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Dear community, Welcome to Prompt #4 in our creative nonfiction initiative. Thank you to everyone who contributed a nonfiction story last week! In case you missed the announcement about The Ink Well opening up to nonfiction stories, you can see it here. We began the initiative as a trial. It's going well, and we are excited to continue! We have now updated our rules to include creative nonfiction. Here's a quick overview of how it works: Each week, we will provide a creative nonfiction prompt. You are also welcome to post other creative nonfiction pieces that are not based on the prompt. See the guidelines below. In opening up our community to a broader range of content, we will take the stance that not every post will be curated. To be curated, your content should follow our guidelines, be at least 350 words, be written in English (or another language as well as the English translation) and — as much as possible — free of errors. There are many guides and resources online for getting to know this wonderful genre. It is truly about storytelling. The simple difference between creative nonfiction and fictional work is that it is not made up. We like this definition from an article on creativenonfiction.org: Simply put: Creative nonfiction is true stories, well told. With creative nonfiction, you are using the literary and storytelling tools of a fiction writer to craft stories from real life experiences. Set the scene. Give the details. Profile the characters. Give us the dialog, as best you can remember it. Ideas and inspiration: Creative nonfiction stories can be snippets from your life autobiography — moments in time you want to capture in words, whether they were frightening, enlightening, bittersweet, or life-altering. They can be observations about life, about a time you connected at a profound level with a perfect stranger, or something you have learned along the way that made you a better person. Do you love podcasts? One of the greatest sources of creative nonfiction is The Moth Radio Hour. Listen to a few of the stories from The Moth, and we guarantee you will be inspired. Here are some additional resources for learning more about the creative nonfiction genre: Check out this list of creative nonfiction stories. For example, one of the stories is about a funeral for a lizard named Rango. We hope you are inspired! Here are some examples of what we are looking for: In other words, tell a story from real life. Here’s what we are NOT looking for: What will be muted: Thank you to all who participated in last week's prompt: The Music in You! Yet mid way through the class, as we build toward a strenous standing series where we shift through the warrior poses and into balancing, the joyous and heart opening sound of Baba Hanuman resound through the space and I find myself weeping. It's a particular version of it that I adore, although there are many that have the same effect. Once, in Bali, I bawled my eyes out throughout the entire class, silently weeping, joyous, open, my heart hurting and exploding as I felt myself expanding in beauteous joy. I had to speak to the instructor about it afterwards and he just smiled, saying that it's a 'powerful heart opening mantra'. Hanuman, you might know, is the monkey god who ripped open his chest to reveal Ram, the avatar of the God Vishnu, and his consort, Sita. It's a story of boundless faith and devotion and pure connection to the divine. This happened about a month ago: So there I was, in the dream, sitting on a bench and reading a book; the park filled with so much life and beauty: swans dancing by the lake, birds chirping and singing sweet melodious songs in the sky, and rabbits chasing butterflies on the grass. And even the squirrels and chipmunks, whom had all been busy twittering up in the trees this whole time, sang too a great many deal of tunes! There also with me, was a little girl playing around with the animals. I suspected she must've been around the age of 3. She had very nice silky blonde hair with a pretty blue bow attached to it; pale white skin, and eyes, a staggering color of hazel. She wore a pretty peach dress and had a very warm smile on her face. And though, she did not speak a word to me, I found myself taking a much liking to the girl and fancied her presence a lot. Congratulations, @zeraton and @riverflows! Overcoming difficulties and challenges is an integral part of the human condition. Sometimes you just feel like giving up. It's often a conscious choice to push through, get life back on track, keep forging ahead, and never give up. What can you do with this prompt? Here are a few ideas: Please use the tag #creativenonfiction on these posts. And please remember to add your post link to a comment on this post! Prizes! Deadline You have a week, until the next prompt is posted, to post your creative nonfiction story in The Ink Well community. See you in The Ink Well!
What Is Creative Nonfiction?
-- Reedsy blog: What is Creative Nonfiction? The Unputdownable Truth
-- Writers.com: Understanding Creating Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write ItGuidelines for Creative Nonfiction Articles in The Ink Well
Last Week's Creative Nonfiction Winners
Second Place: Wins 1000 Ecency Points
First Place: Wins 5 Hive
The Ink Well Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompt #4: Overcoming Obstacles
Interested in joining our community? Start by joining Hive!
We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo @yaziris and @itsostylish.
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
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