What If?

It's been inside you all along--a character, a story, an impression that won't leave you. On this first day of National Novel Writing Month, just start writing! Tell the nagging critic inside your head to shush, tell that editor in your brain--who is so worried about spelling and grammar--to take a hike; and just write. Write with abandon and every chance you can.

Gloria Anzaldua said, "...write in the kitchen, lock yourself up in the bathroom. Write on the bus or in the welfare line, on the job or during meals." Your first writing prompt is this: write from personal experience--but twist it. Find what is unique and intriguing about one aspect of your experience and build on that. Do you know a real "character" in your life? Flesh him out as a character in your novel with a "what if?" What if your disorganized and fun-loving co-worker came home to find his family missing? What if your perfectionist neighbor took a college course that made her "wake up" to a life of abandon? What if?

Message us at Shamama, with what you have so far--or hold on to it dearly. Do what feels...write!