Temporary and Permanent
What’s temporary in your life? What’s more-or-less permanent?
Inanimate Pals
What are the qualities of that special kind of friendship that would make you call someone your pal?
People and Places
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?
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?
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
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
You own your happy memories. Now is a good time to make use of them.
Not A Virus
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!
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
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
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…
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
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
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
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!
Imagine yourself with the wealth and power to bestow any kind of gift on anyone or anything.
The Long and the Short of It
Whether something is long or short depends on the context and on a person’s perspective.
Skip Into the New Year
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?
We can speak of light both literally and figuratively. Light is what eliminates the problems that darkness creates.
Month by Month
Sometimes you can trick unexpected insights from your mind by mapping your disorderly memory onto an orderly calendar.
Just Jars
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 …
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
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
Write the sentences in any order. You can begin with a true statement or a false one.
The Shapes
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
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
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
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
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
On your head, in your pocket, under the couch. On someone else’s head, or in their pocket. Hats are everywhere.
The Furniture
Tables and couches are certainly furniture. Are curtains, counters, and closets furniture? What about a bathtub?
Where There Are People
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
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
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
Imagine a character who has one bad or disappointing thing after another happen to them.
In One Month
Technically, it will be summer for another month, but the slow glide into the fall season has already begun.
Exciting Introductions
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
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
…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
Your invention needn’t be constrained by gravity, the speed of light, or the rules of logic.
So Many Coats
A person can wear an imaginary coat that has imaginary powers, such as a coat of confidence, reverence, or pride.
Ahead and Behind
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
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
Whatever isn’t growing might have been growing once. Or it might start growing soon. What never stops growing?
What Sunshine Does
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
When you describe what something is not, your awareness widens to an infinity of possibilities.
No Pain
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
Make it seem like taking care of this obligation is an opportunity no one would want to miss.
Contradictory Characters
You might end up with a character who has a name like Devious Kitten, Wicked Daffodil, or Vicious Duckling.
Sometimes the Sky is Red
Begin with the sentence, “Sometimes the sky is red.” Then enjoy where the ramble of your writing takes you.
The Summer Ahead
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
You can write anything, even a series of unrelated sentences. The important thing is to use only one-syllable words.
One Thing, Now Another
What no longer exists in its old form? A shirt, a pet, the carpet, a memory, a friendship, a vehicle?
Doodles of Kindness
Pick a section and doodle in it until a random thought about kindness floats into your mind.
Didn’t Want To
What contributed to your reluctance? Inertia, fear, common sense, warnings, fatigue, information, experience…?
Mighty Winter
A person can act with physical might or be bolstered by mighty clothes, tools and accessories.
A Big Fat Pen
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…
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
So much sitting, so little time! Tell any story at all, as long as it has something to do with sitting.
No Such Thing
Close your eyes, relax your mind, and loosen it from its grip on the way things ought to be.
Before and After and Before
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
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
Think about all that is uncertain. What you hope for. How surprises can change everything. What you don’t know yet.
Rituals and Rhythms
Because rituals are reliably repetitive, we benefit from their rhythms. Families have them. So do sports teams, friendships and clubs.
Not You
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
We use our senses to understand the world. We also ask questions and think things up.
Every Which Way
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…
You can thank other people, inanimate objects and invisible forces. You can thank yourself.
Why Should You?
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
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
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?
Unless everything is dark and stone-cold frozen, there has to be a fire somewhere.
Present and Past
After each thought you have recorded about the present, add some related details from the past.
Ask About Your Surroundings
The only requirement about the questions is that you not know the answer to them already.
Live and Learn
Compare yourself to a newborn. Everything you know and everything that you can do is evidence of what you have learned in your life.
Make Something!
You can make anything–arts and crafts, piles of laundry, order in your room.
Mysterious Help
Describe situations where you received help. Don’t tell what you needed or why the help was important.
Time for Action!
Even when your first thought is that a thing is sitting there doing nothing,, everything is doing something.
Opposite Seasons
Use clothing, accessories, tools, and details that show how your life and routines are different in opposite seasons.
Acts of Hospitality
Think about the tasks and chores of a day as “acts of hospitality” to yourself. That is a perspective where you are a guest and a host at the same time.
Field Trip to the Library
Go to the library. Turn on your powers of observation. Step out of the weather and into a different world.
Read the World
People read words. People also read the world.
Back and Forth
Write a dialog that is at odds with itself, swinging from cheerful to gloomy, going back and forth with each sentence.
Categories of Clothes
Clothes you love and clothes you hate. Clothes that you would never wear to church. All those clothes you keep but never wear…
What You Don’t Know
We all know a lot of things. Then there is so much more that we don’t know.
Start With the Sun
Can you describe a shadow without describing the sun?
Your Inner Chameleon
Sometimes we make ourselves comfortable by blending in. Sometimes it’s important to stand out.
More Than Five Senses!
Proprioception is the sense that tells us where our bodies are in space. Interoception sends us information about what’s going on inside our bodies.
Summer’s Suitcase
If you could pack a suitcase with everything you needed for a whole summer, what would you put in it?
And So…
Write a story where the words “…and so…” appear somewhere in the middle and signal some kind of cause-and-effect relationship.
Do and Done
Keep a record of what you have done and what you have yet to do. In alphabetical order.
Just Doodle
Fill a page with doodling. Use one pen of one color, or choose several colors and use them all. Just doodle.
The Sky Is Falling
Write a page that riffs on the notion of things that fall from the sky.
So Many Questions!
There are more questions that begin “What if…?” than there are atoms in the universe.
Start with the Doorway
Doorways always change. They open and close. Things and people pass through in either direction. So does the wind.
Color by Color
Maybe you’ll start to see an accidental picture. Maybe you won’t. The most important thing is to enjoy the coloring.
A Perfect Day
What are some of the many different perfect things could make their way into a perfect day?
Spirals of Care
Create a page about things that matter to you which doesn’t have any words on it.
Rhyme Time!
Most of us started experimenting with rhyming when we were learning to talk. In other words, it’s so easy that even babies can do it.
What Kind of Morning?
What is morning like for you? Does it arrive by the clock? Where does it fit in your sleeping and eating patterns?
Miraculous Miracles
Write an elaborate miracle, or write a series of short ones. If it’s miraculous, it’s a miracle.
Not Sorry
Sometimes we accidentally do something that later on turns out to be an excellent idea.