Create a Summer Commercial!

Yummy Ice Cream at Purple Cow, Lawrenceville, NJ

So you want to convince your parents, finally, to get a dog. Or you need your siblings to believe that playing in their room is better than staying in yours. Or you really just want to convince your friends that a particular ice cream stand has the best mint chocolate chip ice cream around.

Well then — Create your own commercial!

For this week’s Inkspiration, choose an item, experience, or idea you want to convince someone of. Then write a script for a commercial in which you work to convince your audience.

Remember that being convincing is not just about focusing on getting what you want or a version of what you want. Being convincing involves taking the time to figure out how other people think and feel. How can you make them care about your product or idea? How can you help them imagine how cool it is?

You should also develop in your script a clear sense of a beginning, middle, and end of your commercial. What story do you want to tell that will help your commercial be convincing?

And an added challenge: try to incorporate SUMMER into your commercial!

Write your script in your Writer’s Notebook. Then perform your commercial live, or record your commercial to share it with others. Try to make your commercial 30-50 seconds.

Have fun! And send your creations along to share with other Inksters!

Listen While You Write

Hi Inksters!

We hope this post finds you writing as part of our summer writing challenge. Remember the theme:

“My Inktopia Summer”

This Inkspiration will turn those notebook pages into sound recordings you can listen to!

Find your way to a spot. Any spot. A spot somewhere in your home. Or outside on the stairs, stoop, porch, yard. On a swing at a playground. At a picnic table in a park. On the subway or bus. In the car as you head somewhere with your family. In your room. Wherever you want to spend a few moments, find your way there.

Settle in — sit, stand, strike a tree pose, recline — to that spot. Get Comfortable. Then close your eyes and tune in to the sounds of the spot you are in.

What sounds are traveling your way as you rest here? Focus first on the sounds in the space. Then allow your ears to reach for sounds just beyond your space — the sounds drifting in from another part of the house, or through the window, or from another part of the playground. Move from your very local place and work your way out. In what ways can you become more familiar with this specific spot by listening? Then, how far can your attention to sound take you as you use this spot as a hub of your attention? What sounds do your ears pick up? What sounds do you hear in other ways — you know, that rumbling sound of the truck passing by that makes your body rumble or vibrate, too. Notice, too, those ways that sound affects your body beyond your ears.

Just now, a butterfly fluttered past my window, its wings whispering through the still air. What sounds can you imagine that your ears can’t detect?

At any point during your listening time, open your notebook and record in words and images what you are able to listen to. How might you represent the sound of the wind blowing through trees? Make your words and those pages speak, sing, sound. Write words that will encourage readers to listen.

And remember to let us listen, too! Enjoying creating your own sonic Inktopias!

And remember to spread the ink! Share pages with us by taking photos of the page and sending the image as a jpeg to inktopiakids@gmail.com. For this inkspiration, you might think about sending recordings as well! We will post your Writer’s Notebook pages on our site. Help us fill our site with summer fun!

And if you are searching for a fun summer read full of listening, check out Lemniscates’ Silence.

 

 

Inktopia Kids’ Notebook Challenge

Hi Inksters!

For this week’s Inkspiration, we are launching a summer writing challenge. From now until the end of August, we invited you to participate in Inktopia Kids’ first ever Notebook Challenge!

The theme is “My Inktopia Summer.”

Write in your notebook about anything about your summer — or an imagined summer:

• Pick up a clean writer’s notebook. Any size, any shape, purchased or self-made.
• Prepare to write! Fill those pages with words you find that you like or that you are curious about. Fill them with stories or lines of poetry. Fill them with comments about your day.
• Illustrate your writing anyway you choose.

Check Inktopia Kids for inkspirations each Monday and Thursday for the rest of the summer to help you fill those journals with your creativity.

Enjoying creating your own Inktopias in those notebooks! And remember to spread the ink! Share pages with us by taking photos of the page and sending the image as a jpeg to inktopiakids@gmail.com. We will post your Writer’s Notebook pages on our site. Help us fill our site with summer fun!

Add Texture as You Write

 

Hi Inksters!

Happy Summer! It’s been a long time. We hope you’re still writing where you are — every day.

In elementary school, I loved to write on crinkled paper. I would take a nice, neat piece of lined paper, crumple it up completely into a ball, then carefully uncrumple it. I would then take a pen and write on that uncrinkled paper. I loved the sound and feel of the pen on that textured paper.

Your Inkspiration is to find different textures to write on. Crumple up a page in your Writer’s Notebook. Go outside and find different leaves to tape into your Notebook. Then pay attention to how it feels to write on the leaves with sharpie. Write on scraps of fabric, slick wrapping paper, a piece of brown paper bag, or on a mirror or white board with a dry erase marker. Write with chalk on a sidewalk. Write a sentence or your favorite words on a shell or a smooth rock.

Use your writing to discover all the textures you can find. Have fun discovering new writing surfaces!

YA writers and older: visit next week to learn how you can move from writing on texture to creating texture in your writing.