Category: writing

blog, prompt, writing

Prompt: A deleted email

Lauryn

Prompt: A deleted email

Rough Prompt Fiction by Lauryn Lambert

All the emails I have never sent

Dear friend
I think you would like my creative newsletter, do you want to check it out?
love, Me


Dear friend
sometimes it feels like I’m invisible because you only initiate contact maybe four times a year. I had hoped I was more special than that?
love, Me.


Dear friend
I’m too afraid to ask you if you want to chat or call or hang out for coffee because I will get my hopes up or you just won’t answer the question.
love, Me.

Dear friend
I really need someone to talk to regularly, will you be that person?
Love, Me.

Dear friend
Will you please bake me a cake and we can sit together and eat it all and watch a movie?
love, Me


Dear Whale
I really want to see you in person. Could you please time a spectacular jump for when I am gazing out at the ocean?
Thank you.

Dear Stranger
I need help working through this new area, will you please take me under your wing?
Thank you!

Dear Rain
I need you but you are making me angry at the moment and your mess is encroaching on my space. I need some alone time then we can go back to rainbows and jumping in puddles together again.
Love, Me

Dear Family
I love you, I’m flawed. You know this.
So please stop pointing out my imperfections, while being surprised that I’m not wonder woman in the space of two minutes.
I’m not your saviour. Use Jesus for that.
Love, me

Dear Me
I love you.
I don’t tell you enough.
Thanks for being you, I really enjoy it, and I enjoy hanging out with you.
We have lots of fun and I’m thankful.
Love, Me.

blog, prompt, romance, story, writing

Short and Sweet: Permanent Marker

Lauryn

Permanent Marker

Rough Prompt Fiction by Lauryn Lambert.

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Story: When you make a connection with a girl at a party, but wake up to find that she didn’t write her number on your arm as you’d hoped. All you have left of her memory is a meaningless diagram drawn on your skin in permanent marker. Did she ghost you or does the drawing mean something more?

Themes: Love at first sight. Cinderella.

Words: 1362

Read Permanent Marker

blog, prompt, Uncategorized, writing

Prompt: The Open Window

Lauryn

Rough Prompt Fiction By Lauryn Lambert.

I’ve been thinking about that window for as long as I can remember. There is a blue wall against my back, an eggshell green wall to my right, and to my left is a mustardy wall with a door. But right across from me is a golden yellow wall, with a window.

At first all I did was glance at it now and again, playing with the small thought about how nice it would be to look out, or to even climb out, but those wonderings never remained. As the years go on, however, the more I find myself looking at it, admiring the colour and the peeling paint. I watch the panes, and the light reflecting through them. Every now and again I even catch myself staring.

I could move my position of course and look at the door, and some days I do. I know what is behind the door, but it breaks up the continuation of walls.

I begin to suspect that this window fascination is going to be a problem, when I begin reading books about windows, and all the beautiful things beyond. 
I read stories about people gathering up the courage to look out, and eat up everything they learned. I’m in awe of the people, and characters that open the windows and even climb out! Can you believe that?

It seems impossible for me. A nice dream to have. Special people, talented people look out windows. Brave people open them, and the truly heroic leap into the unknown. I was neither special, nor talented, brave, or heroic. It was nice to imagine, to lose myself in the fantasy of maybe. 

I would never admit to anyone that I even think about looking out a window, or that I read about them. I’ve seen the looks that people give those people who swear they have seen the light, and cannot do anything but obsess about how to get out there. Every now and then one of them disappears and I wonder what really happened to them.

One day I was feeling a bit sick, or maybe a smidge abnormal, a tad reckless even, and I peeked up and looked out. Just like that. No thought about it or anything. I sat down underneath the sill in shock.
What had possessed me to do that? I was overwhelmed with the light, movement and colour!
I was very very clearly not cut out for looking out windows!

I put the idea out of my mind for a very long time. Then another day, I found one of those old stories, and I began to doubt my assertation. Perhaps my ego was out of balance that day, but I gripped the window ledge, took some deep breaths and tried again.

Oh it was amazing, and terrifying, exhilarating and overwhelming. My eyes were tired from the colours and movement, and my brain struggled to understand what I was seeing. Everything frightened me!
Some days all I did was stare out the window and the things it showed, other days I couldn’t even bring myself to look at it, and this continued for days on end.

One thing was certain, I couldn’t go back. My eyes adjusted, my habits adjusted. And even if I didn’t look at it, or look out it’s panes, I thought about looking, and that was something. I was feeling entirely rebellious and reckless the day just before the new year, and I put my hand on the latch.
Surely if other people had opened windows, I could too!?

I was practiced at looking out now, and I was sure I could work out how to open the mechanism. After all I had read books about it, and numerous explanations of how a window was to be opened, it was high time I tried. Who knew when I’d get a moment like this again?
Surely I was wasting my life if I didn’t try?

Or was I? What if I tried and I couldn’t do it? What if someone wrote a book about how horrible I was at opening a window? What if I wasn’t strong enough? Was I really brave enough? 

I wasn’t sure, so I lay back and stared at the ceiling instead. This continued for many weeks, many months and many years. Many doubts were discussed. Nothing was decided for sure. Should I? or should I not?Could I? Or could I not?

So one day, I tried.

It was hard to breathe but there it was. The window was sitting open, and I had opened it.

My heart was racing.

What could I do now?

Want to join in? The next prompt is


Don’t worry about how good it is, it’s all just good practice!

blog, prompt, writing

Week 1 Prompt: The stench of blood

Lauryn

Prompt 1: The Stench of Blood

Word count: 487

Setting: In the universe where a newly turned Vampire is sticking to his morals. Or trying to.

The stench of blood is in the air, every way I turn.

It seems inescapable, it’s maddening, a craving I can not turn off.

Yes I know, craving and stench don’t usually go well together, but old habits die hard, and besides, I like some of those old sayings. 

As weird as they seem now, they tell a story, my story.

Well the biggest part of what I know so far, which was when I breathed and my heart worked. When I was human.

But that is all behind me now. I’m eternally a Millennial.
Heh, that’s pretty funny.

What was I saying? Right, back to the stench.

I still say stench because that is what it smelt like before. 

That metallic zing that is blood in the air.

Women seem to recognise it faster than men do, but I suppose that makes sense really.

It’s not pleasant, or the type of smell one would crave, like a good roast dinner, or a chocolate cake in the oven.

But that too has changed.

I think that was the first thing I noticed after my rebirth to this new life.

The stench wasn’t so much a cover your nose and mouth kind of smell, it was a wafting, alluring, promise like the warm promises that assault our noses when it’s almost dinner time, or dessert has warmed up.

That’s the problem with this life, really, you don’t have to wait. 

Blood is everywhere, fresh, although let’s be honest, some fresher than others.

Everyone says children taste underripe, and I’m going to take their word for it. That just seems immoral to me, biting children, vampire or not.

I have to take a stand somewhere.

Some say the aged taste rich and thick, as long as they aren’t dying. Some of us apparently love the kick their cocktail of medications bring to the table, but I’m not so sure.

Those vampires call themselves guardians, like they are the saviors of the elderly they bite. They seem like gluttons to me, and have forgotten that they once had a soul.

Me? I stick within my age group, well what should be my age group. 

25-45, non smoker, preferably lactose intolerant, who likes their vegetables.

Normal food tastes like ash to me now, but I still cry when I think about donuts.

Did you know your food leaves an aftertaste? 

I prefer the ones who like salad.

How odd, right?

But I’ve got to have rules, better rules than they’ve got about how many vampires you can spawn in a year, or about crossing thresholds, tanning beds or holy water. 

Is it ironic that now I am what I am, powerful, immortal and kick ass, that I’ve realised how much I need rules or my life is going to be more hell than it was before?

I probably should look up the definition of irony.

I wish Vampires had photographic memories.

romance, writing

How do I write a romance novel without much experience with romance?

Lauryn

Writers make up pure fiction all the time, however usually our best work has some basis in reality. Many writing sages suggest to write what you know, but what if our experience doesn’t go that far? How do we write a romance novel or romantic story that is believable without a lot of experience with romance?

If you are a fan of the genre I’m sure you would have already done your research on how romance is portrayed in fiction. I’m sure from the books you have read that a few key words or phrases might come to mind if you are thinking about the passionate bits.
A lot of stories can sound the same when it comes to the confessing feelings part of it.
So what to do?

Firstly, I would suggest stopping for a moment and journal some romantic stories you liked, and some that were memorably bad. Even keeping a key list of phrases you like or don’t like can help.
If you want to go further, you could brainstorm other ways to say the same thing.
For example, instead of: his heart slammed into his ribs
You could say: his pulse raced, his pulse sped up, his heart paced, and if you want you can add all sorts of other words into there too, like madly, wildly, quickly, etc.
Your writing can be as simple as ‘his pulse quickened’, to as elaborate as you want, like ‘his heart paced wildly like a hungry lion’.

Hopefully from that example you will see that just writing simple and straightforward “his pulse quickened” adds just as much, and if not more than the fancy stuff.
Thankfully no one expects a lot of detail on kissing or other intimate details to do a romance story well. You can acknowledge the romance and celebrate it, even if you don’t go into every detail. Also, you don’t need to make up details to make the reader feel something.
Think…”what words would a friend use to describe their first kiss to me?”
Probably a lot less description of mechanics and a lot more about how they are feeling, and what it means to them. You don’t need the details of your friend’s love life in order to be brimming with excitement for them. If your reader is invested in the character and their journey, they don’t need all the details to feel satisfied with the story either.

My next suggestion is to listen to people’s real life stories.
“How did you guys meet? How did you get together?”
These questions can be the gateway to many very interesting stories. It’s fascinating to hear about all the unbelievable that things that can happen in real life! Listen to people’s stories, borrow from them, weave them, and your writing with echo with truth.

Also my last point is, don’t undervalue your experience.
Even if you don’t have a romantic partner or a lot of romantic experience, romance stories have a lot of other elements in it that most people have experience with or can relate to.
For example, caring for someone, friendship, sacrifice, thoughtfulness, admiring beauty, adventure, belonging, are just some of them.
Draw on those experiences, and any crushes you might have had and use that knowledge to illustrate the romance.
Use the journal again!
How did you feel? What did you want to do? What attracted you to the person? What was something special you liked about the person?
For example: When I think of crushes I think of lots of eye contact, some giggling, wanting to hang out all the time, wanting to talk or text a lot, lots of things reminding me of them, when you catch each other’s gaze you smile.
It’s just a few little details, but it’s enough to build a good story and romance on!

So I hope that has given you the confidence to keep going with your romance writing, and also some tools that will help the truth echo through your fiction.
Don’t forget there are also some great writing communities, who are happy to read drafts and give gentle feedback on areas you find challenging!
Happy writing!

Art, blog, writing

How to finish? 5 tips to get it done.

Lauryn

What do I need to do in order to achieve this?

We ask ourselves a version of this question, every day.
“What do I need to do to get to work on time?”
“How am I going to get dinner ready and return this phone call?”

Most days, we do figure out what we need to do to get it done, and we make it happen!
Multiple times over
But why is it so hard to get the project done when it comes to creating?

I’m sorry but I do not have all the answers.
I’m still asking myself, “what do I need to do in order to get this book done?” (over and over again) but here are some thoughts which might help us both!

  1. Make a list.
    Make a list of achievement steps and break them down as far as you can.
    Include how much time you would like to allocate to that task.
    Things can suddenly seem much more achievable!
    For eg.
    Step 1: Write 43 extra scenes for the new characters.
    I allocate 15 mins each scene. So that is about 11 hours total
    If I decide to allocate an hour of each day to write four scenes. I could be done in 11 days!
  2. Make your project smaller. (at least to begin with)
    If you have never finished a creative project before, it’s far easier to start small and work your way up.
    For example if you want to write a novel-
    Start with a short, but complete story, then repeat, and gradually lengthen the stories as you go.
    Break the novel down into chapters and outline them, and write a chapter at a time.
  3. Get gathering.
    Working with others can give you an outside source of motivation, ideas, encouragement and also accountability. Choose your circle wisely and they will enrich your creativity and productivity immensely.
  4. Believe in yourself.
    Others already believe in you, probably more than you do. Take some encouragement out of their book. Repeat some affirmations to yourself, and act like you believe you will achieve it. If you believe that you can achieve the project in 11 days if you prioritise it, you will prioritise it.
  5. Ask yourself why?
    Why is this project so important? Is it feeding your curiosity, your ego, or is it serving a better purpose?
    Maybe you discover that the reason for the project isn’t as important as the space and freedom you will feel in your mind and heart if you let the project go instead. Yes there may be a bit of grief, but that shouldn’t be a weight if the why is not worth it.
    If you remember the why, this can also help you harness the motivation you had for beginning it and use it to help you complete it.

    I’m sure there are more great strategies out there, and please when you come across them, send them my way!

    Keep creating!

    Lauryn xo


Art, blog, writing

Will my imperfect creations still change the world?

Lauryn

I’m not really writing tonight with a broader point in mind than to relate an experience I had this week.

Some of you may know, but if you didn’t here:- ten weeks ago, I began writing a creative newsletter.
No one was more shocked than myself, that I have been able to keep it going for ten weeks in a row!

I feel, (and actually this may not be factual) that on creative projects I often flare and fade, rather than see them through. Which is very interesting to me because recently a friend remarked that one thing she liked about me was that I usually do things when I say I will do them!

Obviously something is going wrong somewhere in my creative space!

Anyway, back from that squirrel tangent moment!
I began writing a newsletter and it was scary! In order to press send I had to remind myself that people don’t only resonate with the masters. people resonate with things created by beginners, with things created with childish drawings, or mistakes in the writing. Imperfect creations still change the world too.
Those things that we imagine or want to create, will not change the world if we don’t make them or share them. And if we don’t start somewhere, how are we going to get where our dreams tell us we are capable of being?
So I began. It wasn’t awful, it wasn’t good. It looked okay.
And I got through ten weeks of curating, and putting it together.

Somewhere along the line, I asked for some feedback.
And of course it wasn’t anything like I wanted to hear!
But I do greatly respect her, her creative talents, her insight and her time, so I wanted to act.
And I tweaked a bit, and changed a bit, and I sent that next newsletter out with mistakes and everything!
But it still needed more! Ugh! Why is making things so good and so painful?
So last week, and I had a migraine so I can’t even remember why I decided to do what I did…but I worked on the newsletter some more. Instead of photos I drew some of my own pictures. I added more clarity, and more sections! I even wrote a blog post for it!
And as I looked at it, the feeling of unease and frustration turned into joy. Somehow, through the practicing, and the trying, and the tweaking, I had arrived at what I was hoping to make!

That is the absolute best feeling! Arriving at what you were hoping to make!

This is not a story about how you can achieve your goals in ten weeks, because really we need to count all those weeks of years that I wanted to write a creative newsletter but didn’t. Or tried and stopped.
And I’m sure I’m not finished tweaking, and I’m definitely not there yet on my content, and I want to use it to encourage more creatives, but the line work is done, and it’s all about the detail now!

Was this a boring story about how I achieved something?
Maybe?
I wanted to say that your imperfect creations will still change the world.
And as you put them out there, and get some feedback, and practice and learn some more, eventually the thing you are making will be exactly what you want it to be, and the joy of that, is awesome.
In the very least, you will be changing your life, but I will bet that it won’t stop there!

Did I know that before this week, that imperfect creations will still change the world? Maybe I would have agreed theoretically, but thinking through my piles of creative thoughts that have come (so far) to nothing, I would have said I didn’t know that. Or I felt too overwhelmed to keep going.

But that is not me anymore. I am using this joy, to spur me on to finishing other imperfect creations that have been bugging me, and also some not yet created things too.
Here is my list:
Refresh my website
Write some recipes
Put some designs on some t-shirts.

Hold me to these my friends!

Where do you need to keep going?


blog, writing

Showing up

Lauryn

What is it day 4?

I’m surprised to say that even doing this for four days is making a difference to me.

In four days of showing up, I’ve learned quite a bit.

I’ve thought about problems in a new way, and solutions have come to problems I couldn’t even conceptualise. I am looking forward to seeing where we will be by the end of this month!

I’m trying to think about what other things I can challenge myself with.

Cleaning? Drinking 2L of water a day?
I already know I can read a novel a day for a month. I know I can write 1700 words a day for a month and end up with a 50000 word novel draft. I can draw a picture a day for 30 days. What is next?

Is there something that you need to overcome?

Maybe all you need is a bit of practice?

I know there is a challenge I’m following right now which is all about decluttering and ridding your house of something, one a day for 30 days. 

Maybe it’s not for you, but what if you did give a 30 day challenge a try? What if 30 days was all it took to solve that problem for you?

blog, writing

Being thankful changes my perspective.

Lauryn

I’m not posting this today but I am writing this today on the third consecutive day of my personal challenge to write more blog posts.

So writing challenge, Here I am, I am showing up!

And I’m thankful. I’m thankful for the idea of the challenge, I’m thankful even though I feel so lost in writing blog posts and it seems impossible that anyone is ever going to read this, that I’m still here. I’m still typing. I’m thankful that I have seen another challenge through, and I know I can do something, even if it’s hard for 30 days. 

I’m a bit of a quitter if I’m not feeling the right flow, so I’m thankful I’m hanging on!

Today I had an interesting ‘Thankfulness encounter’ or maybe ‘lack of thankfulness encounter’.

I know a girl who had a perfectly fun and wonderful night, who then completely dissolved because her brother got lollies where he was and she didn’t get lollies where she was.

The world was against her, the organisers were against her, everything was completely unfun and you couldn’t do anything to make her see the facts.

It made me think, how often do I do that? How often am I perfectly content with where I am in my creative life, until I see where someone else is at? Instead of abundance, the mindset is of lack, not enough, not good enough.

But the reality is that both situations are just different. And I’m sure we would not look down on someone who was earlier or in a different place in their creative journey than us. So why are we doing it to ourselves?

We think we might like the other “Grass is greener” situation better but if it came to swapping, we might find we aren’t quite ready for that sacrifice or that amount of hours, or work or we aren’t mentally there yet. But we will get there. One day we will be ready. One step at a time. No jumping up stairs, that always ends in tears and pain.

When I get stuck in a mindset of lack, I try to admit as soon as possible what the underlying emotion is. Am I jealous? Am I uncomfortable with change? Am I feeling lonely? Do I wish I was further down the creative road without paying the consequences?

Then the question, is feeling bad actually helping me be where I need to be? Is it serving me well?

And then I get to the business of thankfulness. Sometimes it’s only after a lot of thankfulness that my logical and reasonable brain overpowers the emotional one and I can see the facts.

I’m actually really happy for everyone on their creative journeys and I’m thankful for being me. My goals will be achieved at the right time for me. Being thankful really pays dividends.

blog, writing

Black Lives Matter

Lauryn

A friend laughed at me once, saying “You only listen to white people music!”

I didn’t realise how true it was until I thought about who sang my favourite songs, and then, it got quite embarrassing. I had just blindly listened to the radio and the songs that were fed me, and didn’t think about the people who wrote them and their life experiences.

The Black Lives Matter campaigns and the #publishingpaidme tweets of 2020 made me revisit again what books I was reading, and whose stories I was paying attention to.

So I made it my intention to read diversely. I want to know about people’s experiences that are different from mine, even if I think differently. It’s been great!

I stick with the genres that I like reading, YA romance, YA fantasy, I also like a bit of adventure or detective work if there is some kind of romance amongst it all, but I am committed to diversity.

I have even looked at a cover and wanted to put the book down because of my prejudice against it (because it was about someone who fit into a diverse group that I fit into but I wasn’t feeling the respect in the blurb).
But I did get it out of the library, and I’m glad I read it. Not because it was different from what I thought, but it was interesting to read about “my” category from the outside.

At the library anyway, it’s sometimes hard to find diverse categories in each genre. It’s great that library customers can request books that are not in their current stock, and so I do. 

I think the book market for English books is the biggest in the UK and the US and it’s also sometimes hard to find authors who base their book setting outside that (for contemporary works), but I also love reading stories with blended cultures or immigrant families. 

Right now I am reading a book that includes a romance between a Jewish young man and a Muslim young woman. The most interesting part of the book so far is not actually their romance, it’s the subtle gaslighting about the racism around them that leaves them speechless and bamboozled. The Sales pitch that people in power give them about why they want particular laws in their area and why it’s not racism, is truly scary. And it’s scary because it happens.

Also the Jewish boy’s family are legit scared of Nazi’s coming after them. It’s like a punch in the guts more than any newspaper article. This is reality. In 2021 people are still afraid because of their religion, sex, sexual preferences, skin colour, ethnic group, culture, because they are different.

Sometimes stories are more effective at conveying gravity and truth than simply a factual retelling. And that is why we write, we want to pierce hearts and make it a better place.