A beloved older cat saves a young kitten from the terrors of the night. What if there were no moon? What if humans bonded the same way that a group of capuchin monkeys do? How do acorn woodpeckers and red-headed woodpeckers prepare for winter? The following writing prompts should ignite your imagination and keep you busy all of September.
September 1-8
Tigger was the best cat anyone could ever have. He was in a box for anyone to take outside of a True Value store, and I was the lucky one who chose to take him. As you’ve probably figured out, Tigger is no longer with us, but he left us with memories that will never be forgotten. Above and to the right is a picture of him in his younger days.
Five of the cats that I have now were kittens when Tigger was an older cat. One of the kittens—I think it was Loki (he and his brother are identical)—was accidentally shut outside one night. I didn’t realize this until the next morning after Loki had been returned to me. How was Loki returned to me? Well, Tigger had stayed outside all night. When I heard him meowing frantically, I went outside to see what was wrong. I was shocked when I saw him coming out of the addition, which was still under construction, guiding Loki back to me. He had Loki pressed so tightly against the wall of the house that he couldn’t go anywhere else. As soon as I picked Loki up and heartily thanked Tigger for what he had done, Tigger went on about his business. I find it amazing that Tigger somehow knew that Loki wasn’t supposed to be outside.
What if Tigger had rescued Loki from accidentally wandering into another world?
What if Loki had already visited a strange new world through a portal in the fireplace and was telling Tigger about it?
What if Tigger spoke to Loki the entire time he kept him safe during the night? What tales did he tell him?
September 9-16
What if there were no moon? Since the light the moon provides at night is reflected from the sun, there would be nothing to reflect that light. So our nights would be incredibly dark, probably so dark that you wouldn’t even be able to see your hands if you held them up right in front of your face.
The most immediate effect—other than the deep darkness—would be the tides: high tide, low tide, and tidal drag.
We wouldn’t have the children’s bedtime story Goodnight Moon, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd, published in September 1947. Why would she have written it if there weren’t a moon? Millions of children would have missed out, never knowing about Miss Moon to wish her goodnight.
What if there were no moon? Without checking to see what time it was, how would we know it was night?
What if there were no moon? The darkness would be so deep. What creatures would inhabit this darkness? How would the fact there was no light from the moon affect them? Would it be safe to venture out in the deep darkness?
How would spending so much time in the dark affect our mood, affect us physically?
Would there be a book for children called Goodnight Sun?
September 17-23
How do us humans bond? Each person has something they are looking for in a friend. Basically though, we simply get to know one another. But what if we were capuchin monkeys? How would we bond then? These cute little monkeys have some really strange ways to bond.
Capuchin monkeys will stick their fingers in each other’s eyes. In Costa Rica, a group of white-faced capuchin monkeys don’t stick their fingers in each other’s eyes, but they do yank each other’s hair, put their fingers in each other’s noses (that’s almost worse than poking each other’s eyes), and pry open each other’s mouths. The huge amount of trust these monkeys have to have In each other to allow such things is amazing.
What if humans bonded like capuchin monkeys do? How many of us would be walking around with bandaged fingers, not to mention red eyes and possibly broken noses?
September 24-30
You are never too old to learn stuff, and today I learned a new thing about woodpeckers. There are woodpeckers—the acorn woodpecker, Lewis’s woodpecker, the red-headed woodpecker, and maybe a few more—that survive the winter by storing acorns in dead trees. These woodpeckers don’t just store them inside a tree; they store them in specially drilled holes in the bark of the tree. So when you hear a woodpecker tap, tap, tapping away on a tree, it is possible they are drilling a hole to store an acorn in.
Not all woodpeckers survive the winter by eating stored acorns. The pileated woodpecker, for example, prefer to eat carpenter ants. These ants may go dormant during the winter, but they don’t die, and they are fair game for a hungry pileated woodpecker.
But the birds that store acorns in trees are the focus for the writing prompts for this week. In my mind I see a family of red-headed woodpeckers—those are the woodpeckers that live where I do—on a cold snowy day. They are huddled up inside their tree around a table, each one with a blanket around them. There is a propane fireplace burning and huge bowl of acorns on the table. And the air is filled with the scent of the pot of coffee they have just brewed.
But now let’s go back to before winter and before the acorns have been gathered. The whole family participates in gathering these acorns. You could write about the different adventures each one has while searching for them to take back to the selected tree and the adventures had while drilling the holes for the acorns and storing them in the tree.
