I’m currently participating in a four week long writing challenge called You’ve Got Words. Dani Pettrey came up with the idea and Jody Hedlund, Jaime Jo Wright, Katherine Reay, and I joined in for the fun of it.
Each week, one of us has drawn four words. Those words then became writing prompts we used in creative writing challenges.
The first week, we were challenged to create titles. I drew the words: lie, summer, last, and only. We each had a day to come up with a title that incorporated two of those words.
Here were our results:
Only ‘Til Summer Ends (Jaime Jo)
A Summer to Last Forever (Jody)
If I Didn’t Die Last Summer (Dani)
My First and Last Summer Love (me)
The Lies We Told Last Summer (Katherine)
We asked readers to vote for the title(s) they loved the most, and Jody was crowed the winner with her fantastic title, A Summer to Last Forever.
The second week, our challenge centered on heroes. Jody drew the occupations of rancher and writer. Then she drew two names — Joseph and Daniel. We had to use one of the occupations and any version of one of the names. We were given a day to invent a hero and these were our results:
Aren’t those fun?!
Entry A is mine. B is Jaime’s. C is Jody’s. D is Dani’s. And E is Katherine’s. After readers voted, Jaime was crowned for her fascinating mystery-novel-writing hero.
This week, our challenge is to create heroines using the names Emily and Sarah and the professions of midwife and nanny.
We’ve posted our results and there’s still time to vote! One person who votes will receive a Jaime Jo Wright novel, so I encourage you to head to my Facebook post to read the entries. Vote by clicking through the album and hitting “like” on the image of your favorite(s). The giveaway will close at noon (Central time) today and a winner will be named — so act fast!
For our final week next week, we’ll craft a meeting between our hero and heroine.
I’ve enjoyed exercising my creativity through these challenges! God is astonishingly creative and I believe that He’s graciously placed creativity within each and every one of us. It’s one of the ways that He’s made us in His image.
How do you exercise your creativity?
Becky Wade
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This challenge has been so much fun! I’m kind of sad that it is only 4 weeks long. Maybe ya’ll can make this an annual challenge! The challenge for me has been trying to figure out who wrote each entry. I’m also hopeful that some of these will make it to book form (or even novella form). Wink Wink!
I know! I told Jody that she *has* to write hers and I’m hoping that she takes my pleas under advisement. 😉
With any luck, this will become an annual event!
Great way to exercise creativity! Loved the entries.
Thanks, Cele!
What a fun idea! You all are so clever.
So much fun! This has been great!