Guest Blogger Nancy Julien Kopp wrote about choosing a path and exploring your choice. It seems like a perfect writing prompt for the start of a new year.
Nancy wrote on her blog:
Life is full of choices. I think often of Robert Frost’s poem that tells us of two roads diverging in a yellow wood, and the poet said he took the one less traveled by. But don’t we always wonder if this choice would be better than that choice or another one?
For a writing exercise today, look at the four photos. Each of them is somewhere you can walk. Two have water while the others are filled with green trees. What is your choice? Where would you prefer to walk? A, B, C or D?
Choose one and write a paragraph or several paragraphs about the photo you liked best. Study the photo and ask yourself a few questions. What sounds are there? What is the weather like; air temp? Are you going to meet someone? Does a person appear coming toward you? Does the weather make a distinct change? Can you smell anything? Are you happy on this walk? Or are you despondent? Do you have a destination in mind? Or are you walking aimlessly? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Barefoot or wearing shoes?
Think about all those questions before you begin to write. Hopefully, you’ll end up with the beginning of a story, or even a piece of flash fiction. Or a bit of memoir. There is no limit to where you can go with this exercise.
If you enjoyed one, try another with the same questions and see what happens. Remember that writing exercises allow you to flex your writing muscles in any way you like. Let your creativity flow.
Original post on Writer Granny’s World by Nancy Julien Kopp.
Nancy Julien Kopp lives in Manhattan, KS where she writes creative non-fiction, fiction for children, personal essays, articles on the craft of writing, and poetry. She has been published in 22 Chicken Soup for the Soul books, newspapers, magazines, and ezines, and several anthologies including The Write Spot: Possibilities and The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing (available in both print and as an ebook at Amazon).
Nancy was the Kansas Authors Club Prose Writer of the Year in 2013.
