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Carol Carman’s Writing Club Prompt: M is for Music
95% of us enjoy music. It’s all around us. It’s rare to go a day without hearing music. Radio, TV programmes, films, adverts, ice-cream vans, ringtones, passing cars blaring out favourite tunes at top volume… So, for the purposes of your story or poem, here are some ideas to get you going if you need…
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Short Fiction: The Washerwoman
The men do not take the trouble to get to know me, but they are fascinated by me. They bring their easels and brushes and colours and stare at me as I work. If they want me to stop so they can catch the light from the water as I heave a sodden sheet from…
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Carol Carman’s Writing Club Prompt: L is for Laundry
Something we’ve all got to do with alarming and depressing regularity. So, let’s make it exciting. What is it that’s being washed? Why? What’s on it that needs to be washed off? How did it get mucky? How important is it that it gets washed? Who’s washing it? Why are they washing it? Are they…
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Poem: Eat Your Heart Out
When we planned our kitchen, my husband said to me: ‘Get it how you want it – it’s the only chance there’ll be…’ I took him at his word and let my credit card run free And now I have a kitchen which teems with gadgetry… My kitchen’s the equivalent of my old man’s garden…
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Carol Carman’s Writing Club Prompt: K is for Kitchen
Give us a story or poem or some piece of writing about the kitchen. They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. What happens in the kitchen? Is it about the cooking? Maybe the stress of cooking for guests – who’s coming, what’s the occasion? Why is it so important? What’s going wrong?…
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Poem: This Is The Jewel
This is the jewel you held to the light To waken its soul for a wide-eyed young child; You kept me enthralled with your tales of its travels Through kingdoms fought over by warriors wild. This gem had been kept in a cave by a wise witch And countless the times it was borrowed and…
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Carol Carman’s Writing Club Prompt: J is for Jewellery
Jewel/Jewellery/ Jeweller Some ideas to get you started: Is it a single piece of jewellery, or a lot? Is it a single gemstone, or a bagful of gems? Is it real, or fake, or costume jewellery? What’s the story associated with it / them? Personal or professional? Personal – whose is it / was it?…
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Poem: Who Did You Say You Were?
When we met you’d do the odd impression, Which made me laugh, I will say that, it’s true; All our friends said it was super When you did your Tommy Cooper And then, your repertoire just grew and grew. You did Sir Terry Wogan and Pierce Brosnan, Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep; In an effort to…
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Carol Carman’s Writing Club Prompt: I is for Impress
Impress / Impressions / Impressive To make an impression – to make a mark. Literally: in clay, pottery; sand – on the beach; mud – fossilised footprints; wax – sealing a letter or document; plasticine – when you were at school; cement – handprints in cement, like outside Grauman’s Chinese theatre in Hollywood when Mel…
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Song: Hotel Can’taffordmore
On a dark dual carriageway, cool wind in my hair, Warm smell – sugar beet dust – rising up through the air. Up ahead in the distance, I saw a flickering light; I’d worked my hours to the max that day, I had to stop for the night. There she stood in reception, like she’d…