avatarMarla Bishop

Summary

The undefined website presents the 19th week of IdeaStream, a community initiative offering writing prompts, challenges, and a platform for writers to share their work, with a focus on themes of loving kindness, resilience, and creativity during lockdown.

Abstract

IdeaStream's Week 19 content, titled "Stay Brave and Strong," encourages writers to embrace themes of loving kindness in their work, reflecting on the resilience of cinemas amidst the pandemic as a source of inspiration. The article, adorned with a photograph by Matt Collamer, invites readers to silently wish wellness, happiness, and peace to others. It provides a variety of writing prompts, including poetry, haiku, limerick, and fiction challenges, and showcases previous contributions from community members. Additionally, it features "Recommend Reads" with links to stories by various authors, and introduces Marla Bishop, an editor and relationship coach, as a guest writer profile. The initiative, created by Xavier Van Holde, welcomes writers of all skill levels to join the community and contribute their work.

Opinions

  • The author finds encouragement in the resilience of local businesses, like the cinema's signage, during the lockdown.
  • There is an emphasis on the importance of maintaining a sense of community and support through writing and sharing stories.
  • The writer suggests that engaging in creative writing can be a form of self-care and a way to connect with others during isolation.
  • The article expresses admiration for the creativity and diversity of contributions from the IdeaStream community.
  • The inclusion of a loving-kindness meditation at the end of the article suggests a belief in the power of positive thinking and its potential impact on individual and collective well-being.

IdeaStream Week 19

Stay Brave and Strong

And loving and kind

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

Hello beautiful people,

Life is for living, loving, and having fun. Isn’t it? We’ve been in isolation so long now I’m beginning to forget what it was like to be out. Yesterday while walking the dog (an allowed activity) I took a detour so I could walk down the high street. I wanted to see what was open and what was still closed. The bike shop was open, but most of the restaurants were still closed. Then I noticed the cutest signage atop our local cinema. It read: ‘Coronavirus, you will not kill cinemas… we will be back!’

Cheered me up no end!

So this week my IdeaStream theme is Loving Kindness. Now we’re deep, deep into lockdown, we need it more than ever.

The next person you see, say these words silently in your mind: May you be well; may you be happy; may you be at peace.

Wishing you peace, happiness, and health.

Writer’s Prompts

Poetry Salvage

Write a poem with these ten words.

  • Loving
  • Kindness
  • Peace
  • Happiness
  • Health
  • Wellness
  • Freedom
  • Meta
  • Disease
  • Open
  • Embrace

A deep bow to Marilyn Flower for her earth-positive poem Homage to Resilience on a Global Scale

Haiku Challenge

Write five related haikus about loving kindness

Limerick prompt

Our limerick starter this week is:

A boy from Dublin was loving and kind

though isolation was much on his mind….

NO entries to our limerick comp last week, so I wrote my own!

An Unlikely Scene For Fiction Writers meets Subject Mash-Up

Choose one or all of these characters to write a story about. Or, pick one subject to write on exclusively, or two subjects/keywords to smash together in an article, essay, or fiction story.

  • A diary farmer gets rid of his cows to start making shoes from kale.
  • A woman joins one twelve-step programme too many…
  • Rebecca, an inner-city school teacher, gets a visit from a group of pupils during the lockdown
  • Roger emigrates to Japan, forgetting to tell his family.
  • A space ship with five hundred humans aboard gets lost on its way to Planet 9
  • Luke, a fireman, starts a new career as a transvestite teacher
  • The Caribbean sea begins to empty…
  • Remember the movie Carrie? Rewrite the ending
  • Julia Roberts leaves acting to become an astronaut.
  • A parallel universe in which Hercules was born a female called Hercula

Finish the Story

Take this short story introduction and run with it!

Unfastening the suitcase in the dark wasn’t easy. Taking light, short breathes so she wouldn't awaken…

Kudos to Jimmy Doom for this brill story about some weed sweating it out on a psychiatrist couch, based on last week’s Finish the Story.

Recommend Reads

None of the above moving you? Try one of these stories below…

by Caroline de Braganza

by Melissa R. Mendelson

by Marilyn Flower

by Marla Bishop

by 🦄 Chris Hedges

by Suntonu Bhadra

by Edwina Owens Elliott

by Helen Cassidy Page

by Lee Serpa Azevado

by Priyanka Srivastava

Ideastream is the creation of Xavier Van Holde

Ideastream Explained

If you’re looking for a home for your writing with people that like to read & support other writers then we’d be honored to have you no matter your skill level. Take a look at the link below.

I leave you with what else but a loving-kindness meditation.

IdeaStream Guest Writer Profile

Marla Bishop is an editor for The Bad Influence, as well as for GetFitGang and The Narrative, and publisher of Lilith. A writer and relationship coach, she lives in London UK with her husband and youngest two children.

Idea Stream
Writing Prompts
Creativity
Inspiration
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