Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the work of my guest, Elaine Sopchak, former owner of the sadly now-closed independent bookstore, The Book Rack and Children’s Pages. Next time you’re in a book store, pay attention to how things are laid out. Why is the children’s section where it is? Where is fiction? Is there a tactical reason for its placement in the store? How about nonfiction? Is it all together, or is it placed in groups by theme: history, biography, science, memoir? Are there special displays, and if so, what’s featured? What kind of poetry selection does the store have? Does it carry the books you want?

Here’s the writing prompt part of this excursion. Notice what books you pick up as you wander the store. What catches your eye? Author reputation? Jacket cover? Title? When you turn the book over in your hands, does your interest build or lessen? Why? What, specifically, is drawing you to each work? Think about your own writing then. Will it draw readers like you? Do you want it to? If so, does anything need to change in the way you’re approaching your work? This exercise has two goals. One, to reacquaint us with the hard work that is accomplished by booksellers. And two, to remind us about what it is that draws us, at first glance, to the books we love.

Good luck with this prompt, and please listen in two weeks for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: This week’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Thea Lewis. Write from the perspective of a ghost. How would it be if everyone who could see you were afraid of you? Would you haunt a place or a person? Would you be helpful or frightening? Who do you suppose you were you in life, and what happened to bring you to this point?

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another…

Readings by Thea Lewis, from Haunted Burlington: Spirits of Vermont’s Queen City (Charleston: Haunted America, The History Press, 2009). Copyright © 2009 by Thea Lewis. Recorded with permission from The History Press.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Christopher Noël . During the show, Chris mentioned that writers should meditate on the monsters that move us, those mysterious creatures that fascinated and perhaps repelled us when we were small. Contemplate the monster that lived under your bed, inside your closet, or outside your window, and then free write. This is a great way to enlighten or SHOW yourself what interests and motivates you. It may well also show you something you’d forgotten or hadn’t even realized about yourself.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another…

Readings by Christopher Noël , from Impossible Visits. Copyright © 2009 by Christopher Noël. Recorded with permission.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Tanya Lee Stone. Write about an embarrassing moment, without revealing the actual event that caused the embarrassment.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another…

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Interview with Philip Graham, fiction and cnf writer and co-founder of the journal Ninth Letter.

Prompt: This week’s Write The Book Prompt is inspired by a passage from Philip Graham’s new book, The Moon, Come to Earth, published by The University of Chicago Press. The following is the book’s first paragraph, from the essay titled “I Don’t Know Why I Love Lisbon.”

The grilled sardines lying on my plate are much larger than the stunted little things packed in tins which go by the same name in the U.S., and their eye sockets stare up at the ceiling, where hanging light fixtures are shaped like gourds. The aroma of sardines led me here, the scent sharp at first as it hit the nose (perhaps too sharp), until the smoky complexities took over, akin-at least for me-to a bouquet of wine. I take another sip from my glass of vinho verde and peer up at the small square of the TV perched on a high shelf beside the restaurant’s open door. The screen displays a smaller green rectangle of a soccer pitch, with the even smaller figures of the players racing back and forth.

Consider the middle passage, about the aroma of sardines, their sharp scent and smoky complexity, and how the passage is enriched by the details of scent. In your work, have you remembered to include smells? This week, look at heightening the power of description by way of scent. From perfume to overcooked eggs, pine needles to paint thinner. Be sure to let the smells into your writing, to present a richer, fuller presentation of the world you’re trying to convey.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another…

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Do Lado De Cá Do Mar” - Mario Laginha

Prompt: This week’s Write The Book Prompt is inspired by the interview you heard today with Robert Cohen. First, let me remind you of a sentence of prose from his latest book, Amateur Barbarians: “The room, the very world, seemed a vast expectant place, like a house in the aftermath of a party.” During our conversation, Robert said, “Metaphor is a kind of muscle; the more you exercise it, the more it starts to flex on its own.”  He also suggested that, in writing metaphor, it’s important to find “the right cast of mind for a particular character.” For example, in his novel, Amateur Barbarians, Teddy, the more conventional, middle-class character, is more likely to see the metaphor about the house than Oren, who has never settled down. As Robert explained it in our interview, Oren is “a renter, not an owner,” so he’d be less likely to recognize or conceive of the metaphor about the house.

As you write this week, play with metaphor. And consider Robert Cohen’s advice. Work to find metaphors that are apt not only for the material, but for the character whose perspective is being presented.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another…

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard with Rowan Jacobsen. In his book, The Living Shore, Rowan talks about children at play being “powerhouses of creativity.” He refers to the science essayist Lewis Thomas, who suggests that earliest language was probably developed by children. In his book, The Fragile Species, Thomas writes, “…it probably began when the earliest settlements, or the earliest nomadic tribes, reached a sufficient density of population so that there were plenty of very young children in close contact with each other, a critical mass of children, playing together all day long.”

Today’s prompt, then, is two-fold. First, try to let go of your adult sensibilities and get playful as you write. Because it is as children that we best access the possibilities of language. The second part of today’s prompt is about oysters. Recall Jonathan Swift’s words: “He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.” Write about that person. What was his or her situation and state of mind, to be that bold?

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard with Doug Wilhelm. The crux of this prompt is find out what you don’t know. And the advice is really twofold. First of all, decide if you need to do more research in order to move forward with your writing. What don’t you know that a book or a person or the experience of immersing yourself in a situation might teach you? Do that research before continuing with your work. The second part of this advice is to ask yourself relevant questions that aren’t being answered in your work, and then free write. These questions may be closer to the heart of your project than simple research. For example, if your main character is an arsonist, you might need to do research on how to set fires. But you’ll also need to ask yourself, Why is my character setting these fires? What is motivating him? If you don’t already know the answer, then put the question to yourself and spend some time free writing.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Vivian Dorsel. During our conversation, she mentioned an exercise that she likes (by Natalie Goldberg). A similar activity might be to try writing the words “I used to,” on a page, then follow that with a ten-minute free write about something you USED to do. Then write “I’m going to,” and write for another ten minutes about something you’re going to do.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Arnold Kozak. The thirtieth metaphor for mindfulness in his book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants, begins this way: “In many Buddhist works, the mind and the self are often compared to a small pool of water. Thoughts can be seen as a breeze or wind blowing on the surface. These disturbances obscure what can be seen below the surface-the bottom of the pool, the ground of being-without changing it in any way. This ground is there, always there, no matter what is happening on the surface.” Today’s prompt turns that metaphor to writing. Consider the piece you’re now working on. Maybe it’s a novel, a memoir, a collection of stories or poetry. Perhaps it’s a smaller entity: an essay or story or poem.  The work itself has an underlying essence, apart from the various images, snippets of dialogue, and actual scenes that exist within. As you write, try to keep a sense of this underlying essence within your work, your vision for it as a whole. Imagine that to be the bottom of the pool. Then, as you work, as you lose yourself in the wonderful creative act, feel free to create ripples along the top of the pool, to experiment and change and play with various elements within the work, all the while keeping clear in your own mind the bottom of the pool. Maintain some sort of focus, so that your work continues to embody that underlying vision, your writing’s “ground of being” that is the bottom of the pool.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Richard Russo. The title of his new book, That Old Cape Magic, refers at least in part to those things we wish for and can not ever have. What do your characters want? What do they dream about? Are their dreams within reach? Do they need unattainable dreams, simply to go on? What might that say about them? How do their goals and dreams make them behave? Consider dreams and motivations as you work. It’s important to know what your characters want before making them act, react, speak and think.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Natasha Saje, who occasionally turns to the dictionary for inspiration. Open a dictionary to a random page. Run your finger down a column of text, paying attention to the first five or ten words you see. Choose one of those words and find a way to include it in a poem you’re working on, or a paragraph of prose. As Natasha says, you can force the word into your work “like hammering open a door.” Maybe in a later revision, you’ll block it up again. But in the meantime, this randomly chosen word will have allowed you to get some “air” into your writing.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book prompt was inspired by the interview you heard today with Mary McGarry Morris, who says that when she’s developing a character, she tries to think the way that character thinks and have empathy for that person, no matter how different he or she may be from herself.  This week’s prompt, then, is to think of someone VERY unlike yourself. How would you represent that person’s character? What sorts of thoughts might you have? How would you speak? What might you be afraid of? What might you desire? Who would you like or dislike? What secrets might YOU be trying to hide? Stay open to that person’s perspective, no matter how strange or violent or dishonorable or meek. Maintaining empathy for the full range of human possibility will benefit the development of your character in the long run.

Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another!

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt is inspired by the interview you heard today. Clare Rossini’s poem “BIOLOGY LAB, ST. JOSEPH’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS” concerned just that, a biology class at a Catholic high school for girls. Your prompt for this week, then, is to take that inspiration as a point of departure. Choose a subject: math, biology, English, chemistry, gym, Spanish or French or Latin. Do you remember sitting in that classroom? What did it look like? What did the teacher act like? Who sat next to you – your best friend, or someone you didn’t much like? Did the class inspire you? Did you look forward to it? Why or why not? Write a poem or a scene, using these memories as inspiration. Be sure to include sensory details in the piece. Try to write in such a way that the reader will know just what it felt like to sit, for example, in Mr. Wong’s algebra class as he shot a rubber band at you after you misstated the quadratic formula.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt comes from my guest, Sue William Silverman, who included it in her new book on craft, Fearless Confessions. Recall a photograph from childhood, or dig one out of an old album. Write a paragraph about it using the voice and sensibility of who you were when the photograph was taken. Then, write a paragraph about it through the voice and sensibility of who you are now. Next, write a third paragraph that combines the perspectives of the first two: a paragraph that speaks in both the Voice of Innocence and the Voice of Experience. 

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my guest, Marilyn Taylor McDowell, who says writers should never edit out the truth. Susan Sontag once wrote, “Literature is a form of responsibility—to literature itself and to society. … a great writer of fiction, by writing truthfully about the society in which she or he lives, cannot help but evoke … the better standards of justice and of truthfulness which we have the right (some would say the duty) to militate for in the necessarily imperfect societies in which we live.”  As you write this week, try to keep these thoughts present, if loosely, in your mind. What am I examining in my work? And what is the truth of that condition? Don’t force a lesson or a moral into your writing, but identify the truth, as you believe it exists, and maintain it within the work. Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

This week’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with mystery writer Archer Mayor. Consider your current writing project. Is it possible that a mystery might exist within the pages of your story, poem or novel? Even if it’s not a piece that you’d define as MYSTERY, perhaps a small puzzle, woven throughout, would peak reader interest. Maybe you’re writing a family story. Could there be a cousin or neighbor who disappeared long ago? Or rumor of a treasure buried in the great-grandfather’s back yard? This needn’t be the focus of your piece, but a captivating subplot that could add something exciting to the work. To Kill A Mockingbird is not a mystery, but Boo Radley is a figure who inspires great interest. So keep in mind the appeal that a riddle can provoke, the pull of a secret. Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my guest’s perfect character, Arugula! and by the writer Anne Lamott, who views perfectionism as “the oppressor.” In her book Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott writes, “perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force.” She goes on to say, “Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground—you can still discover new treasures under all these piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.” As you work this week, try not to be perfect. Try not to be tidy. Aim for mess, clutter and fabulous chaos. Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my guest, Kimberly K. Jones, who said that she works to better understand characters she’s having trouble with. If possible, she tries to find some point of connection between herself and a character she may find unlikable, one with whom she doesn’t feel like spending her time.

With this in mind, today’s prompt has to do with getting to know characters better, understanding who they are and what motivates them. First, think of a person about whom you aren’t writing, someone you know very well. Make a quick list of twenty characteristics specific to that person. He takes a walk at 6 every morning. He hates raisins and will pick them out of his food. He has a terrible fear of cats. Etc. When you’ve finished your list, go back and write a question relevant to your own fiction that might be answered by each of the points you’ve just made. Does your character exercise? Where and when? Is your character picky? Are there foods she won’t eat? Is your character an animal person? Might she have a great number of a certain kind of pet, or is there the chance she’d cross the road to avoid one kind of animal? Where was your character raised? Has she ever lost anyone close to her? How did that affect her? Then go through and answer these questions. Let each one raise new questions, if possible. Really get to know your character better. Perhaps she’s not likable because she lost her cousin and best friend as a child and has never again found someone to confide in. Even if that’s not the point of your story, the information can be there, behind the work, informing your writing and helping you find the point of connection that allows you to move forward with this character.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)

Prompt: Today’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Jim DeFilippi, who suggests trying what he calls “a George V. Higgins.” Rather than writing a particular scene head on, perhaps let the reader find out about an event in a secondhand way. Two characters who know what happened can talk about it after the fact, filling in detail and background through dialogue. Jim cautions that the scene should not entail one person recounting for the other what happened, but that the two characters should both understand the event and have a conversation that, in turn, informs the reader.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion: Keep up on what’s happening with Write The Book through two new sites: the blog and the twitter page. Check them out: http://writethebook.wordpress.com/ and http://twitter.com/writethebook

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)