How do you spend your time when you’re sick on your birthday? What should you have done? Have you ever heard of Maggie Dickson, the woman who survived hanging? Would you like to meet a Burmese python in the Florida Everglades? And what would you do if you woke up and found your town covered in a snowfall of cocoa powder?
August 1-7
For the last half of July (or what seemed like the last half of July), I was sick, and that is why this article is being published just a little bit late. I hate being sick, and I’m over it now. But the sickness seemed to go on forever. And, of course, my birthday was during that time. I really don’t remember much about it, but I didn’t need to cook for dinner. That was awesome, especially since all I wanted to do was nothing. And sleep.
During those days I was sick, I basically did absolutely nothing except take my dogs outside to run and play with each other. Now that I’m better, I think of all the things I could have accomplished on those days, but I just didn’t feel like doing them.
For your first writing prompt, write about all the things you can accomplish when you’re sick. You most likely won’t get them done, but that doesn’t matter. You are writing fiction.
August 8-15
Maggie Dickson. I had never heard her story until I read it on FB and decided to look her up. If you want to read more about her, I’ve shard some links below.
Maggie lived during the 1700s. She was married to a fisherman, but he left her though the reasons aren’t well known. She found work at an inn and was in a relationship with the innkeeper’s son, and she became pregnant.
She hid her pregnancy since she wasn’t married, and she was suspected of infanticide. Both were crimes at this time. She was sentenced to death and publicly hanged in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket with hundreds of witnesses.
While her coffin was being transported for burial, noises were heard coming from inside it. It was Maggie. She was alive. Her public hanging and death had been witnessed by hundreds, so she couldn’t be hung again. Maggie lived for decades after this, marrying and raising children. Can you imagine telling your children that you had been hung? Anyway, she became known ad “Half-Hangit Maggie.” Her story blurred the lines between law, superstition, and survival. To this day, her name endures in Edinburgh, etched into pub signs and whispered in ghost stories.
Your writing prompt? Write about Maggie. Write about all of it, some of it, or just a certain part of it. The choice is yours.
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/d/maggiedickson.html
https://maggiedicksons.co.uk/maggies-story/
https://mymacabreroadtrip.com/half-hangit-maggie/
https://oldedinburghclub.org.uk/margaret-dickson-half-hangit-maggie/
August 16-23
In the deep dark nightmare of the dangerous Florida Everglades, 40 robo-bunnies have been sent to deal with the invading Burmese pythons. Pythons are not native to Florida, and there are no natural predators to get rid of them, so they are on the top of the food chain. But s nice juicy bunny is its favorite meal.
For your writing prompt, your character is one of the scientists whose job it is to go, capture, and remove the pythons the robot-bunnies find.
https://ijr.com/robo-bunnies-unleashed-in-florida-everglades-to-hunt-burmese-pythons/
August 24-31
I absolutely love chocolate. It’s nice to think of freshly packaged chocolate raining down from the sky, but unless a planeload of chocolate just happened to pass overhead and open a chute to send the chocolate to Earth, I don’t see that happening. But we do have some unusual rains at times.
In 2020 in Olten, Switzerland, this really did happen. Because of a malfunction at the local chocolate factory, it spewed chocolate (cocoa powder) all over the town during the night. What would it be like to wake up to find your town covered in chocolate? You walk outdoors and everything—streets, cars, animals, the morning paper—covered in the fine tasty, or not so tasty if it wasn’t sweetened, powder. What do you do? Once the news tells everyone that the chocolate is safe to eat and isn’t harmful in any way, the town goes crazy.
What does your character do? Does he throw a party? A party where chocolate is served? Or does he help clean up the mess it created?
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