Julia Mozingo Author

Here are some Dot Dot Dot Writing Prompts for today, 4 December 2019. Finish the sentences in your own words using as few or as many words as you like. Enjoy!

1. Writing prompts are …
2. Writing prompts are not …
3. Today I am thankful for …

Challenge 1: Start a writing journal today. Name and date each day’s entries.

Challenge 2: Create a list of writing prompts “is, is not” or “are, are not.” Challenge yourself. How many did you write? Three? Five? More?

Congratulations! Pat yourself on the back.

Extend the exercise:

~ Post your completed prompts if you want.

~ Post your original prompts you created below in comments if you like, and indicate if you would like them published in a Dot Dot Dot book. Credit will be given.

~ Feel free to complete any or all of the prompts listed – mine, yours, others, and post. Your choice to list or not.

Let’s have writing fun together.

Surprise!

Dot Dot Dot, Fast and Easy, Gr. K-3, Writing Prompts for Children lives.

There are many reasons to use writing prompts with children, starting early in their education.

… Increases vocabulary
… Translates thoughts into words
… Builds thinking skills
… Develops sentence sense
… Encourages confidence as a writer
… Improves self-esteem
… Cultivates individuality
… Shapes personality
… Clarifies values
… Learns acceptance and tolerance
… Promotes individual expression
… Aids problem-solving skills through creativity

This book is available as a free download in three formats .epub, .mobi, .pdf. The download link is given below.

Dot Dot Dot, Fast and Easy, Gr. K-3 was a labor of love and is my gift to teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone who works with children and helps raise them today. Thank you for helping children learn. Enjoy!

Book Description:
DOT DOT DOT – FAST AND EASY, Gr. K-3, Writing Prompts for Children is a resource book for teachers, parents, and grandparents. It contains seventeen topics of Sentence Stems (Sentence Starters), totaling over 600 writing prompts for children. Categories inside – Alphabet, Around the House, Body Parts, Clothes, Colors, Community, Concepts, Family, Farm, Feelings, Food, Holidays and Seasons, Money, Months, Numbers, School, and Transportation.  Each prompt consists of two related sentence stems, making the total prompts in the collection over 1200.  50+ pages.

Download here.

DOT DOT DOT is the series name of Writing Prompts books for all ages. The first one, FAST AND EASY, Gr. K-3, will be available on December 5, 2019, online in ebook format. Links forthcoming.

Dot Dot Dot, Fast and Easy Gr K-3, Writing Prompts for Children by J.K. Mozingo, M.Ed.

Here’s a cover reveal —

Tada!

Coming Soon.

Watch for it. Dot Dot Dot by J.K. Mozingo, M.Ed. for students, for children, for adults, for teachers, for home-schooling parents, for writers, for novelists, for journalists.

Start small. Finish the two sentences below with your own words. There are no wrong answers.

Dot Dot Dot is …

Dot Dot Dot is not …

Want more? Try this.

I am thankful for …

How many of these sentences can you, or will you, complete?

Allow me to introduce you to my friend and author, Anna Kittrell, and her newest novel, The Commandment, releasing August 24, 2018.

Anna was kind enough to answer a few questions related to her writing process for us.  I find it very interesting and enlightening to learn of authors’ writing process.

Her bio, a free excerpt, and information about The Commandment follow.

Here are the questions and Anna’s answers.  Enjoy!

Interview:

1. Do you have any interesting writing quirks you’d like to share?

When writing, I strive to communicate the thoughts and emotions of my characters in original ways. To make sure the facial expressions and actions are clearly conveyed to the reader, I often make faces in the mirror and act out physical movements. A few things I’ve acted out are: locking my hands behind my back while pretending I’m tied to a chair, pushing my head into a laundry basket while imagining I’m drowning in a fish tank, and rolling around on the floor, pantomiming a scuffle. I’m sure I look ridiculous! But it helps me come up with new ways to say the same old thing. It also helps me get inside the character’s skin, which enables me to breathe a little extra life into the story.

2. Did you learn anything from writing this book?

I learned SO MANY things while writing this book! For example, Lukas Stone, the hero of the story, is fearful of heights, yet owns a hot-air balloon (that he’s never been in.) In my research, I learned that throwing out sand bags is no longer the way to lift a hot air balloon. Instead of helium, like they used in the old days, today a propane burner is used to keep the balloon in the air. Blasting heated propane into the envelope causes it to rise. To land, the pilot opens a valve on top of the envelope, allowing the hot air to escape for a controlled descent.  Another cool thing I learned was that some types of cactus juice produce a numbing sensation…which was PERFECT for creating the serums in The Commandment.

3. Can you tell us about your heroine?

My heroine’s name is Briar Lee, she’s a few weeks from turning eighteen—and I really like her. She’s been under house arrest since the age of seven. Because of her functioning Agathi—aka God Zones—the government fears she will spiritually contaminate society, and therefore won’t allow her to venture from home.

Currently, Briar resides at a Nevada-based medical laboratory over a thousand miles away from her Oklahoma residence. She didn’t choose to live here, and definitely wouldn’t be there if she had a choice. Due to her functioning God Zones, she was flown to the lab to be a human test subject for Lukas Stone’s groundbreaking abstergent—a brain injection that dissolves the area of the mind that houses all thoughts and emotions connected with God.

Something people may not know about Briar is that she loves to cosplay! For those unfamiliar with the term, cosplay is dressing up in costume to represent comic book heroes, cartoon characters, or anyone or anything else that appeals to you. Briar plans to work with children after earning her degree in child psychology. Cosplay is a fantastic way to connect with kids. Plus it’s just plain FUN!

Briar has overcome many obstacles in her young life. Some of her trials have included being on house arrest since age seven, enduring the death of her courageous grandmother and the suicide of her father, being flown over a thousand miles from home to become a laboratory test subject, being drugged, kidnapped, and  imprisoned in a medical chamber of horrors, and having holes drilled into her skull and needles plunged into her brain.

It’s safe to say the poor girl is in desperate need of a Knight in Shining Armor! Despite his clinical, emotionless upbringing, Lukas Stone was able to fill that role by tuning into that still small voice that resides in the soul. His ability to choose “right,” even when everyone else insists it’s wrong, makes him a hero.

Upon meeting Lukas, Briar’s first thought was that he was a handsome guy. Her second thought was that he wasn’t rowing with both oars—or in his case, flying with both wings. For goodness sakes, the man owns a hot air balloon, but is afraid of heights! In turn, Lukas thought Briar was a silly small town girl, warped by a functioning God Zone.  It took some time for each of them to see past the surface, into one another’s hearts, and then, finally, into one another’s souls. Now Briar knows there isn’t a more beautiful place to be than by his side, and she’s pretty sure he feels the same about her. To believers, “till death do us part,” doesn’t really mean death—or parting. Lukas and Briar will spend eternity together. That realization makes their love even stronger.

Bio:

Anna works as a middle school secretary in her beloved hometown of Anadarko, Oklahoma, where she resides with her high school sweetheart-turned-husband, Tim. She has written for as long as she can remember, and still has many of her tattered creations—stories she used to sell on the playground for a dime, written on notebook paper. Her love of storytelling has grown throughout the years, and she is thrilled her tales are now worth more than ten cents.

Read on to find out more about the book and to read a free excerpt:

Author: Anna Kittrell

Title: The Commandment

Genre: Christian Futuristic Scifi

Publisher: Pelican Book Group

Imprint: Prism Book Group

Blurb:

Ten years ago, Briar’s body rejected a government mandated vaccine known as SAP (Serum to Advance Progressivism), formulated to erase God from the mind. Briar was seven years old. She’s been on house arrest ever since.

Now, just weeks from becoming a legal adult, Briar remains non-responsive to her mandatory SAP injections. Along with her rapidly approaching eighteenth birthday looms a grim reality: by order of the Commandment, adulthood means institutionalization for those resistant to SAP.

In a matter of days, Briar will become a permanent resident of the ARC—a facility shrouded in dark rumors of torture, experimentation, and death. Her only alternative is to accept a last minute ultimatum to become a laboratory test subject for a new God-dissolving serum.

With a decade of solitude behind her and a lifetime of confinement before her—what does she have to lose? Except maybe her soul.

Excerpt:

“It’s late September, not the middle of July,” Briar’s mother said, blotting her forehead as she clipped down the walkway toward the car. “Seems Mother Nature didn’t get the memo.”

“Can I drive?” Briar jogged to the driver’s side.

“We’ve already discussed this. You’re not allowed behind the wheel until that thing comes off your leg.” Her mother nodded toward the clunky black box strapped around Briar’s ankle.

The infamous ankle monitor—aka life destroyer. Briar’s electronic prison guard since age seven.

“But that’s so ridiculous. What am I going to do, pick up a bunch of other unlevels and start a crusade? Come on, please? Just to the clinic. They’ll never know.”

“Don’t argue, just get in.” She aimed the key fob at the car.

“You know, Mom, if you had a cuffphone, like the rest of the population, you wouldn’t need that old fob. The car would sense you coming and the door would pop open on its own.”

Briar drudged around to the passenger side and climbed in, the headachy sweet scent of floral air freshener hitting her between the eyes.

Her mom slid behind the wheel and clicked her seatbelt. “Buckle up,” she said, double-glancing at her daughter. “What on earth is that on your head?”

“You noticed?” Briar pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder and snapped it, catching a section of long blue hair in the clasp. “I was chatting with Mouse online, trying to cheer him up.” She plucked the wig from her head, freed the strands from the buckle, and pushed the wig into her bag, causing her furry keychain to fall out onto her lap.

“He was sad about losing his dad.”

The little boy’s face had crumpled as he’d told her he wanted his dad back. She’d known how to make him feel better but had swallowed the comforting Bible verse on her tongue—one of many her grandmother had taught her as a child—and put on the silly wig instead. Blue hair was acceptable. Reciting scripture would get her arrested. Sharing Christian faith was illegal by law of The Commandment. The crime carried an even stiffer penalty than skipping a SAP injection or disabling a fleshcard.

Not that either of those things meant anything to Briar. Her body repeatedly rejected the Serum to Accelerate Progressivism, meaning she had no need for the under-the-skin device that kept track of SAP levels in the brain. Her body’s intolerance of SAP was the reason she couldn’t take a walk around the neighborhood, or drive—or do anything that made life worth living.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://goo.gl/Fuca4k

Pelican/Prism: https://goo.gl/9BbDod

Barnes and Noble: https://goo.gl/UWgq3Y

Contact Links:

Website:          annakittrellauthor (https://sites.google.com/view/anna-kittrell/home)

The Commandment Trailer:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRLTQp4S-aA

Author Facebook Page:          https://www.facebook.com/AKittrell

The Commandment FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheCommandment2017/?ref=br_rs

Amazon Author Page:            https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009OWBPMM

P.S. — I can hardly wait to have the book arrive in my purchased book collection.

Yes, you read that correctly.  A writer here who never dreamed of traveling outside the USA found herself in London recently at High Tea.  My kids surprised me as a late celebration of my birthday.  And, boy, did they surprise me!  I’m still hovering in the clouds.

Finger sandwiches – cucumber and smoked salmon, scones with clotted cream and preserves – raspberry and strawberry, decadent desserts, and of course tea – green tea.  Yum!

I fell in love with the clotted cream.  I know the title doesn’t do justice to the taste.  I thought clotted cream would be our equivalent of cottage cheese.  Imagine my amazement when I discovered it was condensed heavy cream with the taste of whipping cream.  Double yum!

However, I have found it nearly – not totally – impossible to buy clotted cream after I returned home.  I checked at Whole Foods in Oklahoma City.  Yes, they carry it, as does Trader Joe’s, but both locations were out.  Can we say major disappointment.

However, another kind shopper came to the rescue.  She was looking for the same thing.  She had heard of making clotted cream in the Instant Pot.  Bingo!  I bought an Instant Pot for Christmas.  She also shared her recommended heavy cream to buy, pure cream without additives and not ultra pasteurized.  Ultra pasteurized is a no-no in making clotted cream.  The cream won’t clot properly, will be gritty.

Here are the some of the references I checked.

https://noemptychairs.me/2018/03/07/clotted-cream-in-an-instant-pot/

http://eatseats.blogspot.com/2016/06/instant-pot-clotted-cream.html

I ended up with about 2 cups of clotted cream and 2 cups of whey.  I used the whey in my coffee and made it taste like I had added half-and-half.  Yum!  Probably not good for the cholesterol level, but majorly delicious on taste.

Wildfire Notes - Typed First Draft

Did you manage any progress on your writing yesterday?

My baby step wasn’t on my novel per se, but it involved putting words on paper. AKA writing. An upcoming contest I want to enter has a deadline of Feb. 1, and I can send several entries in different categories for one entry fee. So I took time yesterday to type a first draft from notes of a personal experience from this past summer while caretaking my elderly parents … evacuating them from a wildfire area.

Double-spaced, the piece measures nine pages long, about 2200 words. The sketchy notes I typed from were four sides in a spiral, handwritten, large loopy writing, not tight, small, condensed.

What this taught me?

Wow! A big aha moment.

Lesson learned — If I have notes, even sketchy notes, know where the story is going, and fill in more of the details as I type, I can produce more pages in a short time than I ever dreamed possible for me to accomplish.

I didn’t exactly time how long, but I know it couldn’t have been more than two or three hours tops.

Like I said earlier. Just WOW! A big aha moment for me.

Never have I produced so much writing in such a short time frame. Yes, of course, I’d written using notes before, but not in this manner, not so precisely.  I WILL try this technique again. 

What about you? Have you learned anything from taking baby steps toward your writing dream?

Please share. I’d love to hear from you.

With heart from the heartland ….

Even though 2012 has already begun, it’s not too late to begin work to create the write habit, a writing habit.

Writing is one facet of a writer’s life, our complex lives, and as such, should be incorporated into our daily lives without a second thought. Just like bathing, combing our hair, making the bed, eating meals, and brushing our teeth.

We still have fifteen days left in January.  I’d like to challenge those writers struggling to find time for writing in their busy lives to take at least one baby step daily toward your writing dream. Make writing a daily habit. I’ve often heard that doing something for twenty-one days in a row creates a habit. Let’s work to create the writing habit as a part of our everyday lives. Start today.

City Reservoir

Today’s weather was a surprise of warmth, low seventies. So I drove to the local reservoir with a spiral notebook and pen in hand.  I spent a couple of hours with nature … and a writing friend. I wrote phrases about the environment that included the senses —
what I heard, saw, smelled, tasted, and felt (physically and emotionally).

I thought about my current work in progress, a YA novel, while doing laundry this morning and changing the sheets, mindless repetitive work, that left my mind ample opportunity to wander.  New ideas — possibilities for my story — popped into my head, so I quickly jotted them down before I forgot them. Details from a news story last night and repeated this morning stuck like magnetic filings in my mind and swirled with my story ideas, yielding ideas and situations for a sequel to the novel I’m currently working on. I jotted those notes, too, and quickly researched the topic on the Internet, copied URLs, printed xps files, and bought and downloaded a book on the topic for my e-reader.  All saved for easy access later.

Each of these actions individually comprise baby steps, but clumped together add up to more.

I dare you to accept the challenge to build a daily writing habit. <VBG>

How do you build and strengthen your writing habit?  What small step or steps are you taking that move you closer to your writing dream?

Share your techniques, your baby steps, and how you’re building your daily writing habit.  I want to know.

November has been a month for lots of new happenings. 

I learned many new things.  I learned how to maneuver around GoDaddy and set up my hosting account.  I took an online webpage class and learned basic HTML, how to read the code in a barebones webpage, sizing images, and a little about CSS.  I learned how to work the basics of WordPress.  I learned how to upgrade installed programs on my hosting account. 

Learning how to do these things as babysteps adds to my confidence and courage to try new things outside my comfort zone.  This also helps with writing, because an author learns these basic skills to help stretch the writing muscles, to keep the new work fresh, and to progress as a writer.

And I was on the go.  I traveled to the Arkansas Crater of Diamonds and visited the Oklahoma Runestone near Heavener.  I went to Oklahoma City and Wichita Falls, Texas.  I spent Thanksgiving with family and friends, shopped a little, watched the OU/OSU football game and parts of the Missouri/Kansas game, because it was on while I volunteered as Santa’s helper.  I toured the Christmas lights display at Ardmore, OK, where the lights are visible to motorists on I-35.

It’s so much fun to view the holiday season through the eyes of children, as if one is seeing the sights for the very first time — Christmas lights, Christmas displays, Christmas movies.  Remember those first times.  Recapture the joy, the awe, the excitement … the miracles of life and the always changing seasons. 

Give thanks for the little things, so many others have much less.  Find happiness and contentment in what you have.  Gratitude. 

Have you written today?  Think you have nothing to say or nothing to write?  Try making lists.  Select a topic.  List twenty-five items or more in five minutes or less.  How many lists can you create?

I decided to call this category “Travel and Adventure.”  The term would more aptly describe my writings in this area.  I don’t necessarily travel much, but I travel some.  In addition, I’ve been known to find adventure outside my own backdoor that spurs my muse to new wondering, new connections, and new ideas. 

A few places to which I’ve traveled — in no particular order — include Hawaii, New York City, Minneapolis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, the Ozarks, South Carolina, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico’s Riviera Maya, the Caribbean, Canada, the southern United States, Niagra Falls — to name a few.

As I have time I post pictures and share the adventures.

For a writer, all your experiences can be considered as fodder for your writing.  Place your character in that location, create a situation, and see what happens — how the character acts and reacts, in respect to the character’s personality and traits.  You might find some writing surprises along the way.  Gotta go.  The dryer’s buzzing.