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Sticky: Welcome!

Welcome to

tenminutesaday! Please see the profile page for full info and rules, but here's the tl;dr:

This is a low-pressure community designed to encourage a habit of writing regularly - ideally, ten minutes or more a day.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we post challenges - focused ideas for a short scene - to give you something to write about. Fills are due the day the next challenge is posted.
We're not keeping score. Fill whichever challenges you want, fill them late, write about something else entirely, or just lurk and read - whatever helps you. We're here to support your writing, and celebrate your successes with you!

Feel free to jump right in! And if any of your fills blossom into a full story on AO3, please consider adding your story to the Ten Minutes a Day collection.

Entry tags:

c478,
challenge

Today's challenge is figurative language, but not in the way you'd expect.

Think of an example of figurative language, such as a simile ("They fought like cats and dogs."), personification ("My heart leapt when I saw it."), hyperbole ("I have a million things to do today."), or an idiom ("A rolling stone gathers no moss.") -- basically anything that conveys a meaning without directly saying it. After all, the first example is saying that they were arguing and bickering fiercely without saying it directly, and we know that the people being described weren't actually cats and dogs.

Now, write a paragraph or two about the literal meaning of your chosen phrase. For example, for the simile, describe an actual fight between cats and dogs. Or, for the personification, describe someone's heart actually leaping. (It'd probably be very painful, and possibly lethal.)

Basically, the idea is to learn and understand what figurative language is by looking at the exact opposite.

Challenge 477

Word challenge today!

Gold/ silver

Interpret how you want

Current Mood: accomplished

Fill- - Challenge 475 (original)

Maybe should've posted this last night, but I did a thing! Here's what I turned in for the assignment I mentioned last week. But I did save the Document just in case something else sparks.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vLoWB3PgPo5PL4vEPYzIaLb0wSyOun3ikKabVF6fmvw/edit?usp=sharing

Entry tags:

c476,
challenge

Challenge #476

Your challenge today is to do something completely new.

Find a single sentence (just one, no more than that) of prose (not dialogue) that you have written -- anything, whether it's been finished and posted or it's a work-in-progress -- and that is at least twelve words long. Rewrite the sentence in some way you've never done before.

Some ideas:
* Emulate the style of an author whom you've never tried to emulate before.
* If it's a drama, imagine instead that it's a comedy and make the sentence humorous, or vice-versa.
* Write it as a line in a poem. Bonus points if it's a sonnet and you do a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter.
* Switch the viewpoint to second-person present tense. (This assumes you've never written second-person present tense before.)
* Look up synonyms for every word in the sentence and rewrite it using them.

Challenge 475

( Wooo! 475!)

It’s novelizing time!! Take a scene from a movie/ TV episode / maybe an audio and try novelizing it. Try doing a scene that has action or some kind of plot .

Use action verbs. Here’s a good list if you need help. https://jerryjenkins.com/powerful-verbs/

Entry tags:

c474,
challenge

Challenge #474

Sorry for being really delinquent on posting challenges. Things have been a bit of a mess lately, but, well, excuses are just excuses.

Today's challenge: Write a couple of paragraphs describing an animal or a group of animals doing something. It could be a horse eating in a pasture, or a basket of hamsters scrambling to get out, or a mother whale swimming with her calf, or whatever. Your goal is to really make the reader see what's happening. Note: these should be real animals, so they shouldn't speak nor think like humans do.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: living room
Current Music: Building 429

Fill- Challenge 473 (see note)

( Yes! I'm actually writing today! :D I decided I'm taking steps and actually going to Get Things Done- whether it's class, fanfic, or finishing my current book. So this is for a class assignment. The assignment was: to get a copy of a newspaper or magazine and look at articles, ads, opinion pieces, even obituaries and write a Nonfiction article or fiction short story based on it. The actual thing has to be about 500 words total, but I'm at least starting and setting my phone for ten minutes. I do welcome feedback!

Since I don't normally read newspapers and get a lot of news off the internet or radio, this is inspired by an ad I've heard several times on the radio for a life insurance. The ad opens asking about " [someone's] three ex-wives and new trophy wife" ... and I feel there's a lot of unanswered questions there)

----

( Read more... )

Challenge 473

( It’s a holiday weekend in the US- Memorial Day )
So we’re doing a WIP Weekend. :)

Take some time and work on any WIPs you have. And do post a couple of paragraphs here. Or a link if you finish.

Entry tags:

c472,
challenge

Challenge #472

Today's challenge is a non-fiction challenge. We tend to think that "writing" means writing a novel or other fiction, but writing non-fiction uses the same skills. Successful non-fiction is not only informative and clear, but also engaging and entertaining.

For your ten minutes today, first, select a subject area that you are very familiar with -- it might be a favorite hobby of yours, or it might be your job, or it might be some subject that you're very interested in and have studied a lot. Now, select a particular focused topic within that subject. Write a few paragraphs explaining that topic to the reader, with a slant toward showing why it's done the way it is.

Remember that you want to keep the reader engaged in your topic just as much as you'd want to keep them engaged in your novel, so use the same skills you use in your fiction writing to bring the topic to life. You might create a character and show them doing the topic, or you might relate an anecdote about someone doing it incorrectly. Or you might relate the historical event that started the topic in the first place.

As an example, if I were writing a book about how to draw blood (the word for this is "phlebotomy", and the person who takes a blood sample at the doctor's office is a "phlebotomist"; no, I have no knowledge about this topic, it's just an example), I might write about the importance of injecting the needle cleanly and hitting the vein well by relating a true story in which my sister had a phlebotomist miss the vein and what they did to try to hit it. I'm not going to write it here, but my sister said it was very painful and left a big bruise.

Challenge 471

We’re doing a Real Ten Minutes today! Set a timer on your phone or device and write till it goes off. If you need inspiration, use this ( borrowed from my class about creativity)

Go into your junk drawer or a place where you keep miscellaneous stuff. Or something in your room. And write about it.

( for instance, if you pick a plush, try giving it a backstory)

Entry tags:

c470,
challenge

Challenge #470

Wow, it's been a week since the last challenge. Sorry!

Today's challenge: Write a paragraph in which a character gets injured. It doesn't have to be a serious injury - even a paper cut is fine - and you don't have to describe the injury or how it happened, but describe the character's reaction to the injury, such as wincing, going "yipe!", jerking the hand back, and sucking on the cut.

Don't include any other characters in scene, to avoid the temptation of turning the scene into their coming over to help or comfort the injured person.

Challenge 469 (?)

Write a couple of paragraphs where one character is trying to communicate with another. But they have to be a bit discreet. So think about things like body language. Or not using each other’s names.

( if you need a DW example, think about the scene in “ Partners in Crime “ where the Doctor & Donna are miming / mouthing to each other :))

Entry tags:

c468,
challenge

Challenge #468

Oh, I missed Wednesday, so there isn't much time for a challenge before tomorrow. So, today's challenge is

fast/quick

You can write about whatever that inspires, or, to change it up a bit, type as fast as you can for ten minutes, without stopping, about anything that comes to mind.

Challenge 467

We’re doing a Real 10 Minutes today! Seta timer on your device and write until it goes off. You can write about whatever you want, or find inspiration from something around you. If you need some inspiration, I’m borrowing from my current instructor.

Write about a color.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: living room
Current Music: Jars of Clay

Fill- Challenge 466 (see note)

What you're getting right now is the first version of a class assignment. Our assignment is to write about a color. Any color. The only real rules are it has to be 250 words or less (so make sure it's tight) , be creative, and use a thesaurus. :)

Again, this is what I'm doing as of now. I love feedback.

----

Call me blue. But, despite what you think, I'm not sad. Well, not always . Sometimes I can be as vivid as the sky in the middle of spring. I can be soothing, like the deepest oceans, or as cottony as a newborn baby blanket.

Yes, it's true , I can be deeply sad. I can be downright melancholic. Ask anyone who's ever played the blues. I can be a tearful rush of release. Cathartic and relaxing as rain.

But my favorite thing? I can be hopeful. Happy. Like ... a blue box descending amongst the stars.

Entry tags:

c466,
challenge

Challenge #466

Choose two characters. If they're fantastical (meaning, not of this world, usually doing not-of-this-world things), write about them doing something totally mundane, like going grocery shopping or gardening. If they're regular people, write about them being thrown into an out-of-this-world situation.

Challenge 465

Word challenge today!

black / white/ grey

Interpret it how you want

Entry tags:

c464,
challenge

Challenge #464

Write a couple of paragraphs of a conversation between two or more characters who are in the middle of doing something. Some ideas could be navigating and piloting a spaceship, jogging in the park together, or moving furniture. The caveat is that all characters must say something and they also must be actively doing something -- none of the characters should be idle, observing, or waiting for others to do their part.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: living room
Current Music: KLOVE 2000s channel

Fill- Challenge 462 (DW/BFA)

(Right, okay. You know, I'm trying this again. Because I signed up and I'd prefer to not quit.

Here's the original----> https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987367 ; And I'm alternating between my radio and PatPP while I do this, since I need a reference for Peri's voice. :D )

"I'm dying" I said. Actually it was more like I groaned. I can't even remember the last time I'd felt this bad. Or even the last time I'd been sick- maybe when I was a kid? Bringing the stomach flu home from school? Even that doesn't compare to how I feel right now.

"Nonsense" the Doctor said, doing that look of his where he looks like a snooty cat. "Never heard such rampant piffle in my life."

It's so weird. Have you ever felt hot, then cold at once? Because at that moment my body couldn't decide if it was boiling over or freezing. And whatever this virus was, it was eating my strength. Making a meal of it like pudding. I closed my eyes, wanting to just cocoon myself. I gave the Doctor a Look. "Doctor, I want the truth."

"It is." He helped me lean up on the fur that was currently my pillow while I sat on the one that acted as my mattress. I felt something soft land on me- it was his coat! I could've said something right then, but as bad as I felt it was kind of reassuring. Something bright in the middle of a lot of browns and greys. Like this blanket my mom used to wrap me in when I was scared.

Challenge 463

Take a paragraph from a book or someone else’s fic ( pls provide a link to the original if you do!) . Now rewrite it in a different style. For instance, if it’s in third person POV, try doing first person. Or write it how you’d think an author like Shakespeare would.