Lisa Writing Wild

Taken from The Writer's Book of Matches: Without warning, a massive earthquake hits Chicago. Write about the following people and what happens to them because of the quake: an emergency medical technician on her day off, at home in her 24th floor apartment a drug addict a retired father of four, riding his motorcycle through downtown traffic

I found Bubbl.us a few years ago. It's a fun way to brainstorm if you're feeling stuck. I used it when I was working on magazine articles last year. You can add friends and collaborate on projects. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Depending on my mood and the mood I'm trying to capture in my story, I play a certain kind of music. It's almost always blaring (thank God I'm in my own house now and not sharing a wall anymore). When I wrote a sex scene for one novel I played Come Away With Me by Norah Jones on repeat. I still can't hear that song without thinking of my two characters falling in lust love. What are your favorite songs to write to? Do you make soundtracks for your stories? Or do you just blast any ol' music?

Taken from The Writer's Book of Matches :  A woman goes to visit her mother at a nursing home. While there, her mother confesses that she wants to die and begs for her daughter's assistance.

Having a prologue is sort of like beginning your story twice. I have two stories I'm working on that I'm tempted to use a prologue. I feel the need to describe what happened before hand, but don't want to drag in on too long by making it part of the story. I just want to mention it, then move on to present day. Have you used a prologue? Care to share your thoughts, pros or cons?

I have quite a few books on writing prompts. Way back when I wasn't a parent I'd have hours to do nothing but write. I'd take my sweet time thumbing through my prompt books looking for the perfect one. It couldn't be too hard (I didn't want to work at writing), and it couldn't be anything weird like sci-fi (God forbid I stretch my imagination). Then the struggle began. The writing then deleting. The banging of the head on the keyboard. The sweat over knowing my grammar sux  sucks. Then I discovered freewriting . Glorious uninhibited freewriting. And my writing took off. (No, not published, but off ...somewhere other than my head.) One writing prompt said to write about your family during the summer when you were little. Lord knows I have enough When I Was Little stories. Instead of writing about my parents fighting and splitting up, I pretended they were still together. I went on and on for pages without stopping once and wrote about the made-up summ

One of the best things about my blogger friends is the information I get. I love reading about your writing triumphs, struggles (I don't love your struggles, but I love trying to help and seeing what other writers have to say) and ideas. I'm always interested things like how you find time to write, plot your stories and your book suggestions. Which brings me to my next thing. I have found my new favorite author: Robin Benway. I love, love, love her writing. It's witty and sarcastic and, did I say witty? I'm reading Audrey, Wait! and can't put it down ( I was up til 1:30 am last night reading with one eye closed). I can't wait for her next book, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June. AND the fun part is I found out about her through a blog where someone did a review. My next boring thing is...oh yeah, I have struggled all of my life to find my niche with writing. I've always known I wasn't interested in sci-fi or fantasy, but besides

Ok, so I wasn't really around in the olden days. But I miss the days I was around in: the 70s and 80s. Everything was so simple. I only had to think about which tube socks to wear with my silk shorts, and what color yarn to put in my ponytails. There were no iPhones to check twenty times a day. No Facebook where you go from ten real-life friends to 300 cyber-friends who you never see in person. We didn't have 500 tv channels to choose from, Netflix or Blockbuster. My parents didn't run us all over the place. We played outside all day long and came in when the streetlights came on. I remember my mom watching a lot of soap operas. I'm sure she did more than that, like cleaning and cooking. Not to mention taking care of us. Sometimes I wish there was no such thing as the internet, Facebook, email...It's all such a time-sucker. I asked my husband the other day if he thought I'd get much if I sold my iPhone. He said not to do it because then I'd always

I think of myself as organized. Other people think of me that way too. My husband says I keep my notebooks, pens and books organized but I can't manage my time at all. He's right. Througout the day I'll think of 10-15 things I need to do (put laundry away, empty dishwasher, make doctor and dentist appointments for my son, vacuum...). I end up either forgetting half of them or getting carried away with other things and never even getting to them. The main things that suffer are my son and my writing. Writing is the last thing on my non-existent list. And it's one of the things I think about consistently. I struggle with keeping the house picked up and clean. We just went from a four room townhouse to a ten room, three bathroom house. What used to take me one hour to clean now takes me a few days. It's much harder for me when I'm working, which is sporadically. My four year old is constantly asking me to play with him and I feel like I am always telling

Years ago I used to be in craft fairs and sell...a bunch of crap, basically. Then I stopped doing craft for about 12 years. Now, suddenly, I'm back into them. I don't know where this urge is coming from or how to stop it. I'm thinking it's the fact that I own a house again and I have lots of room to do stuff. Plus, I have a four year old who loves to do anything crafty. I could kick myself for selling a big box of rubber stamps at a garage sale we had a few years ago for $20. $20! Do you know how much those stamps cost me? A helluva lot more than $20. Now my son loves stamps and I can't believe I have to start all over buying them. Most recently I made my son a felt calendar to learn from. I'm going to be homeschooling him in the fall and I thought I'd get a jump start. I went to Jo-ann Fabrics the other day to buy felt, and ended up buying a ton of stickers, notecards and stock paper. It was all on sale. The stickers were marked down from $4.99 to $