Volume X, Issue 7
February 17, 2021
Word of the Week: hideaway
Dear ,
I have always loved tucked away, secret places.
So when I came across a "Picture Prompt" on a New York Times webpage, I was intrigued. (I put a few details, a link to the webpage, and their eye-catching image, below in the prompt section, as a bonus for
you.)
What popped into my mind almost immediately was the 1911 children's classic The Secret Garden, which I loved as much when I read it as an adult as I did when I was a little girl. This week, I'm sharing an excerpt from it in which the main character, Mary Lennox, first learns of the secret garden that provides, not only intrigue and solace, but also healing and magic.
I hope it reminds you of a special, secret hideaway in your life—or is a springboard to imagining one for one of your characters.
Love and light,
Maureen
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More WordPlay opportunities coming
soon.
Stay posted!
Featured
Writing
00an Excerpt from
The Secret Garden
by
Frances Hodgson Burnett
A BIT OF SCENE SETTING: Orphan Mary Lennox comes to live with her widowed uncle, Archibald Craven, at his Yorkshire estate after her wealthy British parents die
in a cholera epidemic. In this scene, a lonely, disconsolate Mary is told by her chambermaid, Martha, about the "secret garden."
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's “hideaway.”
This week, write about a hideaway, or "secret space" that you, or one of your characters, escapes to be alone. Given the weather, your hideaway secret space may well be indoors!
This prompt was inspired by a The New York Times "Picture Prompt"
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of
Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water.
She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, “We are meant to midwife dreams for one another.” Maureen also believes that serious “word
work” requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best
learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!
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