A young girl dies from a robber’s bullet while on a family trip in Italy. After she’s declared brain-dead, her parents decide to donate her strong heart, liver, kidneys, and pancreas to give five other sick people a chance at a better life. Her mother says, ”It means her death wasn’t meaningless.” Which five people receive the girl’s organs? How do their lives change as a result? Write from their point of view.
On the nightly TV news you view war footage showing a man fleeing his homeland on foot. He is pushing a wheel barrow into which he has placed his most precious possession — his elderly grandmother who cannot walk. He is trying to bring them to safety. What is their story? What are their deepest hopes? What memories have they left behind? Describe this traumatic moment in their lives. Will they survive?
A publisher of mysteries has read your writing and asked you to create the perfect suspense story. The only requirement is that you give your key character a personality or physical flaw that often gets in the way of his or her ability to solve the mystery. So not only must your character solve the mystery, but he or she must also overcome the serious personal flaw, quirk, or weakness that puts more obstacles in the way. What is your key character like? What is his or her name and description? Background and motivation?
If you could have spoken to the nation the way President Obama did this week, what would you have said? What would your message be?
You are in a frightening situation, one that you have never been in before. You try to catch your breath as you take stock of the circumstances. You know that if you can call up a certain smell in your memory it will make you feel safe and protected. You also remember there is a certain memory that always eases your worries when you recall it. What is the ”’safe” smell? What is that life-saving memory?
What I’d like to be able to do or achieve by the time I’m 100: