Sonya Elliott – Page 7 – Back on the Court

PEN TO PAPER: An Eggcellent Day

What does Easter mean to you? For me it’s about spending time with family, decorating eggs, searching for eggs and eating good food.

When I was young, we always had some pretty intense Easter egg hunts. I wasn’t always a fan, because for some reason, I could never find as many eggs as my big brother. Fortunately as we got older, the hunts became a parents vs. kids event, and let’s just say I’m surprised we didn’t find a few eggs, weeks later, by smell. My brother and I hid one egg at the bottom of the flour bin on the top shelve of a kitchen cabinet. That’s crazy.

When my kids were young we had egg hunts, but it was the decorating that got intense. A heated competition developed with our neighbors that lasted for years. My husband was always the winner, at least in his mind. The rest of us have a different recollection of the final results, but no matter the winner we always had a blast.

I know that Easter is not about egg decorating and egg hunts, that it’s a Christian holiday celebrating the belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but the egg portion of the holiday holds some eggcellent memories for me and is a great place to get some good story ideas.

WRITING PROMPT 1: Write about this Easter weekend or a past Easter that stands out in your memory.

WRITING PROMPT 2: Write about what Easter means to you.

WRITING PROMPT 3: Braden took the egg and….

PEN TO PAPER: Car Craze

Wow, cars bring up a lot of memories for me. My first car was a gigantic white Buick Electra with a 455 engine (that means fast). It was white with a black top and velvety wine colored electric seats. Man, I had some adventures in that. Then came my reddish-orange Opal Manta, I loved that little pumpkin seed. Then I started my Volkswagen run with a VW rabbit, diesel. It was a nice car but it blew a head gasket going up the steep hill just west of Spokane. Next came my first real car, meaning the first one I bought myself , my red-hot sirocco, wolfberg addition. That baby took me back and forth across the state of Washington a million times, probably a bit faster than it should have, especially since the speed limit was 55 MPH at that time. Then came the love of my life (next to Jason, the kids and our dog of course), the Blue Bomber, my 1989 VW Blue Star Vanagon, that I’ve been driving for twenty-one years now.

I could write a book about my Vanagon adventures. Oh no, don’t get me started; I’m already working on two books. Enough about my cars, now it’s time to write about yours, and I’m guessing that you have just as many stories surrounding your cars, or cars that you have dreamed about driving, so let’s get writing.

WRITING PROMPT 1: Write about your first car, or your favorite car.

WRITING PROMPT 2: Write about a car you’d like to have.

WRITING PROMPT 3: Jessie set her hands on the steering wheel of the _______ and…

PEN TO PAPER: Working Together

The focus of my basketball coaching book is how to build a strong team. How to get players to work together. This concept is so important on the basketball court but it’s also important in life. There are so many times in our lives when we rely on others and our ability to work together, so I thought it would be a perfect place to mine our thoughts for writing this week.

As usual, I will list three related prompt ideas and you can choose which calls to you, use them all or make up one of your own. The key is to simply write.

Write on!

WRITING PROMPT 1: Together we can…

WRITING PROMPT 2: Alone I can’t…

WRITING PROMPT 3: Nora called them all together and…

PEN TO PAPER: Mood & Weather

It was so nice to take in the sun this last Saturday. The Vitamin B lightened my mood. Or maybe it was watching the football game in our local park, or perhaps the chance to chat safely with a bunch of neighbors since we have all been sequestered inside of our homes most of the winter.

All I can say is, it was nice.

The weather can change your mood. Sometimes in surprising ways. I also love a rainy day as much as a sunny day (just not too many). It gives me a great excuse to hunker in. But when my husband looks out the window and sees rain, his entire body slumps down upon itself.

All of us are different.

When you’re writing, bringing in the weather can help create the mood of the scene and it can also give the reader a peak into your character’s personality.

For today’s prompts let’s delve into mood and weather.

WRITING PROMPT 1: Write about how a sunny day makes you feel, or a rainy day, or snowy day. Pick your favorite (or least favorite) weather front and write about it.

WRITING PROMPT 2: Write a season, spring, summer, winter, or fall, at the top of your page and write.

WRITING PROMPT 3: A burst of sunlight came through a crack in the door when…