Category: Writing prompt

Writing About Food and Announcing the Latest Issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine!

Published on by Nadja Maril1 Comment

by Nadja Maril,a founding member of Old Scratch Press Collective

Food. We spend a substantial part each day preparing, serving, and eating. The tastes, aromas and textures bring back memories. And over the winter holidays, the sensations become magnified as we taste the turkey roasting in the oven, the creamy mashed potatoes, the fragrant puddings, the sweet and savory carrots, onion topped green beans, latkes and apple sauce, cheese blintzes, and buttery chocolate chip cookies.

This is why I enjoy writing about food. It’s easy. All I have to do is close my eyes, remember and think of words to describe memorable dishes, new tastes I discovered, and meals I’ve shared. Try it. Think of a favorite meal, why it stands out in your mind and the emotions you associate with that time. Write down you uncensored thoughts. Read over what you’ve written. Maybe cross out a few sentences and rewrite others. You’ve begun to write memoir, the start of what is called Creative Nonfiction and it wasn’t hard at all.

You can take those food thoughts and memories and turn them into fiction as well. There’s no shortage of food in fairy tales: the witch in Hansel and Gretal with the house made of gingerbread and candy, the red apple in Snow White, the porridge eaten by Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Wonderful poems have been written about food ingredients. One of the most important items I use in savory dishes is onion. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) wrote a wonderful poem about the onion I’d like to share.

ODE TO THE ONION
by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

If you need more inspiration, start reading the latest issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine .All the stories and poems are inspired by GRAVY.

One of my favorites in this issue is “Thanksgiving Leftovers” by Arielle Arbushites which begins “Gravy gravy everywhere/and not a drop to drink” Hear her read the poem by clicking this link.

Forty-two creative expressions inspired by GRAVY! Who would have thought we’d get so many fine submissions on this topic. Read them and enjoy the writer’s different takes on the subject. Maybe it is a holiday dinner that goes wrong or a humble food offering that needs a splash of pzazz but all the stories have something to do with gravy.

My creative nonfiction includes a nod to my great-grandmother’s Limoges covered gravy dish and a recipe. You can access it here or if you don’t want to read, you can listen here

Writers and Readers, don’t forget to forget to follow us on Facebook to get the latest news and learn about submission opportunities.

Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer’s Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM.

Check out Nadja’s chapbook below and here.

Words with Dual Meanings: A Writer’s Playground

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by Nadja Maril

Words. They fascinate me, the way some words like dust can have two very different meanings. You dust the house, removing small particles of dirt and cobwebs. You dust the cake with confectioner’s sugar making it sweet.

The word weather has two opposite meanings as a verb. The new wood shingles on the house will look better when they weather and turn a soft natural gray. Or used differently you could write, When the next hurricane arrives, I’m not sure if we can weather the storm. As a noun, the meaning of weather is constant. The noun describes meteorological conditions.  Nice fall weather we’re having.

Applying Word Meanings to Getting Published

Every Monday when I read the updated lists of publishing opportunities in literary magazines, I read theme call-outs that generally consist of one word. Write to the theme, they ask, but sometimes that word can be open to wide interpretation.  However, that’s the job of a creative writer; to put our own perspective into our poems and stories.

Photo by Gaurav Ranjitkar on Pexels.com

I read the word dirt and I might picture a pile of soil or imagine filth within a house or think instead of scandalous information about a crooked politician. Playing in the dirt making mudpies can be a joyful experience for a child whereas cleaning away mounds of accumulated filth a tedious chore. The diverse interpretations of how we interpret words can be what makes a collection of writing interesting.

The diverse interpretations of how we interpret words can be what makes a collection of writing interesting.

So, I was surprised when a friend told me their spouse had purchased my new book (Recipes From My Garden; herb and memoir short prose and poetry) and with the cold weather coming, they were planning on trying out some of my recipes.

i’d written a book of prose poems and memoir and my friend thought I’d just published a cookbook!

How Word Choice for Your Title Affects Marketing

Recipes. Yes, the word can mean instructions on food preparation, ie try my recipe for chicken soup, but it can also mean a way or approach to doing things. You might say I’ve got the recipe for a successful children’s birthday party, one adult for every child. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, you might hear about a class trip to the amusement park with no parent chaperones and say, That’s a recipe for disaster.

I thought I was being clever when I chose the title to my little chapbook. I imagined that readers seeing the words memoir, prose, and poetry would understand the book’s double meaning. It does contain a few actual recipes and many references to food and kitchen gardens, but primarily I was thinking of the word recipe as a way or approach of doing things. As memoir, the usage becomes personal. As a poet, I’m sharing how I see the world, starting specifically with what is accessible to me: the sunflowers, tomatoes, a walk on the beach.

The good news for me is  if there is any doubt, the silver lining is people do talk about what they read and like. But if you are new to thie site and you are just reading about my chapbook for the very first time, I also have a book trailer. My talented publishers were able to use some of the video my husband took of our giant sunflowers along with old family photographs and more recent ones to create a wonderful book trailer. You can watch by clicking on the link: https://youtu.be/HxmwOx3-_QY

And going with the theme of the multiple meanings of words, here is a word WRITING PROMPT

To get you started I have chosen a few ambiguous words: long, cleave, bar, and duck. Select a word, choose a meaning, and start writing a scene. Take the word and use it with an alternate meaning. How many different ways can you use the same word and shade the meaning in different ways? Try using the word in a poem and play with the multiple meanings.  Have fun.

Thank You for reading! To read more of my work sign up for FREE to follow me on WordPress, Substack or Medium and visit my website at www.Nadjamaril.com.

Don’r forget to follow Old Scratch Press on Facebook and on WordPress.

Published by Nadja Maril

Nadja Maril’s prose and poetry has been published in literary magazines that include Change Seven, Lunch Ticket, Thin Air, and The Compressed Journal of Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, a chapbook published by Old Scratch Press that includes both poetry and creative nonfiction prose. Author of two children’s books illustrated with paintings by her father Herman Maril, as well as Who IS Santa? for which she did her own illustrations, Nadja is also the author of two reference books on antique American Lighting, published by Schiffer. A former journalist and magazine editor, Nadja has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine. To read more of her work and follow her weekly blog posts, visit Nadjamaril.com https://nadjamaril.com/ View more posts

The Art of Borrowing Characters: A Literary Debate

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by Nadja Maril, a founding member of Old Scratch Press Collective

A few months ago, I read a book purely for escapism, a cozy mystery populated by Jane Austen Characters entitled The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray. I didn’t have to think too hard as I’d already met: Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy, Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Anne and Frederick Wentworth, and Fanny and Edmund Bertram. Already familiar with the English country homes so well described in my favorite Jane Austen Novels: Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, I merely had to get to know the two new characters Jonathan Darcy (son of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth) and Juliet Tilney ( daughter of Northanger Abbey’s Catherine and Henry) who team up together to solve the murder.

Photo by Alexander Mass on Pexels.com

Combine characters created by other authors with AI (artificial intelligence) and we stand on shaky territory.

What is it that makes human writing truly unique ?

The novel started me thinking about where writers find inspiration, because certainly this particular set-up would theoretically be the perfect candidate for an AI (artificial intelligence) generated book. A good portion of the plot of The Murder of Mr. Wickham  relies on tropes and scenes frequently present in other Jane Austen books.

As to be anticipated, in this cross between an Agatha Christie whodonit and a Jane Austen novel, we have  a series of misunderstandings between couples, friends and romantic prospects as well as a grand ball, a visit by the gentry to the village where they are shunned, a church scene with more snubbing, and conflicts that center on income and social class. While I was curious to find out the identity of the murderer, with so many characters possessing motive, I found myself more interested in the potential for a romance to develop between Jonathan and Juliet.

Is picking up ready-made characters cheating? Certainly, the use of characters who have already proven themselves to be favorites among readers, give a writer an advantage when looking to find a publisher.  What is the difference from taking a character or storyline from the Bible or a popular fairytale vs. taking a fictional character such as Sherlock Holmes or Sir Lancelot casting them in the starring role of your next short story or novel.

Folktales and Myths provide plenty of ideas for new versions of old stories. Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

One thing I’ve noticed is the different ways a popular character can be used. Minor characters in a well-known fairy tale, perhaps one of the step-sisters in Cinderella may have a very different take on why Cinderella was not allowed to go to the ball. The Genie locked inside a bottle could probably tell a series of funny stories about badly chosen wishes. In the Broadway hit musical “Wicked,” partially adapted from the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda is not the spotless white witch she purports herself to be when one hears the tale from Elphaba’s prospective.

Anything that spurs new ideas is fair game, as long as borrowing a character or a plot is not plagiarism. The plot or the characters must have evolved and changed. The characters themselves must be unique (not duplicates of another author) and not protected by copyright rules.

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

Thus, favorite characters such as the Harry Potter gang, are relegated to fan fiction only, meaning the work is “unauthorized” and cannot be used for monetary return.

Taking inspiration from classics can be a creative endeavor if not taken up by computers. It can make a great writing prompt.

You can use this prompt to write short stories and poetry, material that would be appropriate for a chapbook as well as specialized literary magazines.

Maybe Goldilocks brings three bowls of Creme Brulee to the bears as a peace offering. Photo by Gerardo Manzano on Pexels.com

WRITING PROMPT

Think of a favorite folk/fairy tale such as The Three Bears. What if Goldilocks had the opportunity to apologize for her rude intrusion into the Bear’s Cottage. Imagine and write down what might happen. If the men who pretended to sell invisible cloth to the emperor were to tell the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, would they tell it differently than the traditional fairy tale? Try different approaches. Have fun.

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow Old Scratch Press here on WordPress and on Facebook.

Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer's Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. 
Check out Nadja's chapbook of flash memoir and poetry below.

https://rb.gy/olqjwe.

The Art of Storytelling: New Perspectives on Old Fairy Tales

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Nadja Maril

Perhaps it was the illustrations that captivated me when I’d pour through the fairytale books, the dragons and the princesses with long gowns and tresses, but of all the picture books in my room when I was a young child, I liked the fairytales the best.

I can still remember many of those books, the way they looked with their ornate borders and their detailed portraits of the handsome Puss N’ Boots or the angry face of Rumpelstiltskin as he stamps hard enough to crash through a floor and into oblivion. Styles evolve and change, and the animated images of the Walt Disney studios who’ve popularized many fairy tales by converting them into cartoon movies, don’t have the same depth of detail as those old illustrations. I love the old woodcut and color plate illustrations, but many contemporary artists add new magic and perspective to an old story.  When you read a fairytale or any story for that matter, the possibilities for elaboration are endless.

“Happily Ever After” isn’t always the case in some of the Hans Christian Anderson Tales, such as “The Red Shoes” and “The Little Mermaid.”  But as fairy tales have been told and retold so many times, multiple versions circulate. Children today probably have no idea that the original “Little Mermaid” is a tragic story of desire and loss. The little mermaid was unable to permanently become a human. Her attempts at transformation cause her to lose her life as a mermaid. What remains, is her hope that one day she’ll become part of the eternal universe.

In the hands of the Disney writing team, however, “The Little Mermaid,” became a story about family conflict, friendship, love, and fulfillment. The result is a story with a happy ending.

What story would you like to write?

But that’s okay, because fairy tales are part of our oral tradition and why not use the familiar tropes from our childhood as building blocks to create new stories or retell old ones. I think it is important to remember and learn from what went before. However, the stories of our lives keep evolving. So, what story would you like to tell?

To get you started, I’m sharing the work of several writers who were and still are inspired by fairy tales.

Many poetry enthusiasts will probably be familiar with the poem “Goblin Market “by Victorian era British poet Christina Rossetti(1830-1894). It utilizes the folklore of goblins to set the scene with lines like these:

"Pricking up her golden head:
"We must not look at goblin men
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen."

To read the entire poem and learn more about Christina Rossetti, click here.

Another writer, Anne Sexton (1928-1974) took fairy tales as a launching point to reimagine social norms.

American poet Anne Sexton is considered a pivotal figure in the confessional poetry movement that emerged in the mid-20th century. Her work holds nothing back as it shares her personal struggles. Themes she explores include: mental illness, sexuality, and the complexities of womanhood. Her poetry collection Transformations contains seventeen poems inspired by Grimm Fairy Tales, that include Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and CInderella, that challenged the prevailing norms of her times. I highly recommend adding this volume of poetry, the contents of which are unavailable online, to your library.

“The Cinder Girl Burns Brightly” by Theodora Goss is a different take on the Cinderella fairytale, told in poetry. Hungarian American author Theodora Goss (1968–) is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poetry and essays, and more of her work can be accessed at this link.

And finally I share a short story by American writer Michael Cunningham, famous for his novel The Hours, this little story, Wild Swan is inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale “The Wild Swans.” Brilliantly he takes the premise of the original story and creates an alternate re-telling set in modern times that focuses on one of the enchanted princes.

Need a writing prompt? Just read a favorite fairytale and think about how you’d like to retell it differently or take just one character or element and spin it into a poem or story.

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow Old Scratch Press here on WordPress and on Facebook.

Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer's Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. 



			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Creative Writing Prompt Inspired by  Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake

				

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By Nadja Maril, a founding member of the Old Scratch Short Form and Poetry Collective.





Summer and reading go hand in hand. You go on vacation and take along a stack of all those books you’ve been meaning to read.





Sometimes, for me I have to confess I’m actually listening instead of turning pages.( Did you know that most of the books published by Old Scratch Press are available as audio books as well as ebooks?) Half of the books I enjoy these days are recorded books because I can listen and do various chores at the same time.





I can also eat lunch and be entertained by a book without smearing avocado or salad dressing on its pages.





And then if I really love the book, or just want to see it laid out on the page, I get a physical copy from the library and enjoy it again.





I try really hard not to read books by the same authors, so I can introduce myself to new voices. However, I couldn’t resist downloading Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Tom Lake, because I was curious about what it had to do with cherry orchards. The audio version is  narrated by Meryl Streep. What a treat.





 I’m a Meryl Streep fan and the narrator and protagonist of Tom Lake, the novel is a former actress. True, she is a different kind of actress, “a natural”, as she reveals in her story telling, unlike Streep who has portrayed a wide range of characters, but the protagonist has performed on stage and screen nevertheless. Streep does an impeccable job





What I truly want to recommend about the novel is its construction. So, writers, and aspiring writers pay attention. Not only does Patchett incorporate unpredictable twists and turns into the storyline, but she skillfully interweaves past and present.





The present setting is a farm near Traverse City Michigan during the Covid Pandemic. The past setting, that jumps back and forth into the storyline, is a summer stock theater also in Northern Michigan called Tom Lake. Part of the fun of this story is the gradual reveal of how present and past fit together.










I highly dislike predictable plotlines. Thus, I shout the praises for a novel that continued to surprise me to the very last page.





If you are a writer, continuing. on the journey of further refining your craft, you may be interested in the upcoming opportunity to join the Old Scratch Press Writing Collective or the opportunity to become published in Instant Noodles Literary Review. The Collective applications are available here and the deadline is closing soon.





The next theme subject for the Holiday/Winter Issue of Instant Noodles is Gravy. Write a true story, a poem or a piece of fiction related to Gravy. Keep it short. We prefer prose that is less than 500 words in length. 





Back to my thoughts on the novel Tom Lake and not wanting to give any spoilers, I’m going to provide a  WRITING PROMPT instead:





Photo by Sarah  Chai on Pexels.com





IMAGINE your very first boyfriend or girlfriend, remember what they were like to be with and then write about what attracted you to them, what you admired. Now, write about their flaws.





Take a break. Maybe wait an hour or a day. Then imagine yourself with that person and what your life would be like. The third part to this writing assignment is to first think about what you would tell that person, if you had the opportunity,  write them something—a letter, an essay, a poem—whatever genre form you choose. Do you have things you’d like to apologize about, or explain, or share?





Maybe this exercise will give you an idea for a story. Maybe not, but I guarantee you’ll learn something about yourself.





THANK YOU for reading. If you haven’t already signed up (it’s free!), please follow me on WordPress. Medium or Substack and visit my website Nadjamaril.com to read more of my work.





Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer’s Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. 







			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Exploring Creative Nonfiction: Truth Through Memory

				

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By Nadja Maril, a Founding Member of the Old Scratch Short Form and Poetry Collective





How we portray ourselves and others, is something memoirists grapple with.





We call it “Creative Nonfiction” when a writer presents truth in a creative format that can take the form of anything from a lyrical essay to a crossword puzzle. A selection of word artifacts can weave an interesting narrative inviting the reader to fill in the blanks, anything from a grouping of letters, the transcription of a phone call, or a photograph with a caption.





The words in a game or puzzle can inspire a short work of creative nonfiction.





 In fiction, the writer shapes the story to create pacing and tension. In nonfiction, the writer selects and amplifies truth to produce a compelling piece they hope others will want to read.





The nonfiction writer often relies on memory. Memory and research. The research often draws on the memories and writings of others.





How accurate are those memories?  According to the work of late 19th century German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus’s research, graphed as a forgetting curve, much of what people experience each day is quickly forgotten.  In the May 20th 2024 issue of The New Yorker, writer Jerome Groopman, discusses in a book review the recently released book Why We Remember by Charan Ranganath.





Ranganath is a neuropsychologist at U.C. Davis and in his book, he discusses memory and how we may be looking at memory the wrong way. Memory, he conjectures, more likely functions as an adaptive trait to keep humans alive.  Selectively we remember some things and forget others. Perhaps the forgetting is as important as the remembering.





Photos may help prompt our memories, but sometimes what others tell us about a photo my influence our recollection.





From a writer’s point of view, I find it fascinating to hear how people’s memories of the same event can be slightly different. What do those differences reveal about each person?





Folk tales and fairy tales clearly demonstrate how the same story can be adjusted to reflect the story teller’s preferences. In some versions of little Red Riding Hood, grandmother is locked in a closet in another she is swallowed by the wolf. In a family, one sister may remember beloved pet that was hit by a car and another may forget the pet because the memory is too painful.





Photo by Son Dang on Pexels.com





Prior to a trip to Ireland last year, I started reading the book, The Irish Assassins; Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned England by Julie Kavanagh, to gain some understanding of Irish history. The three hundred plus page nonfiction narrative reads like a novel, but dialogue and descriptions are all based on meticulous research. The book has sixty pages of end notes and footnotes. 





But the sources themselves: diaries, letters, newspaper articles, trial transcriptions all have their bias—according to who wrote them. And Kavanagh reveals in many instances, the ulterior motives and prejudices some of the parties may have possessed in how they reacted to the events that took place.





Writing a short nonfiction piece, based on a personal experience can take the form of a letter, diary or puzzle. Part of the writing adventure is trying new things.





If we acknowledge our memories are always shapeshifting, I think it can give us a certain amount of freedom to experiment. Playing with episodic memory, using a trigger such as music, smell or taste, can provide a means to travel back to a previous episode in your life and re-examine it.





Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com





WRITING PROMPT: A smell you love or a smell you hate. If you have the item around, use it as a trigger, if not try to remember it. What comes to mind. A person you were fond of? A party you attended? If you write something you like, put it away and revisit it the following week to review and edit. If the piece has power refine until it is ready and then if you want to share it,  submit it to potential publishers. 





About the author:





Nadja Maril is the author of Recipes from my Garden, Old Scratch Press, September 2024. Nadja Maril’s short stories, poems and essays have been published in dozens of small online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. A former newspaper columnist and magazine editor, she writes a weekly blog and you can visit her website at www.Nadjamaril.com.












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National Grammar Day Poetry Contest

				

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Don’t miss your chance to submit to the National Grammar Day Poetry Contest:





SUBMISSION PROCESS (copied from ACES)





Poem requirements





    

  • All poems submitted for consideration must be original, unpublished, and short. 
    • 




  • Short is key. No epics, please. 
    • 




  • Meter, rhyme, free verse? Haiku, limerick, quatrain, sonnet? The choice is yours. 
    • 




  • Entries should make a point about language: grammar, usage, typos, writing, editing — whatever inspires you think captures the spirit of National Grammar Day.  
    • 






Who can enter





Everyone is invited to participate. You do not need to be a member of ACES or work as an editor. The winning entry will be selected by a panel of judges that includes the previous year’s winner, along with language and poetry experts. ACES administers the award; it does not decide the winners. 





How to submit your entry





In order to be considered by the judges, official entries must be submitted through the entry form.
Multiple submissions are welcomed. 





ENTRY FORM





That said, we encourage you to share your entries on your favorite social media platforms. If you tag #ACES and #GrammarDay we will be able to find you and reshare. 





When to submit





The submission form is open Feb. 15-28. The link will be available here during that window.    





Learning the results





ACES will announce the winner on, naturally, March 4, in a post on its news channel and in its social media channels. The winning poem will be included in the story, along with the runner-up entries. 


			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
The Sounds of Home: A Writer’s Connection to the Beach

				

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By Nadja Maril, a Founding member of Old Scratch Writing Collective





The dog is digging a hole in the sand. After chasing and fetching her ball numerous times, she has decided to bury it. It’s a game of make it disappear and find it again, a game she can play all by herself while I sit and listen to the waves slapping against the shore. I love this sound. It doesn’t matter where I am, if I’m near water coastline I’ll find a beach. The sounds of water soothe me. And I’m not alone in craving water sounds. A babbling brook, the torrent of a waterfall, the crash of ocean waves: are sounds that both inspire and invigorate.





Of the five senses—sight, smell, touch, sound, taste— one of the five will often be more prominently experienced than the other four. And this can change, depending on the situation. I find, when I tap into my memory bank, that sound is most frequently my touchstone. I think of a scene and I hear it. The rise and fall of the voices, crickets chirping, the sputter of an outboard motor, heavy breathing.





WRITING PROMPT





A classic writing exercise is to describe the place you call home.  If you are truly honest with yourself, the exercise will force you to select the place you long for, if you’re not already living there.  In order to describe it, you’ll be choosing the details that pop out in your mind.  The exercise provides a short cut, so to speak, to grasp what you value most.





Flash Fiction writers, you can use this prompt to channel you directly into the characters you create. Where do they feel most secure? It can tell you a lot about a person.





For me, home is the beach. It’s a happy place where I can walk for miles, build sand castles, swim in the waves and float on my back with the sun in my face. During childhood it was the Provincetown beach at the end of Kendall Lane. Today it is Cornhill beach in Truro a few miles away. The first glimpse of water and sand, the sound of the waves pushing into the shore, the smells of salt and seaweed, the wind against my face; I am home. From both beaches, if I look eastward I see the very tip of the Cape Cod peninsula curving around, creating a sheltered harbor. Out across the bay is Long Point Light Station.





When following a writing prompt or exercise, allow your thoughts to freely flow. Do not self-censor while writing. Once, you’re finished you can cut words, sentences or entire paragraphs. But if you analyze every word you select, you won’t get very far.










The subsequent step after spending twenty to thirty minutes writing a description of “home” is to read what you’ve written and look for patterns. Does one sense, such as smell, dominate the prose. Are there duplications of the same idea that cloud the focus? Challenge yourself to deepen the scene by adding action or dialogue.





Whenever I’m “stuck” and looking for a fresh something to write about. I challenge myself by creating a prompt or borrowing a prompt idea from another writer. The ideas are out there, you just need to make the time and have fun with what you create.





 





THANK YOU for reading. Have fun. And please, if you like my writing, you can support my efforts by buying a copy of my chapbook RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN– Poetry, Flash CNF and Short Essays (Old Scratch Press Sept. 2024) a great gift to yourself and for friends at $8.95.  My chapbook is just one of the many fine books published by the imprint Old Scratch Press.