Writers often have to write out of season.

In other words, we are often writing about fall in the spring. Or we are writing about winter in the summer.

Even if you are writing in the same season that you are writing about, sometimes it’s difficult to get your head in the seasonal game.

After all, seasons contain distinct weather, holidays, objects and more!

Well, now you have an edge, writers, because I have created Writing Prompts For Autumn Stories.

This workbook is a follow-up to my workbook Writing Prompts For Summer Stories.

And you guessed it, I’ll be rolling out Writing Prompts For Winter Stories and Writing Prompts For Spring Stories soon!

If you write regular seasonal pieces, these short, PDF workbooks will help you come up with fresh ideas and save you tons of research time.

And if you write essays or fiction, you will love the way these workbooks can help you grasp the entirety of a season in only a few minutes of reading time.

So what are you waiting for, writers?

Awaken your autumn sensibilities, just in time for the season, with Writing Prompts For August Stories.

Learn More & Order Here

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All this and more! Please subscribe to The Prosperous Writer Blog and sign up for The Prosperous Writer ezine, for exclusive discounts you won’t find elsewhere.

Pasta salad is such a great thing to make in the summer because even on the hottest days you can cook the pasta in the cool of the morning and let it chill, add a few ingredients, and have something that tastes awesome by dinner time.

This pasta salad was inspired by our last visit to Trader Joe’s, where they were sampling something similar that they had made.

Jason and I decided to put our own twist on it and our version came out so tasty. And you can get all of these ingredients at TJs if you also shop there.

Share your pasta salad tricks in the comments if you have any up your sleeves. I’d love more ideas.

Greek Pasta Salad

Two boxes of tri-color Rotini pasta
One container of feta cheese crumbles
One jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
One can of artichoke hearts, chopped
One can of sliced black olives or slice your own Kalamata olives (take out the pits)
Thinly sliced red, orange, and yellow baby peppers
Sliced purple onion
One bottle of feta salad dressing
Salt and pepper to taste

I used one and half boxes of pasta, so the salad would have enough flavor, but if you go with both boxes just add in a little extra vinaigrette dressing to punch up the flavor. Basically, there are no set amounts for the rest of the ingredients, except the feta dressing. You will need the whole bottle. I only use about half of the sun-dried tomatoes. Otherwise, use however much of each you prefer. Makes a great side dish to BBQ meats.

Anyone who journals or writes regularly can attest that when we write, we conjure.

Conjure means to effect, produce, bring, by or as by magic.

Writing is a powerful tool that can be used for self-illumination, self-affirmation, and self-expression.

A person who does not express herself, offers a void for others and the world at large to respond to.

And it’s hard to respond to a void.

Often in our society, girls and women especially have been taught to be seen and not heard or to be “good listeners” and to be good shepherds of others needs and feelings.

How convenient it is for those in power for the women of the world to learn to be passive rather than active agents of expression and change.

This model has grown outdated, and it is no longer functional for the girls and women of the world to simply participate in man’s creation.

We need to co-create a more just, democratic, productive world, where every individual’s voice, both male and female, is expressed, heard and acknowledged.

And this means nobody gets to be a bystander. We don’t get to sit on the sidelines and watch or simply be a witness.

If you are a woman, who has not figured out what she has to say, it’s time to start having a frank conversation, at least with yourself.

Don’t look backwards for support, because you won’t like find the support in your past.

Look to a future where mothers and daughters are empowered, vocal, and involved in the day-to-day co-creation of the world.

Women and girls are not just supporters. We are players in a better, fairer future world.

And we need to act this way starting today. Communicating regularly, honestly, and openly with ourselves is the path to joyful self-expression.

That’s the kind of self-expression we get to have when we stop existing to please others and start existing to please ourselves.

If we feel frustrated about any of this, we can scrutinize our past commitments. Sometimes we are complicit to our own vow of silence without realizing it.

If you have made any unspoken agreements, create a ritual that helps you break those agreements.

No is asking you to shut up, girlfriends. No one is requiring you to keep your mouth shut. And the only person who can rescue the silenced princess is you.

Did you make any agreements in your childhood that you would like to break now? If you tend to keep quiet, the promise you made to do so probably goes way, way back.

See if you can weed it out, and move forward with a commitment to be more honest with yourself and others.

It takes time to practice self-expression when we have been complicit for so long. If you have abandoned yourself, why not begin again today?

The world will thank you for it.

I work pretty hard most of the time.

But it’s not really “work” the way most people think of it, since I love empowering writers to learn new skills.

Even so, it’s important when the weekend rolls around, or even when it doesn’t, to kick back and just enjoy the day. Especially with only a few weekends of summer remaining.

So this is your reminder, writers, to enjoy the day.

What can you do to enjoy a lazy day even more?

So many things!

Attend an outdoor concert

Take a short, beautiful hike

Visit a food cart

Find the best ice cream stand within 30 miles

Visit a state park or recreation center

Go on an afternoon picnic

Check out a cultural garden

Go to a flea market

Browse an art museum

Drive to a quaint town and wander the streets

Take a tour of some kind

Go to a street fair (that’s what we’re doing today)

Take your dogs someplace they can run

Go to a farmer’s market

Find a beach or river bank

Eat on the patio at a restaurant

BBQ in the backyard then play croquet

Shop at a farm store

 Enjoy the day. Enjoy the day. Enjoy the day.

Summer will only be a memory before you know it.

See you on Monday.

Like most kids in the ’70s, I grew up on Kool-Aid. Even today, our homeschool group serves Kool-Aid to the kids at lunch. I think that moms give their kids Kool-Aid because it’s cheap, it quenches your thirst, and it tastes good. (At least to a kid, that is.) But it’s not a healthy food choice.

About 20 years ago, I lost babysitter after babysitter because of my oddly behaving son. He was even kicked out of Sunday school because they didn’t know what to do with him. I knew we had a problem; I just didn’t know the cause. After putting the entire family on a special elimination diet we discovered the boy’s trouble was food coloring. Well, wouldn’t you know? The Sunday school teacher gave him Kool-Aid and cookies for snack time every Sunday.

If you want to serve your family a healthy alternative to that brightly colored, mind-altering drink that comes with the instructions to “add water and stir,” I have the solution for you. I call it the Natural Kool-Aid Alternative. It is sugar-free, dye-free, and has a lot of extra health benefits because it’s high in vitamin C and bioflavonoids. Here is the super-simple recipe.

Natural Kool-aid Alternative

To make half a gallon of Natural Kool-Aid Alternative you will need:

Two cups of boiling water
Two tablespoons of hibiscus flowers
One to one and a half teaspoons of stevia leaves
One teaspoon of peppermint leaves

Pour the boiling water over the herbs and let steep 15-20 minutes before straining into a pitcher. Add a couple of cups of ice and fill the rest of the way with water. Stir and enjoy.

The hibiscus flowers give your brew an alluring red color that is natural and just the right amount of tartness that really quenches your thirst. Stevia is an all-natural sweetener with no side effects, and the peppermint gives it that refreshing coolness you want on a hot summer day.

If you’re wondering where to buy hibiscus, stevia, and peppermint, check out your local health food store or an online bulk herb supplier. Buy plenty because your kids will be coming back for more.

Carol J. Alexander writes stories of hard-working folk—farmers, homesteaders, homemakers, and parents—for magazines like BackHome, Grit, Urban Farm, Hobby Farms, From Scratch, and regional parenting publications all over North America. She recently published All-Natural Thirst Quenchers: Beat the Heat without The Junk, a collection of drink recipes, available on Amazon.

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1. Can you remember the first half of your life?

2. Can you remember the second half of your life?

3. Can you remember what happened yesterday?

4. Can you remember what happened an hour ago?

5. How many prescription medications are you taking?

6. Do you have anyone in your life who protects and champions your name, legacy, and personal well-being?

7. Do you feel like you receive excellent care and complete respect from your caretakers, physicians, and other hired professionals (like lawyers)?

8. Do you think the discovery of Watchman would have been handled differently if you had been a man or a younger person?

9. Do you feel like your legacy as a great writer has been mass-gang-raped by the sale and marketing of a manuscript you expressly never wanted published?

10. Do you feel like your longtime fans and other intelligent, curious people have stood by and watched a crime be committed in your name, while doing nothing to stop the greedy machine that publishing seems to have become?

I wish you could answer these questions, Harper Lee.

If you could, only then would I consider purchasing your book or any other book from Harper Collins.

In the meantime, I am going to trust my gut feeling of being totally and utterly disgusted by the whole fiasco.

Harper Lee did not lose a fan. HarperCollins did.

I have decided to share favorite author recipes on my blog. And here’s the first one…recommended by me!

When I was a kid there were these cookies called Lemon Coolers. I believe they were from Sunshine and they were covered with powdered white sugar. They were tinted slightly yellow, so if you bit one in half, you would see the lemon yellow color peeking out.

I don’t think I stopped too often as a kid to admire the colors of the cookies. I just wolfed them down because that tart lemony confectioner sugar-covered concoction was so addictive. I loved to eat a bunch of them with milk.

Does anyone else remember them?

I am sure they would not taste as good to me today. However, I sometimes still randomly crave them.

Then one day this past spring, I was hanging out at one of my favorite local farms looking at flowers for my hanging pots, and they had lemon white chocolate chip hazelnut cookies for sale in their store.

I didn’t even hesitate. I scooped ’em up and brought them home, hoping they might taste something like my old favorites. And they kind of did, which made me think that maybe it was possible to make lemon cookies at home that might rival my old faves.

Low and behold, I was right. Here’s the recipe, which Jason adapted from the one we found originally, which is cited at the bottom of the page.

Lemon White Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons fresh organic lemon juice
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• zest from 2 organic lemons

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Stir flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl until any clumps are removed. Cream butter, brown sugar, and sugar in large mixing bowl. Beat in egg and lemon juice. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in white chocolate chips and lemon zest. Drop by the heaping tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 7 – 10 minutes until edges lightly browned. Do not overbake! Transfer cookies to wire cooling racks after they have set for a few minutes. They are the same consistency as Tollhouse cookies. Enjoy with a big glass of cold milk or icy lemonade.

I would not share these cookies with anyone the first time you make them because you are going to want them all to yourselves. But maybe next time, if you decide to share them with others, you might give them a little dusting of sifted confectioners sugar while they are still warm on the cooling rack. And this will fancy them up just a bit. And possibly remind you of Lemon Coolers if you used to love them as much as I did.

~ Recipe adapted from The Baker Chick who adapted her’s from Nestlé

Christina Katz is known as The Writer Mama, The Prosperous Writer, and for her ability to gently motivate writers to achieve bigger and better goals in their careers sooner. When she is not writing, she is probably eating or working out so she won’t have to feel guilty about what she’s going to eat next. Her latest recipes for writer success includes fun and interactive video classes, a monthly goal-setting dream team for writers, and books and tools that help writers become more professional and therefore more successful. Be sure to sign up for her ezine, The Prosperous Writer, so you can be among the first to get the latest news and the steepest discounts.