Happy Birthday? Editor: Legerdemain 
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| This newsletter aims to help the Writing.com author hone their craft and improve their skills. I would also like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented. |
Happy Birthday?
America is celebrating a 250th birthday, it's time to celebrate! The Declaration of Independence was signed at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.While the Second Continental Congress approved the document on July 4, 1776, the official signing ceremony primarily took place on August 2, 1776. Most of the 56 delegates added their signatures to the engrossed parchment in the building's Assembly Room, though a few late signers continued adding their names into 1777.
Wait. What?
So, they didn't celebrate until later. And some signers didn't add their names until much later? I don't recall learning any of this in our history classes. Maybe I wasn't being all that attentive.
I like to remind people that part of the word history is "story". We look back at many things in history books long ago and realize it wasn't the exact truth. A lot of immigrant history was whitewashed. Living conditions were glossed over. So, as an author, do you write historical fiction with current knowledge or do you use what was known or accepted at that time? Does it become a footnote acknowledging the change in how history is viewed?
Food for thought, while you enjoy your hot dogs and ice cream. Write On!
This month's question: How do you treat changed history within your writing?
How do you use that in your writing?
Answer below  Editors love feedback!  |
WDC SITE CONTEST
The task is simple: Write a short story inspired by the featured song.
Excerpt: Elliot Kane sat at the kitchen table, his eyes drifting over the puzzle in front of him. He wasn’t a fan of jigsaw puzzles, but his grandmother, Ruby, loved them. She said they were good for the mind, keeping it sharp. So, Elliot often helped her, even if his heart wasn’t fully in it.
| | Hubris (18+) An old friend turns out to have wild ideas. Second place in The Lodestar Contest, Feb 2023 |
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Excerpt: I had known Farrington Gould since school days, when he was a spindly, rat-faced, little creature with spectacles like goggles and an explosive hairstyle. He was being harassed by three of the worst bullies in the school when I interrupted out of a sense of the unfairness of the contest. His tormentors soon disappeared when they realised they were up against the captain of the rugby team.
| |  | Auggie and Milo (E) When Upper Crust meets Dinosaur Tracker, mischevious tasks are afoot. |
Excerpt: My name is Augusta William Avery Fitzcharles, a Montblanc Meisterstück, and I have spent most of my polished life perched on mahogany desks, signing contracts that smell faintly of espresso and ambition. I am a pen of distinction, dressed in sleek black resin, with a gold‑plated clip that clicks like a tiny orchestra conductor’s baton. One rainy Saturday, a bewildered nine‑year‑old named Milo burst into the study, eyes wide as saucers, I sensed an imminent violation of propriety.
Excerpt: Nobody in Willowmoss Village could remember exactly when the faeries had first arrived. Some claimed they had always lived among the flowers, hidden between petals and dew drops. Others insisted they appeared only during midsummer evenings when the moon hung low enough to brush the treetops. Whatever the truth, everyone agreed on one thing: whenever faeries were involved, something remarkable was sure to happen.
Excerpt: He was an old man who flew alone in a battered Super Cub with aging tires into the Alaskan wilderness and he had gone three years now without killing a moose worth bringing home. In the first two years a boy had flown with him. The boy’s father had said the old man was snake-bit, unlucky in a way the Bush pilots couldn’t explain, and had ordered the boy to go with the younger, luckier pilots who came back each season with meat and pelts in their planes. The boy loved the old man and was sad to leave him, but he obeyed
Excerpt: Keeping that in mind, this daily contest will get your creative mind to write, write, write! How? You won't have TIME to correct. :) The judging will be based on how well you followed the prompt and how creative you were with it, not just on how well you write.
Excerpt: "Hmm… That’s odd," Lynn muttered to herself, bending down to inspect the strange object. After a moment, she recognized it. “Wait a minute… is this a Bitcoin seed?”
| | | Queen Bee pt.1 (E) Melissa realizes when there are 2 Queens in a colony, 1 must leave... or die. |
Excerpt: Melissa simply collapsed onto the bottom bunk of her apartment, her original plan to throw herself onto the bed failing as her last bit of strength left her. The fact that she technically used the top bunk wasn’t a worry, Angie would understand.
Excerpt: “Ahh… Another beautiful day!” Shiner said as he walked with his best friend, Gavin, to the neighborhood park. He was ready to smell all the new things. Sometimes he could tell if a squirrel ran by, or if a cat was hiding in the bushes. He especially loved the smells of the food! Sometimes he wished he could just follow the smell all the way to the food and gobble it up!
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https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
e that in your writing?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Action/Adventure Newsletter (May 6, 2026)" question: Do you feed wild animals?
Madelyn Stone: When the kids were little, we used to take unsalted peanuts in the shell over to the local park and toss them out for the squirrels. It was when they were stocking food away for the winter. When we tried birdseed at the house, it attracted the squirrels and then that attracted cats.   We have dogs.
So, as of the last so many years, no. We don't feed any wild animals - purposefully at least. We do have wild bunnies that choose our yard to come and eat the grass at night. We occasionally see the flash of a white puffy tail as we take the dogs out. 
WakeUpAndLive~Odyssey : if it pays the rent, sure
Rick Dean: In North America, gators live in fresh water and crocs live in salt water. The only place where you'll see both habitats overlapping is The Everglades. Gators tend to be more black and have a broad, flat nose where crocs tend to be more green and have a narrow nose.
Both are best left alone. Unless you meet a talking gator who wants to swim in your backyard pool.
Jay O'Toole: Definitely not gators! I've lived much of my life in Florida and Georgia. Both have gators. All types of alligators and crocodiles receive a wide berth from me. That is not an animal to play with. Don't like to wade into swampy, pluff-muddy lands without a sharpshooter at my side.
A Steve Irwin I am NOT!
Mousethyme - HB Mom: We have three acres behind our house. Behind the two pole barns is a large tree; I think it is an oak. We take things out there when we have them for the deer, squirrels, raccoons, possums, and other various critters.
Brittany L. Engels: The only wild animals I feed are the squirrels that come on the farm... and the birds.
Elisa the Melting Stik: If you work in the restaurant industry in Florida, you've most certainly fed a wild animal (a.k.a. a Florida Man).
N.A Miller: feeds the hummingbirds here in the desert. very spectacular colors for being desert creatures. the residents of the park let out their cats and that feeds the coyotes. shameful
Jellyfish: Cats and dogs when I'm on holiday, at home I feed the birds on my balcony and the swans on the river. In my garden the birds help themselves to worms and fruit!
Silvern: I've had opportunity to feeding wild animals thrice in the time of forest safari.
TheBusmanPoet: Yes. I have all kinds of water fowl and birds. Along with skunks, raccoons, groundhogs, foxes, squirrels, chipmunks, hawks, eagles and an Owl.
Loyd Gardner: My wife feeds everything. I came home from work once to find her unloading groceries. I noticed that she had bought fresh corn on the cob. We don't eat corn on the cob. "Trying something new?" I asked. Her response was "I bought that for the groundhogs." So, not only does she feed the local wildlife, she shops for them.
Dave's trying to catch up: Nah! I keep my hands to myself.
Thanks to everyone responding to the question, your comments are much appreciated! L~
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Action/Adventure: July 01, 2026 Issue [#13826]
