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Today’s writing prompt comes along with a contest. And it is a very very kewl contest if I do say so myself.

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

This is a very kewl prize for her first contest, and the blog is one of my favorite food blogs to visit. I’m sharing the contest here to let everyone have a chance to find out about it (contest lasts till the end of January), and because I really want a good chance of winnig the mixer. I need one, mine’s on its last legs.

The Writing Prompt: What’s Cooking

You can either have your character cooking something or trying to learn to cook. Maybe your heroine has plans to make a great dinner for the man she is romancing? I remember years ago my sister (then in her teens) wanted to impress a boy so she made spaghetti, poor girl, first time she ever made it and she refused to let our mom help. It came out of the pot as a spaghetti cake that was sliced at the table. Seems to me it was really good, but oh my, what a unique way to serve spaghetti.

I can just imagine some of the ways this could be used in a Sci-Fi novel, from the hero having his first experience with alien cuisine to his trying to explain a traditional Earth dish to an alien species.

In my own writing you can often tell what I was eating when I was writing, because it is often reflected in the stuff my characters are eating. So, go check out the contest at My Wooden Spoon via one of the links above, then get to typing and see what’s cooking in your story.

The prompt part of this? The Unexpected Letter – I didn’t expect to get this, it was tagged to me at random, so have something random delivered to your lead character then enjoy the fun of this little game. Read on for how to play…

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If you were recently tagged by someone named Sandra (me), here are the rules for the game which I got from Jacob (Thanks Jacob! I needed this blog fodder):

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Share the seven (7) most famous or infamous people you have met. Or go with the original 7 weird things about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post.
• Include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

You’re a private person, you say? Well, someone switched it up to the seven most famous people you’ve met.

Seven weird things about me? Hmm… I’m sure my friends can come up with that, but not sure I can. As for seven famous people… I didn’t actually meet Robert Redford, but he did sleep on our couch.. don’t think that counts… how about I scramble this up a little more from the normal and, since this is a writing prompts blog, give my seven favorite writing websites? Listed in no particular order:

1) The Black Hole – I found this years ago, great resource telling you what to expect on time for replies from magazines.
2) Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.
3) Project Gutenberg – While not really for writers, this is a great site for anyone looking for the classics to read. I included it because all writers are, by nature, readers.
4) Holly Lisle – I have been a fan of Holly Lisle’s website since it started as Forward Motion back in the late 1990’s. Hers was one of the first actual writer’s websites I found when I decided to start looking for other writers websites online. A must visit site for any writer in my humble opinion.
5) Writer’s Digest Top 101 Best Websites for Writers
6) Stock.xchng – A wonderful community for the sharing of pictures, great resource for those in need of a picture to accompany a story or blog post or for a novel cover or… whatever.
7) yWriter – yWriter is a wonderful writing program made by a writer for writers. It’s free too! Check it out, I think you will love it as much as I do.

I’ve randomly tagged (Okay, not so *random* I used Technorati to look for blogs relating to writing) the following blogs are ones that I found fascinating. My one requirement (other than that they be something my readers might like) was that they all seem to be ones that, on browsing, looked like they might not mind my tagging them. So, enjoy some great new blogs that you might not otherwise have found! I know I might not have found them if Jacob had not tagged me:

1. Mind the gap
2. Write From Karen
3. Writing Aspirations
4. The Unemployed Writer
5. In The Trenches
6. HED’s Writing Mission
7. A Writer’s Journey

As I said, I went through Technorati picking out seven random blogs that are by, or for, writers and looked like they would enjoy being tagged. There is no requirement to participate, this is just for fun and I enjoyed it so much I think I’ll do another random blog spotlight on The Writing Office some time. And, as the fellow that sent me this said – don’t feel bad if I left you out, just take it as an open invitation to join in on this if you feel the need or need the post fodder.

The Writing Prompt is a cue to a writer on what they should be doing next. It can be thought of as the literary equivalent of the prompter that sits un the wings of a theater and cues actors on lines they have forgotten or where they should move to to hit their mark.

A definition search on Google defines “writing prompt” as:

“means a writing assignment or constructed scenario designed to effect a particular kind of writing: comparison, process, narration.” - www.state.tn.us/education/ci/cistandards2001/la/cilaglossary.htm

“A statement that asks the students to write a paper about a specific topic. It defines the audience and purpose for writing.” – www.groton.k12.ct.us/curric/lacurric/lagloss.htm

The Daily Writing Prompt will draw from all of these definitions to build a series of prompts and cues for writers.  It will be a cue to writers to give them ideas for what to do as a means of going on in their stories, it will offer inspiration to writers for what they could write about, offer suggestions on audiences to try writing for and the purpose the writing should achieve, and suggest types of writing to tackle from comparison to how-to articles.

This is a prompt for creativity and to help ease past writer’s block.  It will cover everything from prompts for fiction to nonfiction, literature to script writing, journals to blogs.  You may even find a prompt or so on greeting cards, songs and poetry.

Okay, I am being driven crazy by the code I have been monkeying with, so forget it.  I am not waiting on the code to be right any longer, I am just going to start posting the stuff here and it can look bland until I get the template sorted out the way I want it to be.  Seriously thinking about making my own template from scratch as bad as changing colors on the links is bugging me.

But, the good news is, I am not going to put off the writing prompts because of code any longer – I will start today and enter the daily writing prompts.

I am working on getting this blog and it’s companion blogs all up to speed after the site was moved, then I can start working on getting daily prompts up here.  Just a little bit longer, I promise.