daily prompt – Page 3

Did you know you can use a tree stump to make leather?

You can if it’s an oak stump.

You hollow out the top of the oak stump to make a deep cavity. Let it fill with rain water. While that’s soaking, take your hide and clean and scrape it as well you can. Then soak the hide in the water in the top of the stump.

The tannins from the oak wood will help cure the hide for you, just the same as if you’d mashed up acorns. Speaking of which, if you want to increase the tannins in the stump water, you can add mashed up acorns to your stump.

After you’ve soaked the hide for a while (several days), you take it out and scrape it again while stretching it on a frame, nailing it to a large board, or side of a building.

There you have it. Leather from a stump.

(This is only the briefest overview. If you really want to try this, check out a natural tanning forum for more ideas and advice.)

13 Ways to Recharge Your Writing Batteries

Tips for Writers

via Daily Prompt: Recharge

Sometimes, we all run out of ideas. We feel like a battery run flat. At that moment, we wish we were like a cell phone – just plug a USB into the side of our heads and let the ideas flow in. This is particularly bad if we’re working up against a deadline, or only have a little time to write, so we want to make it count. Here are some ways to recharge! Please add your own in the comments if I’ve missed something.

1. Meditate. Totally relax, just for two or three minutes, and let go.

2. Write down ten ideas about something – anything – totally unrelated to your project.

3. Take a walk. Let your mind wander.

4. Have a cup of tea. L-Theanine is good for your brain.

5. Take a short (no more than twenty minute) nap.

6. Exercise. It sounds strange, but often exercise brings energy, not the other way around.

7. Play. Preferably not with anything electronic.

8. Write down a list of things regarding your subject. Odd little details, the nuttier the better.

9. Get yourself laughing. Do something really silly, like juggling pants.

10. Blow the screen a giant raspberry and start writing anyway – one word at a time, it doesn’t matter where. After all, you can always delete later. The important thing is to get going.

11. Read a lot. All subjects. You’ll have more output when you have more input.

12. Keep a small notebook, write all your ideas down. Look over that when you’re stuck.

13. Stay positive!

(And don’t forget to look at my last post, I really need reader input!)

Sidewalk’s End – or Beginning?

Tips for Writers

via Daily Prompt: Sidewalk

Life is a mystery.

I loved the book “Where the Sidewalk Ends” as a child. I really enjoyed Shel Silverstein’s whimsical illustrations and poetry. Later, the title also made me think of borders, boundaries, limits and limitlessness.

Where does the sidewalk end? What do you find out beyond the streetlamp light?

The Wild, the Unknown. Imagination.

I’ve lived in places where sidewalks were an unknown luxury. Where there were no streetlights, no, not even one. Once I lived in a place where the stars were dimmed only by feeble kerosene lamps, and the deer grunted out in the dark.

Sidewalks are safety. Civilization.

I like to write about the places out beyond the sidewalks, beyond the painted lines, beyond the borders and the falsely safe places.

Won’t you join me out there?

Reality Cheat? Life in the Matrix

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Cheat

Consider, for a moment, what it would be like if your entire life was a computer simulation. Only, you didn’t know it was a simulation. Everything around was created for you, all bodily sensations, etc, and the “real you” was a body lying in a vat somewhere, or hooked up to cables as a battery, or something like that. It might even just be a disembodied brain. Or it could be that long ago, your consciousness was digitized and uploaded into a vast matrix – and the entire world as you know it was in some huge group of servers.

What if you became aware of this? Would it change how you behave? You couldn’t really change the laws of the place your consciousness resided in, because the program would work the same way, so there wouldn’t be any Neo like abilities to suddenly know Kung Fu or fly a helicopter. But, might that realization change how you face the world?

Might your own habits seem a bit less immutable? Might you live differently, knowing your thoughts and perceptions were under your control? Might you decide to really crack this oyster of a world and learn all there is to know, and gain real influence?

Maybe not… but maybe so.

You wouldn’t have had a way of knowing what this Matrix was beforehand, after all.

Also, how could you know that this isn’t really happening right here and now?

Hipsterism? OBviously.

Jokes and Humor, Personal Growth

Daily Prompt: Obvious

via Daily Prompt: Obvious

My tongue is most firmly in my cheek with this title.

It can be a real ego stroke to act like someone’s insight was the most OBVIOUS thing ever, and OF COURSE you knew that. Or some fact that might not be known to everyone. However, it’s not the nicest thing either… so why do we do it? Maybe not all of us do this, however I know I have. Superiority can be fun, even though that can be hard to admit.

Yes, I’ve reveled in my knowledge of something. I’ve been the proverbial hipster about things. I think we’ll all find that we do this less as our mastery of life grows, as we learn more, as we grow up, as we find out how little we really know. I’m sure you know the old saying, that when you’re young, you think you know everything, and when you get older you realize how little you know. That, and your parents suddenly become smarter. Knowing how little we know is the beginning of wisdom after all.

But of course…

You knew that.

OBviously.

Facing Jeopardy

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Jeopardize

I’ll admit it, I’ve been a coward.

I’ve run from dangers both real and imagined. I’ve refused challenges, told myself it wasn’t worth it, and given up on golden opportunities.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to jeopardize my self concept or my bodily self.

I’ve realized something.

Running from those scary things, refusing to learn to master my fear, and turning away from those challenges have jeopardized me and my self concept more than those activities ever could have.

So one challenge at a time, I try to turn into the face of fear and tell it “you are not my master, you are the product of my self and I am your master.” I look into the monster’s eyes until it disappears. Then I am free.

Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I fail. But now, I try.

Tag: daily prompt

An ancient use for a Stump