The actual Pooh (and friends) today.

From the moment I was first introduced to Winnie the Pooh as a child, I was entranced as much by the story as by the author’s use of language. As I grew older, I was given books of A. A. Milne’s poetry, which is equally enchanting. For the very late May/June Project, I therefore ask you to indulge me in this celebration of A. A. Milne. I think you’ll find that he has much to offer adult readers, just as he always had much to offer children.

This project will be open until June 14th, or so.

* ~ * ~ *

Option OneFiction

The Queen said,
“Oh!”
And went to
His Majesty:
“Talking of the butter for
The Royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?”
~A. A. Milne, “The King’s Breakfast”

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving breakfast.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Two: Timed Writing

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.
~A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Take seven minutes (use all seven, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of anticipation.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Three: Seven Things

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he:
“You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me.”
~A. A. Milne, “Disobedience”

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven things your parents often told you, when you were a child.. Alternatively, give me, seven naughty things you did as a child.You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Four: Pick Three

Then he began to think of all the things Christopher Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. “So perhaps,” he said sadly to himself, “Christopher Robin won’t tell me any more,” and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant that you just went on being faithful without being told things..
~A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write in the style of Milne. (As always, you can pluralize, change tense, or alter the part of speech, if necessary.)
bear, brain, faithful, going, muddling, perhaps, sadly, wherever, wondered

* ~ * ~ *
Option Five Can You Picture That?
Use the the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Tony Campbell

* ~ * ~ *

Option Six Poetry

“Let’s frighten the dragons.” I said to Pooh.
“That’s right,” said Pooh to Me.
“I’m not afraid,” I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted , “Shoo!
Silly old dragons!” – and off they flew.
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Pooh, said he,
“I’m never afraid with you.”
~A. A. Milne, “Us Two”

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about a real or imaginary best friend

* ~ * ~ *

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it. Please note that comments from new participants or with more than one link are held for manual approval, and may not show up immediately.

Happy Writing!

I’ve got gardens on the brain right now, so I’m sharing my obsession with all of you. The theme for March/April is In the Garden, and I’m so sorry it’s late, but as I’ll be away through the fifteenth of April posting it now may work out after all.

I also want to apologize for not commenting much – I read EVERY submission, but just haven’t had words lately for meaningful comments.

Remember that previous Projects are now closed, and that this Project will remain open until the next is posted.

Thank you for your continued participation.

* ~ * ~ *
Option One Poetry

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.
~Marcelene Cox

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about weather meaning more

* ~ * ~ *
Option Two:Fiction

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.
~James Douglas, from Down Shoe Lane

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving being alone in a garden.

* ~ * ~ *
Option Three: Timed Writing

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, from Mosses from an Old Manse

Take fifteen minutes (use all fifteen, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of the process of creation.

This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

* ~ * ~ *
Option Four: Seven Things

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity.
~Lindley Karstens

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven of your favorite guilty pleasures. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* ~ * ~ *
Option Five: Pick Three

Garden writing is often very tame, a real waste when you think how opinionated, inquisitive, irreverent and lascivious gardeners themselves tend to be. Nobody talks much about the muscular limbs, dark, swollen buds, strip-tease trees and unholy beauty that have made us all slaves of the Goddess Flora.
~Ketzel Levine

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write a love letter, instead.

beauty, daring, inquisitive, irreverent, limbs, opinionated, strip-tease, unholy, waste

* ~ * ~ *
Option Six Can You Picture That?
Use the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Alex Rath via iStockPhoto

* ~ * ~ *

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your name as you wish it to be posted, the direct link to your piece, and the option number.

Thanks! And happy writing!

Love Letters?
I wasn’t going to cave and do a Valentine theme for this month, but since I’m late in starting it, and it’s a short month anyway, and y’all are SO GOOD at spinning the themes in new and interesting directions, I thought, “Why not?”

I confess, every single thing each of you writes is like getting a Valentine, every month.
Remember to tag your posts with Café Writing, or link to us in some fashion.

By the way, all of the quotations for this project are taken from actual love letters.

This Project will be live through the end of February. When a new Project opens, the previous one is closed.

* ~ * ~ *
Option One Can You Picture That?
Use the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Xaviarnau via iStockPhoto

* ~ * ~ *
Option Two Poetry

If I did have an honest — or dishonest — desire to kiss just one or two people, I might — but I couldn’t want to — my mouth is yours.
~Zelda Fitzgerald (in a love letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about honest or dishonest desires

* ~ * ~ *
Option Three:Fiction

What can I tell you by letter? Alas! nothing that I would tell you. The messages of the gods to each other travel not by pen and ink and indeed your bodily presence here would not make you more real: for I feel your fingers in my hair, and your cheek brushing mine. The air is full of the music of your voice, my soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled in some exquisite ecstasy with yours. I feel incomplete without you.
~Oscar Wilde (in a letter to Constance Wilde)

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving something that can’t be said in a letter.

* ~ * ~ *
Option Four: Timed Writing

…should I draw you the picture of my heart it would be what I hope you would still love though it contained nothing new. The early possession you obtained there, and the absolute power you have obtained over it,leaves not the smallest space unoccupied..
~Abigail Adams (in a letter to John Adams)

Take nine minutes (use all nine, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of a picture of your heart.

This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

* ~ * ~ *
Option Five: Seven Things

I don’t like it at all. All the Chairs are staring at me in the most frightful way — And there is a Lady on the Mantel piece who has taken a Great objection to me — and I’m awfully scared —

This is no place for a person with a nice cheerful disposition like me — it looks like those parlors in the Novels where they plot things –
~Isadora Duncan (in a letter to Gordon Craig)

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me the seven most un-romantic places you’ve kissed your love. Interpret “places” any way you please. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do. (And yes, I mean “most un-romantic,” and not merely “least romantic.”)

* ~ * ~ *
Option Six: Pick Three

Do not imagine, because you find these lines in your journal that I have been trespassing. You know I have not – and where else shall I leave a love letter? For I long to write you a love-letter tonight.

You are all about me – I seem to breathe you, hear you, feel you in me and of me.
What am I doing here? You are away. I have seen you in the train, at the station, driving up, sitting in the lamplight, talking, greeting people, washing your hands… And I am here – in your tent – sitting at your table.
.
~Katherine Mansfield (in a letter to John Middleton Murray)

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry. If you want to be really daring, write a love letter, instead.

greeting, hands, imagine, leave, letter, people, train, trespassing, washing

* ~ * ~ *

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

Happy Writing, and Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy 2009!
Café Writing has been declared a resolution-free zone. Well, sort of. There have been enough memes asking about your resolutions for 2009 over the past week, and frankly, I’ve always felt that the resolutions we keep best are the ones we don’t announce – rather like birthday wishes not coming true if you reveal them.

Instead the theme for this Project is “Fresh,” whether that means “audacious” or “new” – and perhaps a bit of both!

Remember to tag your posts with Café Writing, or link to us in some fashion.

This Project will be live through the end of January. When a new Project opens, the previous one is closed.

* ~ * ~ *

Option One: Pick Three

Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some.
~John Keats

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry.
discovery, experience, failure, false, highway, positive, seek, sense, true

* ~ * ~ *

Option Two Can You Picture That?
Use the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Rana K. Williamson

* ~ * ~ *

Option Three Poetry

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs.
~William Arthur Ward

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about praying for peace, planting trees, or singing joyful songs.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Four:Fiction

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
~Erich Fromm

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving a bright morning.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Five: Timed Writing

Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a perpetual succession of miracles rising into view.
~Joseph Addison

Take nine minutes (use all nine, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of short-lived passions.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Six: Seven Things

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write..
~Pearl S. Buck

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven things that inhabit or occupy your writing space. Interpret “writing space” any way you please. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* ~ * ~ *
Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

Happy Writing, and Best Wishes for 2009

Welcome to the 2008 Holiday Project at Cafe Writing!
In the month of December we have so many celebrations – the Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve – that it seems wrong to ignore them – but one thing all share is an element of the mystical or magical.

There’s so much bad news in the world today, that rather than focusing on individual holidays, the theme for this month is HOLIDAY MAGIC. It will run through the first weekend of the New Year, I think.
(As an aside, if the quotes seem Christmas-heavy, that isn’t meant to push a personal agenda, and certainly I don’t expect your writings to be Christmas-centric.)

* ~ * ~ *

Option One: Seven Things

That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.
~Charles DeLint

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven magical things in your world. Interpret “magical” any way you please. You’re not required to explain the items in your list, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Two: Pick Three

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
~Emma Lazarus, “The Feast of Lights”

Pick at least three of the following words, and build a piece of writing around them. The form is up to you: poem, scene, flash-fic, essay, or general blog entry.

ablaze, earth, forehead, kindle, night, steadfast, star, taper

* ~ * ~ *

Option Three: Can You Picture That?
Use the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Konstantin Yuganov

* ~ * ~ *

Option Four: Poetry

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~Samuel Smiles

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about living with angels or sitting with faeries.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Five:Fiction

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder

Using the above quotation as your inspiration, write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving childhood memories.

* ~ * ~ *

Option Six: Timed Writing

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
~Francis P. Church, “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”

Take twelve minutes (use all twelve, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of unseen and unseeable wonders.

This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome.

* ~ * ~ *

Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

HAPPY WRITING & Happy Holidays