Writing Marathon Training Continues
How are you doing with your marathon training, en route to November’s Write Nonfiction in November writing challenge? Encouraged, energized, and holding steady, I hope. The marathon training, known formally as the 10-month “I Know I Can” Write Nonfiction in November training program, is now 20% complete! In the month of January, our theme was pop culture. In February, we worked with Black History Month. Now that we’re in March, we’re turning our attention to our new theme?prayer. Your job is to answer this question: Was it worthwhile praying for Pope Benedict yesterday?
Group Prayer Friday
Knowing that the theme of prayer can elicit sufficient questions, replies, discussion, and rebuttals to fill a bunch of treatises, it was a bit of a challenge zeroing in on three clearly defined subtopics, but I managed. On Fridays, we will discuss group prayer; on Wednesdays, we will look at definitions of prayers; and on Friday, we look at different forms of prayer. When working on today’s prompt, the question to keep in the back of your mind is whether group prayer or the act of praying with more than one person is a valid option.
Creative Idea Gal’s Thoughts
I toyed around with several ideas for themes but settled upon prayer after the story broke out about the controversy with the resignation of the pope. As soon as I learned that our church was promoting a moment of prayer at exactly 2:00 p.m. yesterday (8:00 p.m. in Vatican time and the precise moment when the pope is scheduled to leave his post), I knew I had to incorporate some of that controversy in this month’s theme.
Helpful Resources
For today’s prompt, I offer:
Background reading. A Catholic diocese in Illinois held a holy hour yesterday.
Writing Prompt 024
- Step 1: Consider what prayer means to you and compare that with group prayer. Define group prayer silently. (In other words, you don’t have to write a definition of group prayer just yet…)
- Step 2: Answer this question: Was it worthwhile praying for Pope Benedict yesterday? Consider other questions as well. If you were one of the people from the many groups that were dedicated to praying for the pope at precisely 2:00 p.m. yesterday, how did you feel when praying? Even if you did not pray for the pope, do you think the group prayer was effective? Is it better than people praying by themselves? Will God grant better favors to those who pray in groups?
- Step 3: Determine whether group prayer is stronger than individual prayer. Write! Suggestion: Answer this question in the form of an opinion, essay, blog post, or social media blurb (status update, post, tweet).
- Bonus Step: If you own a blog and wish to share a link to the blog post that contains your response to today’s writing prompt, we welcome your permalink and encourage you to post it as a comment below!
Note: You get major brownie points for fleshing out your writing into rich subparts or adding historical perspectives to your writing.
Please be sure to leave comments about this writing prompt. We want to hear from you!
About the Author
Amanda M. Socci, J.D., is a freelance writer with 14 years of experience writing professionally. Socci currently cuts her blogging chops on her personal portfolio blog, the Creative Idea Gal blog, and on an online news site, Mount Vernon Patch. Inspired by Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November writing challenge, she created a unique 10-month training program for Writenonfictionnow.com and Writenonfictioninnovember.com blog visitors.
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