Clik here to view.
Prompt #518 First Line of the Week – T.R. Hummer
“This begins, like so many things, with a mistake I made.” -T.R. Hummer, The Muse in the Machine: Essays on Poetry and the Anatomy of the Body Politic Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #528 Seagull Management
Whenever we do not learn from our mistakes, it is often because we are attacked for those mistakes. We are called names and generally downgraded by other people who discover our mistakes—good old...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #529 When Bosses Make Mistakes
What do employees think of their boss when he or she makes a mistake? According to a new study, leaders who make mistakes are seen as less competent, less desirable to work for and less effective than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #531 Word of the Week – Streisand Effect
The Streisand Effect: A phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination. Coined in 2005, after a 2003...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #534 The Bad News about Losing Weight
“Descriptions of weight loss, such as those often promoted on television, may significantly worsen obesity stigma. Believing that obese people can easily lose weight may make individuals blame and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #562 Surprise Victory
It is intuitive that most people would be less likely to take risks after an unexpected loss. What happens after a surprising win? It turns out that the very same trend applies, according to Case...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #606 Politeness and Overconfidence
… because society trains us not to hurt others’ feelings, we rarely hear the truth about ourselves — even when it’s well deserved. And that can be a problem for overly self-confident people who carry...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #629 Word of the Week – Ohnosecond
ohnosecond: (humorous) The fraction of time between making a mistake and realizing it. Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the word of the week in whatever you write today. Journaling Prompt: Write about a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #684 Use Your Brains
Note to self: remember to use brains in the future. -Lou Aronica, Blue Fiction Writing Prompt: Write the scene that caused this character to write this “note to self.” Journaling Prompt: When was the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #690 Are you Drunk?
Thermal imaging technology might one day be to identify drunks before they become a nuisance in bars, airports or other public spaces. Georgia Koukiou and Vassilis Anastassopoulos of the Electronics...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #730 What If?
Just before the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, a report went out to people at the highest levels of power. It predicted an arms race, a policy of mutually assured destruction, and it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #790 First Line of the Week – Emily Raboteau
“The security personnel of EL AL Airlines descended upon me like a flock of vultures.” -Emily Raboteau, Searching for Zion Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #792 To the Cavity of the Soul
Crozier hurts to the cavity in the center of his self where he is sure his soul had resided until it floated away on a sea of whiskey over the decades. -Dan Simmons, The Terror Fiction Writing Prompt:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #868 Teenage Sexting
Adolescents revealed that they sext for attention, to lower the chances of catching STDs, and to find a romantic partner. The concepts of receiving a bad reputation, or of being blackmailed, did not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #903 Survivorship Bias
We learn best from our own mistakes, but we tend to ignore the failures of others, which means we can’t learn from them. This is called survivorship bias: a logical error that shows that we tend to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #1004 What If?
As the King’s affairs became daily more complicated, and his position more perilous, he saw the necessity for peace with his Irish subjects, and for allying himself with them, if possible. Had he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #1015 Procrastination
…self-handicapping, which gives procrastinators an out for putting our self-esteem on the line. If we succeed, we point to that success and say “Look how well I did!” If we fail, that failure is easy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #1031 Pocket Change
When a group of students were given four quarters for participating in an “experiment,” they were much more likely to spend them on candy for sale nearby (which was the actual experiment) than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #1036 Too Busy
For years I assumed that the Titanic tragedy was a result of human arrogance, the belief in the indestructibility of the newest, largest, fastest, fanciest ship of all time. But actually the Titanic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prompt #1045 Taping Interrogation
The controversy over taping interrogations was at the heart of aProPublica report last year. In it, we examined the murder case against 52-year-old disabled construction worker Pedro Hernandez. In...
View Article
