Still valiantly plodding forward.
Katie:
- The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanley
- The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
- Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
I'm currently reading three different books (though I'm focusing mostly on one, which is what usually happens when I try to read multiple books at once). I'm mainly reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, but I'm also reading This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin, and listening to the audiobook of Ron Chernow's biography of George Washington, entitled Washington: A Life.
Sarah:
- The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry
Currently, I am reading The Tao of Pooh, which Katie mentioned above, as well as The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.
And in NaNoWriMo news...
As we said in the last post, Sarah ended up deciding to not even attempt NaNo. She felt it would be too discouraging, as she knew her schedule wouldn't allow her to get very far. The same was true for me (Katie), but I decided to see how far I could get anyway. Knowing that you have no chance of winning proved quite discouraging, however. I made it to 2,628 words when in all honesty I probably could have gotten a lot further. Still, it's a start. Both Sarah and I love writing and love NaNoWriMo, so both of these things will continue to be a big part of our lives, as well as topics for future blog posts.
We'll see you on Sunday for our first post of December, 2016!
Hello fellow writers!
November is quickly turning to December, and guess what? Due to looming deadlines and mounting stress levels, our word counts amount to... not much. Sarah wrote a grand total of zero words - well, unless you count a research paper, that is. Katie did only slightly better, and will announce her final word count at the end of the month.
But hey, congratulations to all of you who are still out there striving for 50k! We salute you. Anyways, here's our final writing prompt for November 2016: Write a quick character sketch at three different ages. First, write your character as a child, a teen, and then an adult. If you're feeling especially ambitious, you can add a fourth sketch and write your character at a later age in life. The aim here is to look at a character from all angles and observe their growth in the big picture.
We'd like to wish a late happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and we hope you enjoy this final writing prompt!
The month is flying by! After this, there's only one more Sunday Writing Prompt. If you have feedback for us - on the writing prompts, on what we should do next, etc. - please let us know! We love to hear from you guys.
Today's writing prompt is this: Take one of your existing characters - preferably one that is at least somewhat developed in your mind, but that you're still getting to know - and drop them into a scene or setting in which they do not belong.
For example, you could take that dragon-slayer from your fantasy novel and drop her into the real world. Or take the contemporary teen from New York and drop him into Renaissance-era Italy. You could also drop your character into a specific scene from another story, such as the scene where Mercutio fights Tybalt in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. How does your character respond to the unfamiliar surroundings, and to the events playing out in those surroundings? How does he or she interact with the people there?
The point of this exercise is to help you get to know your character better by writing something that will never appear in your story, because it couldn't happen in the world of your story. This means you can get as carried away as you want!
Today we bring you five writing prompts of the "Character Bank" variety. Each prompt describes a character for you to write into a scene/short story/poem/etc. (We have compiled these prompts from internet searches and Pinterest pins. We did not come up with them ourselves.) Take your pick, or combine all the characters into one fun and crazy piece of writing. Please feel free to share your results with us in the comments, or by emailing us at sisterprojects.ks@gmail.com.
You know how we said we were going to post a writing prompt (or other writing thing) every Friday in November? Well, after some further thought, we decided to switch to Sundays.
Anyway, here's the writing prompt for the day. We're going to give you a list of six words - two adjectives, two nouns, and two verbs. Your job is to incorporate all of these words into a scene, short story, or poem. (For the verbs, you can use whatever verb tense suits your purposes. For nouns, you can use the plural or singular.)
Adjectives:
rough
fizzy
Nouns:
gift
cloud
Verbs
search
tackle
If you'd like to share whatever you come up with, please do so in the comments below, or e-mail us at sisterprojects.ks@gmail.com. Happy writing!
This late-night post comes to you in 2 parts.
First: Goal-setting
As you may have noticed, we haven't been keeping up with our regular posting schedule for a few months now. Right now, we're going to lay out a new schedule for the remainder of 2016. Here's the plan for November and December:
- We will continue our monthly reading recaps.
- For the month of November, we plan to post a writing prompt or other writing-related thing every Friday.
- In December, we will continue the weekly Friday posts, but with a new theme that has yet to be determined.
- On either December 31st or January 1st, we will publish a post laying out our blogging goals for 2017.
Second: NaNoWriMo
Yes, we are doing NaNoWriMo. Because of our busy schedules, neither one of us is going in with a lot of confidence this year, but writing some words is better than writing no words. Let us know in the comments if you're participating, too!
Thanks for sticking with us! Happy November!
Happy November! (It's NaNoWriMo, guys. We're about to lose what little is left of our minds.)
Katie:
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
The book I read this month that I most want to recommend to others is Code Name Verity. I was about halfway through before I realized just how much I liked it, but it's stuck with me. I'm currently reading The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanlely.
Sarah:
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
When I started A Wrinkle in Time, I wasn't expecting too much of it, probably due in part to the unfavorable reviews I'd heard from family members. However, I ended up enjoying it so much that I think it is one of my favorite books I've read this year. I'm currently reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis and The Willoughbys Lois Lowry.
We'll have another post coming late tonight to set some new blogging goals!
