Writing | Wheaton Wood

The Questions You Wished You’d Asked: Writing Challenge

Posted on January 27, 2023 1 Comment

PART ONE This is both a Writing Challenge and an exploration. Please complete Part One before reading Part Two. For this Assignment you need to make a list of questions you wished you had asked or were able to ask, a relative who is now dead or unable to be interviewed. What I want you […]

Just Say NO to Favorites! Writing challenge

Posted on November 26, 2022 4 Comments

I can’t be the only one who cringes everytime I hear the word favorite. No offense intended, but asking me for my favorite ancestor or heirloom is like asking a mother to choose a favorite child. Reminds me of those moral dilemma stories they gave us in high school, where you have to pick who […]

What Is It About Boxes? Writing Challenge

Posted on August 31, 2022 4 Comments

I am rather sure I was a cat in a previous life. Don’t all cats love boxes? box. noun: a container with a flat base and sides, typically square or rectangular and having a lid. I love boxes—all sorts of boxes. Big cardboard appliance boxes, the kind we made into forts or houses or castles. […]

Semper Fi: The Secrets They Kept

Posted on August 22, 2022 6 Comments

We ask our young men and woman to don the uniform and go off to fight wars in foreign lands. We mouth the words, “Thank you for your service”, but how much do we know of their losses? The wounds that we can see and the many we can’t see. The loss of friends, comrades, […]

Serendipity Strikes Again!

Posted on August 2, 2022 1 Comment

Most every Sunday, SheldonGenealogy.org sponsors a free Zoom chat, where anyone with SHELDON ancestry around the globe can join in to exchange information or get help on their SHELDON genealogy. Well this weekend we were joined by Steven SHELDEN who told a story about his grandfather and great uncle being surrendered to a VFW home […]

Writing Challenge: What Did You Want to be When You Grew Up?

Posted on July 31, 2022 1 Comment

This is a common question we ask young people all the time. It is a question fraught with pitfalls. As a high school counselor, I devised a strategy for my students. I told them “Just figure out a school and some major or aspiration you ‘might’ want to accomplish.” Adults want nothing more than to […]

Mundane to Profane: Writing our Own Stories

Posted on May 30, 2022 3 Comments

Every person alive will respond in different ways to National tragedies like the shooting of President Kennedy, the Challenger disaster, 911 or the latest mass shooting. Each of these traumas affects us depending on our temperament, our proximity and our ability to compartmentalize tragedies that are beyond our control.

Fill a Jar: Writing Challenge

Posted on March 28, 2022 2 Comments

This challenge is designed for those who haven’t written before or are convinced they don’t have time to write, or that they must be polished writers in order to write. It has several different variations so feel free to adapt it to suit

Hands in the Mud: Writing Challenge

Posted on March 27, 2022 3 Comments

I was daydreaming about mud which led to this piece of writing. I will have some writing suggestions at the end. “Learn to humble yourself, you are but earth and clay.” Thomas a Kempis When I was a kid we made mud pies. The best mud was made from dirt with lots of clay in […]