Its Your Word

Welcome to Its Your Word!

Its Your Word is a collection of writing exercises and prompts for you to participate in.  Read the description of the excercise and send an e-mail to the address listed in the exercise’s submission guidelines.  We’ll post your submission to the site as soon as we can!

 

Prompts/Exercises

Futile Letters is a writing exercise that allows people to submit letters they have written to people they will never meet, never see again, or never have the nerve to talk to. Get something off your chest, or have some fun and send a letter of warning to Abraham Lincoln.

 

There’s a rumor, or a literary legend, that Ernest Hemingway was once asked to write a story in just six sentences. Up to the challenge, Hemingway composed these six words, which he thought to be his best work of prose: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Can you do the same? The Hemingway Challenge asks you to come up with the best story you can, using six words or less. 

 

 

Twenty Six Words is a writing excercise that challenges you to say something using twenty six words, every letter in the alphabet starting one of the words.  Sounds like fun, until you realize there’s only five words that start with ‘X’.  Dibbs on Xylophone!

Want a challenge?  Try to use the letters in order.  (You can cheat on the ‘X’ for this one, use ex- or anything else that sounds like it.)

 

On A Smoke Break investigates what happens, and what could happen, when you take a cigarette break.  If it takes a pack-a-day smoker five minutes to smoke a cigarette they end up spending nearly two hours of their day smoking. On A Smoke Break is a writing exercise that challenges you, the writer, to create the most interesting story possible that can only have the duration of a smoke break. Write from personal experience or imagine your own nicotine-fueled adventure!

 

Jeopardy Stories is a writing excercise that asks you what story you would tell the world with your thirty seconds of fame.  The premise:  You’re a contestant on Jeopardy and the first half of the Jeopardy round has ended.  What interesting tidbit about yourself will you share with Alex Trebeck and the world of Jeopardy viewers?

 

Short works by Michael McLaughlin

Thoughts Of A Monkey