Prompt words and one animal fact

Try and use all these words in a story or poem. Incorporate the feeling you have about this animal fact (or pick your own animal fact) and allow it to color the story in some way.

plastic
pound
sweet
freeze
lunge
yogurt
drag
wrapper

animal fact:

An albatross can sleep while flying.

some perfect dialogue from Woody Allen's "Play It Again Sam"

i love this, and just wanted to post it:


WOODY ALLEN: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Yes it is.

WOODY ALLEN: What does it say to you?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

WOODY ALLEN: What are you doing Saturday night?

GIRL IN MUSEUM: Committing suicide.

WOODY ALLEN: What about Friday night?

Me reading my story "Pru" about best friends who are very confused

Meg Pokrass reading "Pru" from megpokrass on Vimeo.

My first chapbook available here!!

My chapbook, Lost and Found elimae stories by Meg Pokrass with art by Cooper Renner is available for purchase right here! Just click on the PayPal button below and thanks for reading!

My podcast interview about creativity and writing by Cynthia Reeser from Prick of the Spindle!

Me reading my story from SmokeLong Quarterly, California Fruit

Meg Reading Wigleaf Postcard on YouTube

The Sorry Prompt

Your main character feels very sorry about something, but there is no way to apologize. It seems to follow him/her like a small dog. Your main character wants to NOT FEEL SO SORRY ANYMORE. What is he/she sorry about? Maybe he/she said something unwise to somebody a long time ago. Let this feeling color the story.

Prompt words:

whisper
accidental
beer
bowl
hoard
TV tray

varied sentence lenghts/ sense of scale/animal

In this exercise, i would like to play again with varied sentence lengths. One sentence should be 55 words or greater. Many sentences can be tiny, just one word. Ask at least two questions in this piece. Sometimes a rhythm evolves, or a disjointed rhythm, and let that happen.

Create a narrator who sees things out of proportion. Have you narrator exaggerate and stretch the truth about something that happenes. So: unreliable narrator.

Also: bring in an animal. A dog, a bug, a raccoon. Let that animal make a special guest star appearance with heft. That animal means something not obvious, changes something...

My tiny story "Birds" up at Everyday Genius

Exercise with words

Use all of these words in a piece:


fussy
hairy
blooming
slippery
flutter
damp
pale
weeds
yanking

Vary line lengths. fifty word sentences. One word sentences. Add at least two questions. The subject of this story should have something to do with exercise. Any kind of exercise. Don't think, write blindly, write quick.

The Envy Prompt

write a piece jam packed with disguised envy toward another person, a person's life, a person's opportunities.... maybe even a person's dog! It will be helpful to remember a time you seethed with with envy in your life, and the way that felt. What do you notice when you are envious of somebody or something? What pops out at you? What do your senses tell you? Fight or flight may happen, or may not happen.

words to incorporate:

bathtub
hide
France
gentle
Harbor
tarantula
finger nail clippers

Observe a human that touches you with small things

Think of a person that just makes you happy. The little things they do, even the mundane. or the things they say. Use this for the basis of a story. Finding the good in people brings us back to who we are, or were, or wish to be.

Let Your Narrator Dream!

Write a piece in which the narrator's mind drifts to a bug on the table, or a dog on the floor. Allow the narrator's mind to drift, to embellish, to fictionalize and anthropomorphise this little life, this bug life! Or this dog life! Let your narrator dream....

words to play with or include:

sneaker
key
pocket
rock
duck