Adventures · Simple Sundays

Simple Sundays- Merry Christmas!

“I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.” – Fred Rogers

“Christmas Day is in our grasp, as long as we have hands to clasp! Christmas Day will always be, just as long, as we have we! Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand!” –Dr. Seuss

“When we remember a special Christmas, it is not the presents that made it special, but the laughter, the feeling of love, and the togetherness of friends and family that made that Christmas special.” – Catherine Pulsifer

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” – Charles M. Schulz

“Christmas is a togethery sort of holiday. That’s my favorite kind.” – A. A. Milne

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Stronger

“Pain doesn’t get easier. You just have to get stronger.”― Elizabeth Lim, Six Crimson Cranes

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” Christopher Reeve

“It’s so easy to be there when it’s all sunshine, but it really takes strength and courage to be there for each other during the dark times.”-Bindi Irwin

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”-Arnold Schwarzenegger

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”-Ernest Hemingway

“I realized that my strength was being different.”-Betsey Johnson

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- December

“It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready.” — Sarah Kay

“I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer to spring than we were in September. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.” — Oliver Herford

“May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December; evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon.” – Lisa Kleypas

 “Yet my heart loves December’s smile as much as July’s golden beam; then let us sit and watch the while the blue ice curdling on the stream.” – Emily Jane Bronte

 “December’s wintery breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer’s memory.” – John Geddes

“You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights.” — Maya Angelou

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Writing Prompts

  • Write a piece of your character’s backstory.
  • Describe a place your character hates.
  • Write a piece of dialogue that includes a pun.
  • Include music as an important scene device or memory.
  • Describe a character’s fear.
  • Work in a fandom reference of your choice.
  • Use at least 3 colors in a scene.
  • Write a stream of consciousness monologue.
Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Women Writers

“Writers are not here to conform. We are here to challenge. We’re not here to be comfortable- we’re here, really, to ‘shake things up.’ That’s our job.”- Jeanette Winterson

“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. … [Write] knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.” Edwidge Danticat

‘Settings are obviously important – and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you’re writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.”- Joan Lingard

“Write what should not be forgotten.”- Isabel Allende

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- November

“The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.” Henry David Thoreau

“So dull and dark are the November days. The lazy mist high up the evening curled, and now the morn quite hides in the smoke and haze; the place we occupy seems all the world.” – John Clare

“November at its best—with a sort of delightful menace in the air.”- Anne Bosworth Greene

“Some of the days in November carry the whole memory of summer as a fire opal carries the color of moon rise.”- Gladys Taber

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”- L.M. Montgomery

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Fantasy

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”-Terry Pratchett

“Researching real history has taught me to be bolder and more imaginative in building fantasy worlds and writing fantasy characters, to seek out the margins of history and the forgotten tales that illuminate the whole, complex truth of our flawed yet wondrous nature as a species.”-Ken Liu

“My idea of a good fantasy is something that’s absolutely grounded in reality. And there’s a little element that doesn’t belong there – and that’s the fantasy element – that you have to react to and deal with in a completely real way.”-Melissa Mathison

“When you’re older, you want to be scared because you understand more where the boundaries between fantasy and reality are, and I suppose they are more blurred the younger you are.”-David Tennant

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Fall

“Fall colors are funny. They’re so bright and intense and beautiful. It’s like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary.” – Siobhan Vivian

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”- Henry David Thoreau

“I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Wooly jumpers, Wellington boot, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palate punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love.”
― Alys Fowler

“And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.”
― Edward Hirsch, Wild Gratitude