My Writing Journal

                             prompts, inspiration, observations, etc.

 

  • Write about small injuries
  • "I riffle the pages, the crisp sound of paper, the printout, the stuff of knowledge as it used to be before you could plug it in."  --- A Friend of the Earth, T.C. Boyle
  • Write about the early morning . . . Place your character in a place "before the day gets a chance to be polluted."  Just write the very first thoughts that come into your head.
  • "Foolishly she stayed and listened to the rest of what he had to say . . ."
  • Have you got the life you thought you would?
  • "The fire that drives men extinguished by tears."  Write something from this which ends in a positive way.
  • Write about what happens when a woman gets an invitation from her recently divorced ex-husband to his engagement party
  • Write about a set of keys lying in the gutter
  • "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."  -- Anais Nin
  • "Enemies of Promise"  Now write.
  • Wrte about a birthday which goes horribly wrong. Tempers flaring, weather boiling hot and pregnant women fainting . . . But all goes well for the birthday girl in the end
  • "Nobody can go back and write a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."  -- Maria Robinson
  • Cathy winced, her face turned red, because over Mark's shoulder she saw . . . Now write.
  • "Pillar of Opposing Attitudes"
  • Write about a time in your life when you were expecting one thing and something completely different happened.
  • You're going through your photos and see a stranger enigmatically caught in the background of one of them, in the act of . . .
  • You're on vaction with your in-laws and your sister-in-law blurts out, "So who was the man/woman I saw you holding hands with at the coffee shop last week?"
  • Find a crayon. Close your eyes and smell it. What memories does it evoke? What color is it? What's your favorite color? Write about the last time you drew a picture.
  • Write about a time when you found out something you weren't supposed to know
  • Look out the window; Write what you see.
  • Remember a sound
  • Write your morning
  • Write a character who lives a horoscope from the daily paper
  • Open the box . . .
  • Everyday for close to 12 years she'd eaten a bowl of oatmeal with chopped walnuts.  Today, she had a bagel instead.  Why?  How did it change her life?
  • Write down five things which have inspired you this week.  Then write a couple of paragraphs about each - and see which have wings and legs.
  • This is not about . . .
  • Write about a year ago
  • I can't remember . . .
  • I remember . . .
  • Write about 10 years ago
  • Just beyond the edge of the woods . . .
  • "Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."  --- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

 

 

 

***My writing prompts come from a variety of sources, but I'd like to give special recognition to Shani at Writing in the Margins, the Daily Writing Practice group and Robbi over at Writing Perc for their constant inspiration.