Jack and Jill Redux

I’ve just returned from the Tennessee Mountain Writers annual conference in Oak Ridge. While it wasn’t the most scintillating literary event I’ve attended in my writing and editing career, this year’s slate of speakers held my interest, and the conference afforded plenty of opportunity to meet folks and discuss writing with authors across multiple genres.

I’d have to say the most memorable part of the weekend was being awakened by my roommate at 4:41 Saturday morning to wait out a tornado warning with other hotel guests in a first-floor corridor. Potential twister notwithstanding, I got to spend the better part of two days immersed in children’s literature, storytelling, play writing, poetry, manuscript evaluations and story prompts.

Here’s a secret I’ve learned about story prompts: They’re a great vehicle for short circuiting those pesky bouts of writer’s block. When faced with a blank page (and an equally blank imagination), jump starting your thoughts with a timed writing exercise can send you on a flight of literary fancy and, in the process, prime your writing pump to get that creativity flowing again.

One of my favorite story prompts at this year’s conference was to rewrite an existing story to make it more satisfying. For your amusement, I offer my oh-so-satisfying retelling of a nursery rhyme that had never made a shred of sense to me.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

That’s really not how it happened.
Often at odds, Jack and Jill fought bitterly – as siblings will – that bright summer morning as they ascended the hill toward the well on their uncle’s farm.
Jack kept deliberately swinging the pail into Jill’s leg. And, as anyone who’s ever been repeatedly clunked with a galvanized water pail will tell you, it doesn’t tickle.
Finally, Jill had had enough. So she retaliated in the only way she knew how. She pushed Jack down the hill with a gratifying shove, then drew the pail of water. Whistling nonchalantly, she headed for home.
Coming upon her bleeding brother, who had hit his head on a rock, she realized she’d get in big trouble for having pushed him, so she pretended to lose her footing and tumbled down the slope herself, water from the pail cascading over them as she went.

And that, dear reader, is how it actually went down that day. Well, maybe not, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

However, the tale of Jack and Jill (the rest of which I’d never heard or read until a moment ago) continues, and I must admit it makes far more sense now. But I still prefer my version of the story.

Perhaps next week I’ll discuss another writing exercise I found particularly intriguing – and helpful.

How do you vanquish your bouts of writer’s block? Drop a suggestion in the comments and let’s help each other out.

About the Author:
Rita M. Reali is a two-time international award-winning author and longtime editor who most enjoys editing memoir, general fiction and romance, along with inspirational writing. She’s self-published five novels: Glimpse of Emerald, Diagnosis: Love, The Unintended Hero, Second Chances and Tender Mercies – the first five in the seven-volume Sheldon Family Saga. The sixth novel in the series, Brothers by Betrayal, is scheduled for an early 2024 release. Her first children’s book, The Purringest Kitty Finds His Home, was released at the end of February. As a former disc jockey in her native Connecticut, Rita used to spend her days “talking to people who weren’t there” – a skill which transferred perfectly to her being an author. Now she talks to characters who aren’t there on “a little chunk of heaven in rural Tennessee.” Contact Rita. To purchase your own personally inscribed copy of any of Rita’s books, download this order form at her website.