by Naomi L. | December 6, 2017 | Blog, Creative Writing, What If? Writing Prompts |
December is here! Another year has come and gone, and with the holiday season about to shift into high gear, it’s a great time for some more “What If?” Writing Prompts! This week’s batch of prompts once again centers around the theme of the holidays. See what holiday stories you can write from these ideas! Enjoy!
What if… instead of giving presents, Christmas centered around a tradition of doing good deeds?
What if… your family only celebrated a made-up non-commercial holiday like Festivus in December?
What if… you received a mysterious Christmas present from a relative who had passed away?
What if… one Hanukkah, you and your family played a mystery game in which you’d get one new clue every night until someone won?
What if… every year, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, you had the power to make it January 1st of any year in history, but had to live that entire year until the following New Year’s Eve?
Good luck writing more stories about the holidays!
If you have any “What If?” writing prompt suggestions (for any theme), please feel free to share them in the comments below. Ideas I like may be featured in future “What If?” posts, with full credit and a link to your blog (if you have one)! Also, if you’ve written a piece based on an idea you’ve found here, be sure to link back to the respective “What If?” post. I would love to see what you’ve done with the prompt! Thank you!
by Naomi L. | December 4, 2017 | Blog, Word of the Week |
Word: augur
Pronunciation: AW-ɡər
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: (of an event or circumstance) portend a good or bad outcome
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
Here’s an interesting word I found while searching for a synonym for “foreshadow”. You may recognize today’s Word of the Week as part of another more familiar word (which I featured in this segment earlier this year), though their meanings are considerably different. While it’s not exactly common, I’m sure we could all find a use for this word now and then; in such an unpredictable world, the least we can hope for is to determine if current events will “augur” well or badly for the future!
To “augur” is to foreshadow a good or bad outcome. The word arose in late Middle English and is originally a Latin noun meaning “diviner”. This noun’s origin is uncertain, but it’s related to the verb augurare, which means “to predict”.
When used in its primary sense, “augur” should be followed by an adverb describing the predicted outcome (e.g. to “augur well” or “augur badly”), though it can also be followed by the prediction itself (e.g. to “augur the end of the war”). The word also functions as a historical noun; in Ancient Rome, an “augur” was “a religious official who observed natural signs, especially the behavior of birds, interpreting these as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a proposed action”. It should not be confused with the noun “auger”, which means “a tool with a helical bit for boring holes in wood”. If your stories involve a lot of foreshadowing of good or bad events, “augur” may be an excellent addition to your vocabulary!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
by Naomi L. | December 1, 2017 | J.C. Wolfe's Writing, Poetry |
White December rain
Virgin snow blankets the world
A welcoming sight
Gone are summer’s waves of heat
Wintertime is here at last!
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