History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: The Big Pink Book of Prompts, Flags and Leaves

| June 19, 2026

So this prompt page wound up with me writing a lot of tiny notes, and it’s kind of a mess, honestly. Instead of trying to transcribe it, I’ll summarize what I’ve got. First off, I identified the flags as papel picado, because I hadn’t known their actual name before. They’re connected to the Day of […]

The Big Pink Book Prompt 5: Flags and Leaves

| June 15, 2026

The next prompt in the Big Pink Book is another page with loads of room for writing. It has a small round sticker at top left that says “Here” (glittery yellow with purple text), a string of black and gold papel picado (perforated paper flags often seen at Day of the Dead events), and a […]

Fun for Friday: The Big Pink Book of Prompts, Magical Books

| June 12, 2026

On Monday, I shared the blank version of this page, and today, you get to see what I did with it! Here’s what my notes say: Hymnal of Transformation (with an arrow pointing to the books) music as magic = lyramancy RyA theme -> predicament what if you have to finish a hymn if you […]

The Big Pink Book Prompt 4: Magical Books

| June 8, 2026

The next prompt in the Big Pink Book is a simple page with a single, larger sticker that depicts books (four stacked, one open, some plant clippings, and a purple liquid in a corked bottle. Of the books in the stack, only two have titles showing. The higher one is The Hymn of Transformation, while the […]

Fun for Friday: The Big Pink Book of Prompts, “It’s Funny …”

| June 5, 2026

Time to share what I did with prompt 3 from the Big Pink Book! I’m not much of a puns person, so I took the “It’s funny” prompt and came up with some first sentences connected to that. Even though there were 20 dots on the page, I only wrote 10 sentences, since some took […]

The Big Pink Book Prompt 3: It’s Funny …

| June 1, 2026

The third prompt in the Big Pink Book is another list-making prompt, this time themed around some puns and an intro of “It’s funny.” The puns, in the stickers to the right, are: “You are deer to me,” “Love you a latte!,” “That’s bananas” (with the bananas as an image), “No Prob-llama,” and “Donut worry. […]

Fun for Friday: June 2026 Writing Prompts!

| May 29, 2026

We’re already to the last weekend of May, which means it’s time for the June 2026 writing prompts! This month, the first column comes from Doodlewash’s June 2017 World Watercolor Group prompt list. This list is very themed toward summertime and very normal. But it could be interesting to think about what this modern world […]

Fun For Friday: The Big Pink Book of Prompts, “We go together like …”

| May 22, 2026

As promised, here’s my version of the second prompt from the Big Pink Book! I numbered the washi tape dots from 1 through 20, but I also made two columns. The left-hand column is genres, and the right-hand column is locations. I also added an extra sticker to this page–a d20 that looks like a […]

The Big Pink Book Prompt 2: We go together like …

| May 18, 2026

The second prompt in the Big Pink Book is simple enough–the line of dots (washi tape) make it perfect for making a list. And the “We go together like …” suggests that it can be for things that go together. The sticker at the bottom involves some concentric circles and dots that reminds me of […]

Fun for Friday: DefConOne Instagram Prompts

| May 15, 2026

It’s time for some more prompts from the DefCon One Instagram account! Write a piece about the first cherry blossom of the year. Write a piece about a goldfish who aspires to be an artist. Write a piece about a good witch in a bad situation. Follow the DefCon One Instagram account for writing prompts on Fridays, […]