Writing Prompt/Mosquito Bites with Connie Goldsmith

A Day With Mosquitoes 

Buzzzz. Whine. Buzz. Slap! Bzzz, bzzz, ouch! Splat!

Have mosquitoes ever ruined your day? Do mosquitoes have any value to human society? Bees give us honey and pollinate our crops. Ladybugs eat aphids on our roses. Worms compost our soil. Dung beetles . . .  well, you get the picture.

Mosquitoes are an important source of food for some animals. Bats eat 600 mosquitoes an hour. Birds, frogs, and fish get their fair share as well. But do mosquitoes do anything for people?

Today’s writing prompt has two paths. Pick one or both.

First, think about a day when mosquitoes drove you crazy. What were you doing? Who were you with? How would the day have been different if it had been mosquito-free? Write a paragraph about your memories of that day, maybe in a different setting or with a different person. It’s your day. Change it any way you want to.

The second path is to imagine what mosquitoes might do for people that would be beneficial. In a zoology class I once took, the teacher asked us to make up an entirely new creature. We had to imagine how it looked, what it ate, and how it reproduced. It was harder than it sounded. Try to think of three things mosquitoes might do for us – let your imagination run wild. Rebuild the insect if you want to so that it can do something useful!

Mosquitoes are more than just pests. They carry malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever. They even crossed the Atlantic to bring West Nile virus to our shores a few years back. My new book, “Battling Malaria: on the Front Lines Against a Global Killer,” may teach you a few things about mosquitoes and how they carry malaria to millions of people each year. You might look at mosquitoes in a whole new way.

Connie Goldsmith
www.conniegoldsmith.com
My new books from Lerner:
Battling Malaria: On the Front Lines Against a Global Killer
USA Today Health Reports: Hepatitis
USA Today Health Reports: Influenza
USA Today Health Reports: Skin Cancer

Check out Connie's Previous Writing Prompt Here:
http://mywordplayground.blogspot.com/2010/09/writing-prompthave-fun-thinking-sun.html

Writing Prompt/Finding Drama in Nature

Today we're stepping outside of our cozy little writing nooks with my friend and award-winning science author, Amy S. Hansen. Check out her informative website at:
http://amyshansen.com to learn more about her books and programs.

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Finding Drama in Nature

Research a natural cycle and write it out.

For example, Sea turtles: Sea turtle eggs hatch. They move to the ocean. They find the current. They float around and eat and grow. They find a mate. The females return to beaches and lay their own eggs.
[Source: University of North Carolina http://www.unc.edu/depts/oceanweb/turtles/lifecycle.html]

Or Mosquitoes: Mosquito eggs hatch. They grow into larvae. They change into adults. The females bite a mammal, bird or reptile to get blood that they need for the eggs. They lay eggs in water. They die.
[Source: Oklahoma State University http://entoplp.okstate.edu/mosquito/lifecycle.html]

Now take a part your cycle and look for drama. Without making the animals anthropomorphic you can still show the danger pending to an individual sea turtle, or an individual mosquito. Most of the animals that start as eggs do not survive to adulthood. Danger is everywhere.

Go back to your research. See what eats the baby sea turtles. Write out a near miss, showing the turtle’s defensive action — maybe running faster into the ocean.

If you do that for every piece of your cycle, your readers will be cheering for that turtle, or even the mosquito, and the lifecycle itself becomes a story of triumph.

(Please note that I wouldn’t use only one source for any research, but would want at least three reliable sources saying the same thing. Non-fiction writing does not need to be dull. It does need to be accurate.)



BUGS AND BUGSICLES by Amy S. Hansen

Every fall, bugs disappear. And every spring, they return. Where do they go? Bugs and Bugsicles answers the mystery.

Some die, leaving their young safe in an egg sack or crawling along
the bottom of a pond. Others fly distant places. And one even freezes
to thaw out and live another day.

Watch as crickets, ladybugs, dragonflies, and other insects get ready for the killing frosts. Then look again, as spring arrives, snow melts, flowers bloom, and suddenly, the bugs are back.
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