Framed!

For your next task, think about frames - or about being framed.

So your story could revolve around:

- A framed photo

- A framed picture - of any kind, from anywhere

- Framing someone, or being framed, for a crime

- Or anything else you can think of!

Enjoy!

'Grief is the thing with feathers.'

Grief is the thing with feathers is the title of a book by Ned Porter. I haven't read it, but for some reason the title has been running through my mind lately. I'd imagined it must be a quote from something, but if so, I haven't been able to find out what.

I don't understand it - does it mean that grief is like a bird? I don't know. But somehow it resonates.

I thought we might use it as a starting point for some writing.

Grief is an emotion, a feeling. Think of others - happiness, sadness, jealousy, anger. Make up your own metaphor: eg Anger is a fire-breathing dragon, Joy is a balloon the colour of rainbows.

Using one of these as a starting point, write a poem or a story that explores that particular emotion.

Update - a friend has told me that the title is adapted from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Here it is.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Friends...

 

So - your prompt for next week is friends.

This could be a sort of musing, reflective piece, about friends you have known; or you could focus on particular friendship and describe that.

Or it can be a story. Lots of possibilities there: remember with a story there needs to be a problem - so maybe a falling out; or maybe the problem is that your character finds it hard to make friends? Or it could be about losing touch with a friend - or making friends with someone whom at first you didn't like. It could be a children's story, set in a playground - or about the horrors of teenage friendships that go wrong.

It could be a friendship between different generations, or between a person and an animal. Or it could be about the loss of a friend. (I think one of the most poignant friendship stories is the one told in Puff the Magic Dragon...)

The choice is yours!