We writers are a powerful lot. We control time. We dictate actions. We control destinies.

We can make two completely opposite people fall in love with each other, and we can create family feuds that can last for centuries.

We can make our heroine travel back in time to rescue her soulmate, and we can give the most villainous person the punishment she deserves.

We can take our characters to the most exotic places and give them their own adventures.

Simply put, we writers can create our own possibilities. In our world, nothing is impossible.

Try creating your own possibilities using the given prompts below.

There are 4 givens: theme, setting, character and key object. Randomly pick 1 from each and use these to start off your piece.

Themes: deception, irony, love lost, infidelity, rejection

Characters: chemist, divorced woman, doctor, teacher, singer

Key object: yellow bag, pen, knife, shoe, fuse box

Settings: space colony, gym, park, lab, retirement home

Here are a few examples using the above prompts:

• Write a story about love lost, with a doctor as the main character and a shoe as the key object. Set your story in a park.

• Write a story about infidelity, with a chemist as the main character and a pen as the key object. Set your story in a gym.

• Write a story about deception, with a singer as the main character and a yellow bag as the key object. Set your story in a space colony.

• Write a story about rejection, with a divorced woman as the main character, and a knife as the key object. Set your story in a retirement home.

• Write a story about irony, with a teacher as the main character and a fuse box as the key object. Set your story in a lab.

Mix and match the themes, characters, key objects and settings. You can come up with more than 30 possibilities just using the ones already given.

Write stories… write your possibilities!

About The Author

Copyright © 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Shery is the creator of WriteSparks! – a software that generates over *10 million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks! Lite for free – http://writesparks.com

If your life is dull, meaningless and filled of routines, it’s time you developed a creative habit. This is a habit that must give you energy, hold your interest, challenge your thoughts, stretch your imagination, and generate new discoveries and problem-solving ideas. Practicing a creative habit can increases your self-confidence and self-acceptance.

Here are some ideas of how to develop a creative habit and improve your life within weeks.

1. Do something you have wanted to do by have been postponing for a long time. E.g.: learn how to cook, work on your car, decorate a room in your house, develop a business idea, learn how to dance, begin a collection, learn how to make jewelry, learn a foreign language. Follow your desire and listen to your heart.

2. Do something creative when you are in the grips of a negative emotion, such as anger or sadness. Keep a log of your activities and progress. You will be amazed with the results in your life, in a very short time. (Hint: Watch Billy Elliot dance his anger off in the film listed above.)

3. Join a group or a class and learn to make something with your hands (e.g.: pottery, gardening, baking, making jewelry, welding, making furniture, knitting, etc.) Engage your body in the creative process, especially if you spend hours in an office.

4. If you like music, join a choir or learn an instrument. Organize music nights at your home. (A client of mine organized ‘opera nights’ in her home; her guests dressed up as famous opera characters and each performed their favorite aria. Then, they had champagne and a lavish, home-cooked dinner.)

4. Finish a project that you began and abandoned some time ago. When you finish it, have a party to celebrate your completed creation.

5. There are hundreds of books and video-tapes on craft-making. Borrow a few from your public library and read through them. Find a craft or activity that interests you and emerge yourself in it. Allow yourself to have fun in the process.

6. For Christmas, a birthday, or for a special a holiday, make gifts for your family, friends or loved ones, instead of buying them: they can be hand-made cards, home-made cakes, a craft, a knitted sweater, a carved toy, a framed sketch, a collage, anything that excites your fantasy and gives you pleasure to create. Invite your family to do the same. Hand-made gifts are special and very meaningful not only for those who receive them but also for those who make them. They are less likely to be thrown or put away, and gain value as time goes by.

7. Take a cooking class or create your “Party of Chefs”, in which you invite friends to participate in a collaboratively cooked dinner. Rent a cooking video, open your recipe books, and have a lot of fun creating in the kitchen!

9. Interview three people that you consider creative in any domain. Ask them about their creative habits and their relationship to their creativity. Ask them about the gifts they received from their creative habits. Ask for advice of how to develop and maintain a creative habit.

10. Stop associating with people who drain your creative energy due to their actions, words, or attitudes. Instead, use your time to develop a creative habit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maria Grace, Ph.D., is an expert at teaching people how to learn lessons from popular movies to find the job, home, relationship, and healthy body and mind they want. She is a Fulbright scholar, licensed psychotherapist, sought-after public speaker and coach, and the author of “Reel Fulfillment: A 12-Step Plan for Transforming Your Life through Movies” (McGraw-Hill, 2005). “Reel Fulfillment” was praised by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the top “self help books out of the self-help box” for 2005-2006.

For more information visit http://www.mariagrace.com and http://www.reelfulfillment.com

If you are a serious Internet Entrepreneur, your top priority must be your website. Your website is a direct reflection of you and your business. Creating a professional website designed to sell will take a great deal of time and effort, as there is much more to take into consideration than design. You must look at a much broader picture and specifically design your website to sell.

1) You must have a professional looking website. Your website is the most important sales tool you have. Your visitor’s first impression will almost instantly determine whether or not you’re going to make a sale. A professional website should be pleasing to the eyes, well organized, easy to navigate and load quickly.

2) You must specifically design your website to rank high in the Search Engines. This involves much more than just including META tags. Your KEYWORDS, TITLE, IMAGE ALT tags, Text and overall design, all play an important roll in determining how your website will rank. You can learn more by reading the Optimization tutorial at Web Source. http://www.web-source.net/webpage_optimizing.htm

3) You must use effective sales copy. Your words are the entire foundation of your business. Most business failures are the result of ineffective copy. Whether it is your website, sales letters or advertisements, your words play a major role in determining your success. When writing your website copy, use the following formula:

A -Attention – Use a powerful headline that demands attention I -Interest – Intrigue interest and create curiosity D -Detail – Provide details about your product or service A -Action – Call for action

4) Drive traffic to your site. In order to create a steady stream of traffic to your website, give your visitors a reason to visit and continue to visit in the future. You must provide your visitors with fresh content on a continual basis. Content comes in various forms, such as news, articles, tips, horoscopes, weather, etc. and is freely available on the Internet. Your content should blend in well with the focus of your website and be updated on a regular basis.

The following websites provide free articles for publication:

http://www.web-source.net/articles/ http://www.mega-success.com/ http://www.marketing-seek.com/ http://www.ideamarketers.com/ http://www.infobot.net/

Syndication services provide free content from a wide variety of sources. You simply place a small line of code within the HTML of your web page and each of the following services provide fresh content for you. The great thing about syndication services is that once you’ve placed the code, you don’t have to worry about updating the content, as it is automatically updated.

Syndicator – Provides free syndicated articles and columns with photographs http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm

isyndicate – Provides free headlines for news, articles, comics, weather and more. http://www.isyndicate.com/

Moreover – Provides news headlines from over 1500 sources. http://www.moreover.com/

ScreamingMedia – Provides free headlines from various resources http://www.screamingmedia.com/

5) Provide free instruction. Your website is the storefront for your product or service. You must convince your visitors that they need the product or service you’re offering. This can be accomplished by providing your visitors with free helpful advice and instruction in the form of an article, tutorial, free ebook or free autoresponder course.

6) Display your testimonials. You must gain your visitors trust. By displaying customer testimonials, you are boosting your potential customers confidence in you and your product or service. You can either create a web page to display all of your testimonials or use a script to rotate them on your main page. You can find a great random text script here: http://willmaster.com/master/merrygoround/

7) Let your visitors know who you are. Provide complete information in regard to your company including, address, phone number and email addresses to request information and support.

Tell your visitors about their privacy. Create a page on your website called, “Privacy Statement,” and let your visitors know exactly what you do with the personal information you collect.

9) Provide a sample or trial of your product or service. For example, if you’re offering a Search Engine optimization service, provide a free META tag analysis at your website. Not only will this increase your sales, but it will drive more traffic to your site as well.

10) Remove the risk. To further increase your sales, you must remove the risk by providing a guarantee. A guarantee will boost your potential customer’s confidence in purchasing your products or services.

A professional website specifically designed to sell is one the most important factors in determining your success. Take your time and make sure you’re looking at the complete picture before you begin. If you’re not secure in your abilities to create your own website, rather than risk the potential success of your business, consider hiring a professional web designer. Your success depends on it.