First 50 Words

E-books from the blog

First 50 Words offers writers an almost daily writing prompt. Readers are asked to write the beginning of something on the blog as a way to get started writing. As the author, I also begin a piece of writing. All kinds of writing are acceptable: fiction, memories, poems, tall tales.

Both books are copyrighted by me and use this Creative Commons license. This license allows you to download my work and share it with others as long as you mention me and link back to me. You can't change the e-books in any way or use them commercially. In other words, it's okay to share the e-books in your classroom or writers group, but don't sell it or any of my stories.

First 50 Words–The Prompts

This 31 page PDF document contains the Table of Contents from the complete book. It is simply a list of all the writing prompts. First 50 Words–The Prompts is $1.99 with payment through PayPal.

First 50 Words–The Book

This 338 page PDF document contains the Table of Contents with its 971 writing prompts as well as my initial writing on each topic. For prompts that included a photo, the photos are available in complete book. You get a gigantic, book-length volume of my creative writing along with the prompts.

This is not the technical writer Virginia, this is the scifi, murder mystery, poet, memoirist, pundit Virginia. Not that I think you'd be interested in reproducing a 338 page book for young students, but be aware that some of what I wrote on First 50 Words is not suitable for children. The prompts are G rated, but my responses to the prompts are not always rated G.

Many wonderful writers have left their first 50 words on my prompts on the blog as comments. These comments are visible on the blog, but are not included in First 50 Words–The Book because I don't own the rights to those writers’ comments.

First 50 Words–The Book costs $3.99 with payment through PayPal.