realized what it was – being around other writers.

Most writing classes begin with a general introduction of who you are and why you’re there, what your goal is, what you hope to accomplish by being in that particular class. My introduction doesn’t vary a whole lot. I have a pretty consistent writing practice and know how to meet deadlines. (In case you didn’t know, I’m a regular contributor at MomsLA.com.) 

I enroll in writing classes for the people. The energy that comes from surrounding yourself with other writers. Writers who are readers. Writers who read my work, and offer honest feedback, who push me with questions to go deeper and explore further. They let me know what works and what doesn’t work. 

Often, there’s a mix of workshopping and writing in class; short exercises that sometimes develop into longer pieces.

In-person classes aren’t an option right now. And while virtual classes are being offered through UCLA Extension, I haven’t enrolled in any.

But I continue to write.

As an added stimulus, I have begun re-reading Kicking in the Wall: A Year of Writing Exercises, Prompts, and Quotes to Help You Break Through Your Blocks and Reach Your Writing Goals written by Barbara Abercrombie (my favorite instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program).

If you’re a writer (and as Barbara says, “Writing is a verb. A writer is one who writes”), I recommend this book. It’s gotten me writing – not an assignment for MomsLA or to answer a submissions call I learned about on duotrope.com, but writing not knowing exactly what it may lead to.

May it help you kick in your own wall.

 

A Few Ideas to Get You Writing

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I’m a writer. Yet during this coronavirus shut-down, I don’t find myself writing much about the immediate world around me.

Instead, I’m writing about my life with an invisible disability; writing that will eventually become my memoir-in-essays.

I’m writing in response to calls for submissions.

But the bottom line is, I’m writing.

And I’m also reading.

I recently finished Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir.

Whether you’re a writer, or someone like my dad who, during this unprecedented time has begun keeping a journal for the first time in his life (he jots down a couple of sentences about each day), here are a few writing prompts from Ms. Goldberg’s book I’d like to share with you this week:

“What have you waited a long time for?”

“What do you no longer have?”

“What I can’t live without – “

“Where did you always want to go but didn’t?”

“Memoir is taking personal experience and turning it inside out. We surrender our most precious understanding, so others can feel what we felt and be enlarged. What is it you love and are willing to give to the page? It’s why we write memoir, not to immortalize but to surrender ourselves.”