PROMPT THIRTY – MENTAL MOVIES
 
            At the start of your writing time for the day, jot down three ideas that interest you. Then pick the one that most interests you. Close your eyes and imagine it as a movie playing inside your head. What happens? Write about what took place inside your head.
            Instead of a topic you can do this with a character. In this case, close your eyes and picture the first person that comes to mind. Describe this person and then plop him/her into a setting and see what develops.
            In either case, let the images flow on their own and write down the result in your movie/writing journal.
 
            My movie journal entry for this exercise is based on an image of an angel coming to my mind.
 
Angels and Children – Tommy is a junior angel. His eighth birthday was just around the corner when he was called back to heaven. That was a year ago. His first assignment starts when a young mother prays for her six-year-old child who is starting school the next day. Tommy must help the handicapped Patrick as he navigates the strange, new environment without friends and hiding a handicap. Quite a first assignment for a junior angel.

            PROMPT TWENTY-NINE – BRING OUT YOUR DEAD
 
            It may sound a bit morbid, but with this prompt you’re going to get inspiration for your story from the obituaries. Look at a couple of the biographies on the obituaries page and select one that grabs your attention. Ask yourself what sort of story would a person like this be involved in. Make changes to the character as needed.
 
            Sample Obituary: Following high school, Robert Pulson enlisted in the Navy, serving on a ship that patrolled the Panama Canal area. He received a B.S. degree and spent his career doing hybrid corn research in Kansas. Due to his disability he took an early retirement from Corn King Co. His retirement interests were music related.
 
 
            The pitch for this exercise is based on the above obituary.
 
Ghosts of the Corn – A Navy enlisted man and his buddies spend a week trekking through the jungles of Panama and discover a native tribe who cultivate a corn field where the dead walk the earth. When he steals several ears of corn to plant in his parent’s farm in Kansas, tribal spirits of the dead work against him, first to prevent the corn from growing and then to disrupt his studies to develop a hybrid which will grow in Kansas where his brother is buried. Robert wants is one last conversation with his brother to resolve the argument they had before his death, but the haunting may drive him insane before his research succeeds.