I think everyone should travel to a foreign country where people don’t speak your language. If nothing else, it gives you a lot of empathy when working with people who are learning your language, but it can be a great learning experience as well. However, it is undeniably a stressful situation with lots of opportunities…
Tag: prompts
Muse on Monday – April 6, 2026
Different writing prompts bring different questions to mind, as a writer. For instance, if the story is about a murder, the overarching question is who did it and maybe how. For this prompt, the main question to answer is why. Story Prompt: April 6, 2026 Write a story about a character breaking into their own…
Muse on Monday – March 23, 2026
If you’ve ever lain in bed trying to get to sleep, you know the battle that this can be. It’s also a vicious cycle of not being asleep, then being frustrated you’re not asleep, which wakes you up more. On the other hand, there are times when you are fighting not to fall asleep (such…
Muse on Monday – March 16, 2026
Human interaction makes up a huge part of the conflict in stories. After all, as humans, we are the most interesting subject for our stories. This conflict could come from having different values, misunderstandings from language and culture, competition for resources or lots of other reasons. It’s hard enough to negotiate with someone in good…
Muse on Monday – March 9, 2026
I don’t know anyone who loves traffic, unless it’s your job to study traffic patterns. However, there are a lot of chances for conflict when you have hundreds of people driving vehicles in close proximity, each with their own emotions, personal situations and levels of distraction. That’s not including all the things that could happen…
Muse on Monday – March 2, 2026
Have you ever had to give someone bad news? Even worse, maybe you had to give it to a whole group at once. I had to do that recently, and it wasn’t fun. There is a whole range of emotions people go through when getting bad news, from shock to anger, to grief, depending on…
Muse on Monday – February 23, 2026
Have you ever read a story where an animal is a character in the story? These aren’t always fantasy stories or children’s stories (although they often are). There are several ways you can use an animal as a character in a story. Story Prompt: February 23, 2026 Write a story with an animal as a…
Muse on Monday – February 16, 2026
I find it interesting to look at the jobs the main characters have in stories. A disproportionate number seem to be writers, for example, since that is what writers know. There aren’t a lot of electricians as main characters though. Just for fun, I went back through the novels I’ve written to see what jobs…
Muse on Monday – February 9, 2026
I will admit I have not seen the 2002 movie Phone Booth, but I find the premise intriguing: a man is trapped in a phone booth and will be killed if he leaves. The whole movie takes place there. There is something limiting about having all the action in a story happen in one place,…
Muse on Monday – February 2, 2026
This past week, a lot of the United States has been enduring winter conditions they are not used to. It’s been cold and snowy but we’re used to it so it’s not as big a deal as it is in, say, Texas or Georgia. I’ve lived in cold areas my whole life and maybe because…
The Green-Walled Treehouse 