dawn.vogel | December 22, 2017
I’ve had a project keeping me busy at work recently that involves searching through abstracts for papers that were given at a conference over the past 70 years. It’s been fascinating to me as a historian in seeing what trends and themes appeared throughout the years, but it’s also intrigued my writer brain, because I […]
dawn.vogel | December 15, 2017
I know the month is already halfway over, but I just found this cool list of December writing prompts. Page Flutter calls for these to be six-word stories or poems, but you could also take these words and use them as longer story prompts. You can start with the one for today (doll maker), or […]
dawn.vogel | November 10, 2017
One of my favorite things about autumn is the leaves. I grew up in the Midwest, so for me, the colors are amazing, there’s a smell in the air from people burning leaves, and you can crunch through the ones on the sidewalk. All of these things are much less true in Seattle, but every […]
dawn.vogel | October 27, 2017
Since my last batch of spooky writing prompts had quite a few on the darker side of things, I decided to lighten it up this week with 7 Quick Halloween Writing Prompts that are designed for younger writers. This batch has plenty with a good Halloween theme, and they only need to be dark and […]
dawn.vogel | October 19, 2017
Before I moved to Seattle, I was pretty sure that archaeology was EXACTLY like it looks in the movies, all digging up ancient civilizations and running around lost temples. No, wait, maybe that’s just how Indiana Jones makes archaeology look cool in the movies. When I moved here, I started working with archaeologists, and though […]
dawn.vogel | October 13, 2017
As Halloween approaches, my mind is on spooky stories, so today, I tracked down a list of 50 Spooky Writing Prompts for this Fun for Friday! This list looks like it’s chock full of story ideas on the scarier side of things, but you could probably turn some of them around and make them less frightening […]
dawn.vogel | October 6, 2017
October seems like the perfect time to write a spooky story, and perhaps to indulge in a bit of purple prose. “It was a dark and stormy night” is from an 1830 novel, but it’s also mocked as being part of an overly melodramatic opening sentence. But sometimes, that can be fun! So take that […]
dawn.vogel | September 22, 2017
Sometimes, the thing you need to get started on a story is just the first line. This writing prompt from The Wesleyan Writing Blog is just the place to look for that sort of inspiration. They suggest using a line from the nearest book, but you may not want to use it word for word if you’re […]
dawn.vogel | September 11, 2017
My friend Nate has a Field Notes notebook obsession. He is never without at least one of them, and often has several of them between his pockets and bag. More than a couple of times, he’s grabbed one, flipped it open, said, “no, it’s not in this one,” and had to go hunting for another […]
dawn.vogel | August 18, 2017
Building off of the writing exercise I mentioned in my post on generating story ideas on Monday, here’s a fun story idea for you to take and run with. Here’s an interesting looking face, to the left–a young African boy, who looks somewhere between angry and sad to me. (You may think he’s got a different […]
