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Between working today, I am working on a quilt that I have been working on for my dad for a while. I’m in the process now of slowly adding a running embroidery stitch along the perimeter of the Sawtooth Star blocks on the quilt.

This has me thinking about quilting and writing. Quilts can be items of great fascination. They can hold a long history in their sewn layers. They can be pieces of mystery.

Consider the discovery of an old quilt by your character. Would they know what it is, perhaps a family heirloom or maybe the quilt has a square that identifies what it is? What if the quilt had a tear in it and in the process of repairing it they found that the quilt hid a secret. What kind of secret? A lost flag from the early days of the country? Hidden gemstones or jewelry? A map of some kind sewn into the middle layers?

I have put the Daily Writing Prompt on Twitter, which brings me to the prompt for today.

Social Networking

If your character were to use a social networking site, what would they use it for? Are they the kind to have a lot of online friends? Do they like to keep others updated on their activities? Are they running some kind of experiment for some reason?

Maybe develop a special variation on the social networking sites. What might the equivalent be in a medieval setting? How would a social network in a magical world work? What about social networks of the future? Might we one day have virtual bars that we can walk into just by entering a computer holographic room in our home?

Huey Lewis and The News had a song “I Want A New Drug” back in the mid 80’s. Went something like:

I want a new drug, one that won’t make me feel sick. One that won’t make me crash my car, or feel three feet thick…

One that won’t hurt my head, one that won’t make my mouth too dry or make my eyes too red…

One that won’t make me nervous, wondering what to do, one that makes me feel like I feel when I’m with you…

Yeah, I got Sports when it came out and listened to the songs on it over and over and over… So, where in there is your writing prompt? In the new drug.

I got to thinking about this by staring at the small stack of vitamins I have piled on the table here by the computer. Determined to get healthier for the new year, so got me some vitamins, and as I was looking at them that song came to mind.  Needing a writing prompt for today I decided that A New Drug would be a good one to write about.

Is it a new drug that has been released on the streets? Maybe a new drug guaranteed to make you thin? Perhaps someone has released a new drug that is supposed to make people live forever? Or maybe write from the perspective of the scientist that is trying to create the drug? Or write about the guy in his garage that was trying to make aspirin taste better and ended up with an entirely new drug?

What is your character like when they start to get tired? Write a scene where your character needs to stay awake for some reason, but they are feeling very tired. Try to convey it in such a way that, just as if you saw someone yawn, your reader would – hopefully – feel tired just reading the scene.

This is not to say bad or uninteresting writing, this is an exercise in evoking empathy in the reader. As I said, just as you can see someone yawn and yawn, see if you can make your reader sleepy because your character is sleepy.

Late night, weird mood. That’s my explanation for this writing prompt and I am sticking to it.

Chances are if you never skipped a stone as a kid, you have at least seen in a movie a stone being skipped across the surface of a pond.  So. Here is your prompt to get your muses thinking.

Write what it is like to skip a stone across a smooth pond – from the perspective of the stone.