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Writing Prompts

A writing prompt is the antidote to writer’s block.  It is a straightforward writing assignment that anyone can do.  Here are some ideas for using writing prompts to jump-start your creativity .

Shadows

Topics: Observation

Shadows have shapes and colors. If there is light, there will be shadows.

A Story From Your Life

Topics: Imagination, Memory

The stories in your life can be big, little, exciting or dull. They might center on places, people or events.

Well-made Things

Topics: Observation

Objects that are so well-made you barely notice you are using them. Art that affects you.

Landscapes of Life

Topics: Imagination, Map, Self

Our lives don’t run straight. They wander through landscapes of possibility and surprise.

Day By Day

Topics: Memory, Observation

Thinking about what changes over a 48-hour period can help you examine it more closely and notice the nuances.


Randomly Reminding

Topics: Alphabit, Creativity, Memory

An exercise that helps you disorganize your thoughts, and connect them to something new.

Drawing, Doodling and Writing

Topics: Creative process, Draw and doodle

An opportunity to observe what drawing, doodling, and writing have in common.

‘Tis the Season

Topics: Change, Observation

Seasonal cycles can be minutes, days, months or even years long. Laundry season. Snow-shoveling season. Global pandemic season.

Fun With Truth and Lies

Topics: Lies, Observation, Truth

Begin with facts. Observations about your surroundings that any other person would agree with.

The Bigger Picture

Topics: Imagination, Observation

You can zoom out in space, or in time. You can even zoom into realms of greater understanding.

Hot (Not) To Do Something

Topics: Advice, Observation, Self

Instead of explaining what to do, explain what not to do.

Ah, Plans…

Topics: Coronavirus, Observation, Self

What are your immediate plans? Your newest plans? Your post-pandemic plans? Do you have a plan not to plan?

Choosing and Choosing

Topics: Choice, Memory, Observation

Even if we make the same choice every time, it’s still a choice.

Significant Vegetables

Topics: Observation

Anything that isn’t from an animal or a mineral counts as a vegetable–green beans, wooden tables, cotton shirts.

There’s Always Water Somewhere

Topics: Memory, Observation

If you are alive and on this planet, there is water nearby. In your body. In plants and animals. In underground lakes and rivers. In the sky.

Sweet Relief!

Topics: Memory

Sometimes you are all but certain disaster is going to strike–and then it doesn’t. Ah, sweet relief.

A Turning Point, Alphabetically

Topics: Memory, Observation, Self

You might notice a turning point as you pass through it, or only come to understand it in retrospect.

Things You Trust

What are some of the things that you trust? (Things, not people or animals. Maybe not even plants.) Think of trust as a form of expectation. Expectations that you know will be met. Is there a fence that you trust? A tool? Furniture? Explain how you reliably expect this object to perform and how that […]

Mysterious Eating

Topics: Memory, Observation

It’s possible to provide many details about a person, a place or a time and still make it impossible to identify them.

Where There’s a Chair

Topics: Memory, Observation

A chair you have known. One you have forgotten. A chair that isn’t a chair at all. 

Bubbles of Your Bubble

Topics: Awareness, Observation, Self

Each of us lives at the center of our very own universe. We explore it with our awareness. Can you be aware of your awareness?

Small, Medium, Large

Topics: Awareness, Observation

The present. What your senses take in. Physical and emotional states. The contents of your mind and imagination.

In One Place

Topics: Imagination, Observation

Drain your mind until it’s empty then write about whatever plant, animal, or thing pops back in first.

At Three

Topics: Dailiness, Observation, Self

Who comes and goes–in person and electronically? Do your energy and attitude morph throughout the day?

How Do You Beat the Heat?

Topics: Observation, Self

What heats you up? The weather? Anxiety? A responsibility you wish you didn’t have? What do you do about it?

Oh the Difficulties!

Topics: Observation, Relationships, Self

If you have a relationship with an immovable object, you are the one who does all the work.

New Season Ahead!

Topics: Plans, Summer

Hopes and plans, clothes and shoes, tools and accessories, people and activities. What’s coming up this summer?

A Letter from the Grand Hotel

Topics: Imagination, Observation

Imagine that you are staying in a splendid vacation spot. Someplace with the best amenities and services.

Listen!

Topics: Listening, Observation, Self

While you draw, listen. To anything you choose: music, the news, another person, an audiobook, or ambient sounds.

What It’s Not

Topics: Creativity, Observation

To write about what something is not, you must find a way to think of two things at once.

Temporary and Permanent

Topics: Change, Observation, Self

What’s temporary in your life? What’s more-or-less permanent?

Inanimate Pals

Topics: Observation, Self

What are the qualities of that special kind of friendship that would make you call someone your pal?

People and Places

Topics: Memory, Observation

We swim and rivers of people. Everybody has to be somewhere. Think about the names of the people and places you have known.

What’s Open?

Topics: Creativity, Observation

There are open letters, open minds, open houses and open seating. You can open a present, an app, a spigot or a conversation.

What’s New?

Topics: Coronavirus, Observation

It’s easy to forget that every day and every moment are new, whether there’s an incurable virus raging about or not.

Oh! The Things That Grow!

Look around for growing things, in nature, in your house, in your mind.

Start With Squiggles

Topics: Creativity

Even when your page seems completely random or utterly lackluster, your mind will keep working on it. Even when you are asleep.

What You Miss

Topics: Coronavirus, Memory

You own your happy memories.  Now is a good time to make use of them.

Not A Virus

Topics: Calm, Coronavirus, Observation

Use your pen to show your mind that your personal universe is much larger than this bad situation. Remember that an atom is comprised mostly of empty space.

Don’t Run Out!

Topics: Desire, Self

Behind all of the toilet paper jokes and the images of empty shelves in stores is the reality that everyone has things that they don’t want to run out of.

Opposite and Opposite

Topics: Induction, Opposite

Resist the idea that you are supposed to “make sense.” Focus on the possibilities of opposite-words and listen to the sentences that pop into your mind.

So Many Opinions

Topics: Observation, Self

Your opinions belong to you. Write whatever you want about them. Start small–with your immediate surroundings or the events of the day so far.

Can’t. Because…

Topics: Observation, Self

Nobody can do everything. There are zillions of things you can’t do, whether you want to do them or not.

Heart of the Matter

Topics: Freewriting

You are going to be writing on the lines of the spiral, so as the spiral grows, keep the lines at a distance from one another that will be good for writing on.

Right Before

You’ve done all sorts of things right lately, but since they don’t need your attention anymore, you’ve forgotten a fair number of them.

Easy Go

Topics: Memory, Self

What have you dropped, tossed, or put away? What have you forgotten? When letting go is easy, you don’t even notice yourself doing it.

Winter Confidence

Topics: Self, Skills

Shoveling snow, walking on ice, thawing frozen pipes, scraping off a car, and dressing for the cold aren’t known for their universal appeal.

Oh the Gifts!

Topics: Creativity, Imagination

Imagine yourself with the wealth and power to bestow any kind of gift on anyone or anything.

The Long and the Short of It

Topics: Imagination, Observation

Whether something is long or short depends on the context and on a person’s perspective.

Skip Into the New Year

Topics: Imagination, Self

When will you close your eyes, cover your ears, or plug your nose? What will you turn away from? What foods will you leave on the plate?

What Lights Your Way?

Topics: Observation, Self

We can speak of light both literally and figuratively. Light is what eliminates the problems that darkness creates.

Month by Month

Topics: Memory, Self

Sometimes you can trick unexpected insights from your mind by mapping your disorderly memory onto an orderly calendar.

Just Jars

Topics: Imagination, Observation, Self

Jars of affection. Jars of time. Jars of forgotten events. What would you like to put in a jar to preserve until a later date?

A List, Plus …

Topics: Awareness, Imagination, Observation

What words evoke what you see, hear, taste, smell and feel on your skin? Make a list that runs the length of the page.

Yucky Food

Topics: Food, Memory, Observation

Have you ever eaten the foods that you dislike? What is the origin of your revulsion? How do you react when you watch others eat it?

How do you react?

False and True

Topics: Imagination, Truth

Write the sentences in any order.  You can begin with a true statement or a false one.

The Shapes

Topics: Observation

Concentrate on the shapes that you see in front of you. Rather than naming the things that you see, name their shapes: triangle, rectangle, circle, oval, blob.

A Tale of a Table

Topics: Imagination, Memory, Observation

They are everywhere–in houses and restaurants, on sidewalks and in parks, at work. You also have tables in your memory and in your imagination.

Wondering Where

Topics: Imagination, Memory, Unknown

Use the phrase “I wonder where…” to begin the first sentence that you write. When you don’t know where something is, maybe it is lost. Maybe you don’t even expect to see it again. You can wonder where a person is, too. You can wonder about a place where something will happen in the future. A person […]

For Example

Topics: Language, Observation

Before you start writing, set up your page. Draw a line where the title will go and mark off some space for illustration. Then collect a half-dozen or so good words. A word is a good one when it jumps out at you for some reason. Maybe you think the spelling is odd. Maybe it reminds […]

Your Ground

Topics: Creativity, Language, Observation

One can break, give, or stand ground. Something can be ground in, ground out, or run into the ground. There are groundswells, ground rules, and shifting grounds.

Hats Everywhere

Topics: Imagination, Memory, Observation

On your head, in your pocket, under the couch. On someone else’s head, or in their pocket. Hats are everywhere.

The Furniture

Topics: Imagination, Memory, Observation

Tables and couches are certainly furniture.  Are curtains, counters, and closets furniture? What about a bathtub?

Where There Are People

Topics: Imagination, Memory, Observation

You can go on a field trip in your imagination. Do this by traveling in memory. Or do this by making things up.

When the Rain Comes

Topics: Change, Metaphor, Observation

What happens in the natural world when rain begins to fall after a period of drought? How does the built world change when rainwater pours over it once again?

Pick It Up and Put It Down

Topics: Observation

Some things, such as the flu or an ear-worm tune, can be picked up, but you can’t put them back down.

Escalating Troubles

Topics: Imagination

Imagine a character who has one bad or disappointing thing after another happen to them.

In One Month

Topics: Change, Observation

Technically, it will be summer for another month, but the slow glide into the fall season has already begun. 

Exciting Introductions

Topics: Imagination, Observation

Adopt the voice of an emcee, the one who stands up on stage and gets the audience excited about what is to come.

Letters Looming Large

Topics: Creativity

The only requirement is that when you arrive at one of the ornate letters, you must use that letter in what you are writing.

An Alphabet of Opposites

Topics: Alphabet, Creativity, Imagination

…An observation about the process of filling the columns. A thought that passed through your mind as you were writing down words. Whatever pops into your head and fits into the tiny space allowed…

Invent Something

Topics: Creativity, Imagination

Your invention needn’t be constrained by gravity, the speed of light, or the rules of logic.

So Many Coats

Topics: Imagination, Memory

A person can wear an imaginary coat that has imaginary powers, such as a coat of confidence, reverence, or pride.

Ahead and Behind

Topics: Alphabet, Future, Memory, Self

When your mind is pleasantly wandering, are your more likely to daydream about your bucket list or dwell on your many accomplishments?

Older and Younger by 10

Topics: Imagination, Memory

People and things. Animals, vegetables and minerals. Which are 10 years older than you? Which are 10 years younger?

It Grows Until It Doesn’t

Topics: Creativity, Observation

Whatever isn’t growing might have been growing once. Or it might start growing soon. What never stops growing?

What Sunshine Does

Topics: Creativity, Observation

Whether it is rising, setting, or going behind a cloud, the sun is always shining. Without sunlight, there wouldn’t be much life-as-we-know-it here on earth.

What It Isn’t

Topics: Opposite

When you describe what something is not, your awareness widens to an infinity of possibilities.

No Pain

Topics: Imagination, Self

While it’s true that in overcoming pain, a person often grows, it’s not true that the way to grow is to inflict pain on yourself.

Advertise A Chore

Topics: Creativity, Self

Make it seem like taking care of this obligation is an opportunity no one would want to miss.

Contradictory Characters

Topics: Contradiction, Creativity

You might end up with a character who has a name like Devious Kitten, Wicked Daffodil, or Vicious Duckling.

Sometimes the Sky is Red

Topics: Repetition, Wordplay

Begin with the sentence, “Sometimes the sky is red.” Then enjoy where the ramble of your writing takes you.

The Summer Ahead

Topics: Imagination, Seasons

Over the next few weeks everything from the sky to the shrubbery will shed its memory of winter. What will the summer bring?

One Syllable

Topics: Language, Rhythm

You can write anything, even a series of unrelated sentences. The important thing is to use only one-syllable words.

One Thing, Now Another

Topics: Change, Memory

What no longer exists in its old form? A shirt, a pet, the carpet, a memory, a friendship, a vehicle?

Doodles of Kindness

Topics: Doodle, Self

Pick a section and doodle in it until a random thought about kindness floats into your mind.

Didn’t Want To

Topics: Memory, Self

What contributed to your reluctance? Inertia, fear, common sense, warnings, fatigue, information, experience…?

Mighty Winter

Topics: Self, Strength, Winter

A person can act with physical might or be bolstered by mighty clothes, tools and accessories.

A Big Fat Pen

Topics: Freewriting, Writing practice

Sometimes your writing practice can feel like a burden. How can you make time to write a page when already there is not enough time for what you must do?

About That Groundhog…

Topics: Imagination, Memory

Is the groundhog story one of timidity or perseverance? Is the groundhog a rebel, an outcast, or a pioneer? When have you been like the groundhog?

Take A Seat

Topics: Imagination, Memory

So much sitting, so little time! Tell any story at all, as long as it has something to do with sitting.

No Such Thing

Topics: Imagination

Close your eyes, relax your mind, and loosen it from its grip on the way things ought to be.

Before and After and Before

Topics: Creativity, Imagination

The important thing is to keep the alteration going, zig-zagging in time as you work your way down the page.

It’s About Tuesday

Topics: Observation, Self

Begin writing by describing what you do on Tuesdays. You can include things that happen on other days as well, as long as they also happen on Tuesdays.

Probably (Not) and More

Topics: Future, Plans, Self

Think about all that is uncertain. What you hope for. How surprises can change everything. What you don’t know yet.

Rituals and Rhythms

Topics: Memory, Observation, Self

Because rituals are reliably repetitive, we benefit from their rhythms. Families have them. So do sports teams, friendships and clubs.

Not You

Topics: Imagination, Observation, Opposite

What are you wearing? Who do you look like? What don’t you remember? Use what you know about yourself to invent somebody new.

Tools For Understanding

Topics: Observation, Self

We use our senses to understand the world. We also ask questions and think things up.

Every Which Way

Topics: Creativity

Resist the urge to write a coherent narrative. Let each detail lead to another.  Don’t plan.  Don’t look back until you have reached the bottom of the page.

If It Happens…

Topics: Gratitude, Imagination

You can thank other people, inanimate objects and invisible forces. You can thank yourself.

Why Should You?

Topics: Observation, Self

A pile of “shoulds” on your back can weight you down so hard that you can’t get anything done.

Put a Pillow Under It

Topics: Healing, Imagination

Cartoon heaven is built upon clouds that look like pillows. Wedding rings and royal crowns are often delivered on pillows. But not pizzas.

Sleep Habits

Topics: Observation, Self

How do you manage situations when you can’t sleep even though you need to, or when you are sleepy but must stay awake?

Where’s the Fire?

Topics: Observation

Unless everything is dark and stone-cold frozen, there has to be a fire somewhere.


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News and Events

Nancy blogs weekly for the Latah Recovery Community Center, sharing writing ideas that support self-awareness and self-esteem.


 

Writing classes and workshops

I had been looking forward to the 2020 summer season of in-person  Write-For-You workshops at the Latah Recovery Community Center.  Alas.

 

Congratulations to last summer’s students who earned certificates in Fiction Writing, Project Management and Grant Writing.

 

Applause and thanks to those who dropped by the classes just for fun.

 

If you are in recovery and interesting in writing coaching, contact Nancy.


 

Let’s Talk About It

A program that supports reading and discussion in libraries throughout the state of Idaho. Free and open to all. Somehow? Again? At a later date?

 

We are all looking forward to the time when it will be possible to resume these lively book discussions.

 

I’ve served as a scholar for this program for I-don’t-know-how-many years. I have found every book, every library, every group of people to be interesting and stimulating. Every discussion brings new ideas and surprises.

 

I’m confident that this program will evolve so that it can continue to bring Idahoans together through books. We just don’t know how or when that will happen.  Yet.

 

 


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