Playing with vermillion
Over the last few weeks I’ve been offering up a weekly writing prompt and this week is no different. The challenge is to expand our vocabulary and think about what words mean to us. The one I’ve chosen this month is ‘vermillion‘ because it seems to symbolise the state the world has found itself in.
Merriam Webster tells us it is a vivid reddish-orange and a bright red pigment consisting of mercuric sulfide broadly any of various red pigments
I could use it to describe everything from the colour of a sunrise or sunset brilliantly reflecting the sun against the clouds and the atmosphere. I could als...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 21, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
Easter word square
Did you know that pretzels were originally eaten at Easter because they symbolise the cross or that dancing is illegal on Good Friday in Germany?
While I was creating this week’s Easter-themed word square I happened across all sorts of weird and wonderful traditions. I wonder what you might find if you went digging online?
The word square is below, and for those of you who have never seen one, the idea is to take one word from each column and use them in the first sentence, paragraph or stanza of a story or poem. You can of course take it all the way and construct a whole piece of flash fiction if you had the time an...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 14, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
Ice pool
As you already know I love strange and unusual photos and I will often carry a camera or my phone to capture something that intrigues me. Ice is one element that always has the power to surprise me as this little pool shows which had formed in a puddle on my favourite dog walk.
What does the picture invoke in you? How might you craft a story or a poem that uses this as your muse? Write quickly and without self-editing as you go along, see just how far you can get without stopping to think over what you’ve written.
You can see my effort here:
It looks like a portal to another world. Layers built on layers with a dark ...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 7, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
Life and death on the social web
Benjamin Franklin certainly made a point when he said “‘In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” With the help of a good accountant, tax can certainly be mitigated. But death, now that’s a different matter altogether.
The reason I got to thinking such gloomy thoughts was an article I was writing about LinkedIn which referenced the number of UK professionals who had an account on the network. Did you know there are over 15 million of us, that’s a quarter of the entire population of the whole country.
I realised as I was writing that it’s certainly within ...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 5, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Technology death social media Source Type: news
Levels of a certain hormone could predict or detect bone loss in premenopausal women
Physicians may be able to determine if menopause-related bone loss is already in progress or about to begin by measuring the level of a hormone that declines as women approach their final menstrual period, new UCLA research finds.The findings could help physicians determine when, and how, to treat bone loss in women as they age before that bone loss causes significant health issues, according to the study. Specifically, the study found that for women 42 and older who are not yet postmenopausal, levels of anti-Mullerian hormone, or AMH, can be used to determine if they are experiencing, or about to experience, bone loss rel...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - April 4, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
5 things to think about when submitting to a writing competition
Warm greetings to you from the slightly chilly dressing table I write at in our flat. Not quite a room of one’s own, but it does the trick. If you saw the interview Linda did with me a month or so ago you’ll know who I am. If not, I’m El Rhodes, I’m an archaeologist and writer of both long and short prose and occasional bits of poetry.
Over the last two years, my work has been published in a lot of journals and anthologies and I’ve now placed in seventy competitions (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, micro, flash, short story, full-length manuscripts) and won twelve.
This year I’m teaching nature writing and ...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 4, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: El Rhodes Tags: Hysteria hysteria 2022 writer in residence Source Type: news
Fooling with fools
It’s All Fool’s Day which is traditionally marked by the custom of playing jokes (usually on friends and colleagues) and engaging in frivolous activities.
So it seems only right that today’s writing prompt reflects such hilarity and it seems fitting to try out a sentence or two of nonsense verse. By the way, I am not a poet, would never claim to have such skill, but this was fun to do as it just let me work with what came into my head without editing!
Fool’s a fool in Anyone’s eyes and
Anyone could spot Fool quite clearly.
And nonsense withstanding, the aim of Fool or Anyone
is to make other f...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - April 1, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
Hysteria Readers 2022
The Hysteria Writing Competition couldn’t take place each year without the help of my wonderful volunteer writing competition readers. You can find out more about this year’s team below. Each reader reviews all the entries in their category. This gives them the opportunity to really see what makes a good entry.
As you know fashions and tastes change and the unique review form allows the teams to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to the individual entries. Your entry will be judged against the same set of criteria as every other entry. All the readers try not to judge each piece against any other.
The things read...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 28, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Hysteria hysteria 2022 hysteria readers Source Type: news
What the humble bowerbird can teach us about marketing
Why is Apple like the bowerbird?
The bowerbird, an inhabitant of Australia and Papua New Guinea is a great marketing metaphor that every business owner would do well to learn from. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if even the late, great Steve Jobs himself had been secretly influenced by this fascinating avian character.
In essence, this little creature has developed a marketing strategy that is as extraordinary as it is helpful to us here in the human world. It has harnessed the power of getting and keeping the attention of the audience it’s seeking. Of course, unlike its human counterparts, its purpose...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 28, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Marketing metaphor Source Type: news
Outcomes Better With Open Hysterectomy for Early Cervical Cancer
FRIDAY, March 25, 2022 -- Open surgery for radical hysterectomy offers early-stage cervical cancer patients a lower recurrence rate and a higher disease-free survival rate at 4.5 years than a minimally invasive surgical approach, according to the... (Source: Drugs.com - Pharma News)
Source: Drugs.com - Pharma News - March 25, 2022 Category: Pharmaceuticals Source Type: news
The new rules of marketing automation
I’m a big fan of automation, particularly as I hate having to do the same thing twice. I’ll go out of my way to avoid that scenario, which is why when autoresponders and email marketing came along well over a decade ago I decided that it would be a ‘good thing‘ to use them in my other business.
They’ve worked well over the years and continue to serve my clients regular doses of useful information that help them make sense of issues they have. They appreciate it and the business benefits.
But here’s the thing. I’ve noticed that as the use of this simplest form of marketing automatio...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 21, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Technology automation Source Type: news
Bells and Whistles
I love the strange and weird. And the photo’s from travels in unusual sculpture gardens always get my imagination running. The one here is no exception and I’ve called it Bells and Whistles. If you want to see it in situ it’s in the Devon Sculpture Park which also has an amazing tea room!
This week you can let your imagination roam free with a flash, micro, or poem that considers what planet something like this might exist on in real life!.
You can see my effort on here:
Dregand looked across a barren landscape, grass, trees, and shrubs had sprung up like weeds. One small building remained of all that had...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 17, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
Doing the digital detox
It occurred to me last weekend that I spend way too much time in the online environment, even now after I’ve already cut down significantly.
The reason I noticed my time online was creeping up again was the amount of time I spent doomscrolling through updates on the ‘state of the world’ on YouTube. I know it does nothing for my inner sense of well-being and yet still I find I want to scare myself witless sometimes.
So, enter the digital detox. I’ve done this several times over the years and, as a result, have already cut back on the tools I use, the apps I have on my phone and the length of time I h...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 16, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Life detox digital Source Type: news
How to be a rockstar blogger – part 2
It’s the CONTENT that matters
I see and read many blog posts in the course of a working week and it would be fair to say that most are a little on the ‘thin’ side. They promise me ‘three top tips to make the best victoria sponge’ and deliver instead a thinly veiled advert for strawberry jam instead. The same is true for many of the free ebooks I’ve downloaded when signing up for the latest ‘must have’ newsletter.
The websites and blogs I love, which are also the ones I recommend to others, are those that give me really good, helpful information about the things I want to know about. They are not the one...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 14, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Writing Business blogging Source Type: news
Music to live by, reprise
This week it’s a challenge to write a story or poem in just 100 words. That’s the word count I used in previous Hysteria Writing Competitions in the Flash Fiction contest. Although it’s short, it’s not as easy as it first appears as you have to follow the usual storytelling arc giving it a beginning, middle, and end!
Whilst I’d love it if you shared your piece as a comment on this blog post, there is no need to share it. You could instead write it in your journal, add it to a personal archive, or post it to a friend in a letter. If you do post it online on your own website or blog, leave a com...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - March 10, 2022 Category: OBGYN Authors: Linda Parkinson-Hardman Tags: Creative Writing writing prompt Source Type: news
