#NANOWRIMO WRITING PROMPTS IN NOVEMBER & DECEMBER 2023 TO SUPPORT CHILDREN IN GAZA
For the last month or so and the duration of #NaNoWriMo, MODRON has been posting a writing prompt every day to support medical aid for children and their families in Gaza. We were so moved by how many writers came out for this campaign which you can read more about here. A month has passed since this campaign began, and it is still the case, as UNICEF reports, that “hundreds of thousands of children and families are caught in a catastrophic situation”. According to the World Health Organization, one child is killed in Gaza every 10 minutes. Although some of the child hostages have been returned, others have been killed in the conflict. UNICEF has called for “children held hostage in Gaza [to] be immediately reunited with their families and loved ones”.
There is still time to donate. Despite a temporary pause in the conflict, the attacks on Gaza have been renewed with civilians, especially children becoming collateral damage. UNICEF spokesman James Elder explains: “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.” The United Nations is often characterized as a cautious organisation, so when the UN talks of a potential genocide happening in front of us, it needs to be taken seriously. We are thankful to all those who made donations and to all the writers involved. We cannot stop however, but must continue, because for children and their families in Gaza, the suffering is ongoing. In that spirit, the writer Robert Walton has provided an extra writing prompt here, and we will continue to write and talk about what is happening in Gaza while the violence continues.
LANI O’HANLON
Ballymacaw, “The White Lady”
‘This intriguing figure-shaped stone, almost 2 metres in height, is spectacularly situated near the cliff edge. It stands on exposed farmland between the small coves of Rathmoylan and Ballymacaw in County Waterford. The stone has always been known locally as the ‘White Lady’ which almost certainly suggests that it would have been painted white or whitewashed at some stage in its history.’
In Folklore, a “White Lady” is a female ghost present in the mythologies of many different cultures all over the world. In Ireland, she is known as the banshee or bean sidhe (fairy woman) and is said to appear, with her strange wailing when someone is about to die. Facilitating Sacred Wild writing retreats in the natural landscape, we have befriended the bean sidhe and see her as a mother working with the cycles of birth and death especially at this time of year as we approach the festival of Samhain and the winter solstice. Aos sí is the Irish name for a supernatural race in Celtic mythology – daoine sìth in Scottish Gaelic, They are said to descend from the Tuatha Dé Danann, meaning the “People of Danu”, Danu being the goddess.
Your writing prompt is to gently write about a time in your life when you went through a time of great change, death and rebirth (not if this is still a traumatic memory) what are the colours you remember from that time, the scents, what music were you listening to, or what films were you watching, what food were you eating. For example, I have written about a time in my life when I separated from my first husband and I was living in a shabby rented house. On Christmas day I dropped my children to their father’s (what used to be my own house) and as I turned away from the hall door I noticed how dark night is at that time of the year. I spent a week alone when I went through that dark night of the soul, listening to my body, moving, and writing and I emerged almost a different person. I wrote about the posters I’d put up on the walls of Matisse’s women with mango blossoms in their hair and the horrible couch in the rented house that made me hunch forward confessor-like, the red berries on a holly tree in the garden and a film I watched with Brad Pitt that reminded me of our younger selves. I then explored what the banshee means to me, her connection with the moon and how she has been feared and misunderstood. I invite you to explore this for yourself. If possible, go to a landscape you love to connect with and listen to the earth and your body at this time. Or write about the standing stone, The White Lady, who might have put it there, what she has witnessed and what it might mean.
Please consider donating to a charity providing medical aid in Gaza. We recommend UNICEF’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, but other charities include:
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