Write about a favorite movie. Why do you like it?
OR . . . write about a movie you really didn’t like. Did you watch it to the end? Why? Why didn’t you walk away?
A note about freewrites: You don’t have to write on the prompt exactly as it’s written. You can write about “Why didn’t you walk away?” Write freely, with no attachment to the final product. Just write.
Write about saving a life. Someone’s life you saved, or someone who saved your life.
The save could be literal: CPR was performed, pulled from water, put out a fire, rescued from a snarling animal or a threatening situation.
The save could be inspirational: Something read in a book, a magazine, a placard, a wall hanging; a mental shift; a realization; an epiphany; something that was said; a behavior change; a belief change.
You get the idea . . . Saved. However you interpret this. Just write!
A friend delivered a gift wrapped in black and white paper with sayings on canning jars.
Today’s prompts are inspired from that gift wrapping paper. Choose one to write about. Or choose several:
Food for thought.
Foodies are the best people.
Season everything with Love.
Just beet it.
Stay hungry – Stay foolish!
Eat. Drink. And be amazing.
Eat more greens.
Farm to table & table to soul.
“Write five images every day, for seven days, using as many of the senses as possible.”— Adair Lara
From Adair’s book, Naked, Drunk, and Writing:
“Writing is turning your thoughts, abstractions, generalizations, and opinions back into the experiences you got them from.”
Adair’s example:
“Not ‘women my age become invisible,’ but ‘they handed drinks around and forgot me, again.’”
Using imagery involves the details about what happened.
Show what happened so that readers can see the scene, hear the sounds, feel the sensations, taste the elements, and smell the aroma.
Adair advises, “. . . every time you write a sentence, ask yourself, How can I show this? Try to get image and detail into every sentence. ”
Tidbits from Chapter Six, Using Images and Details:
“We want experience, not information. ‘Joan was distressed’ is information. ‘Joan looked away’ is an image. The reader notices Joan looking away, and has the pleasure of concluding for herself that Joan is distressed.”
Today’s writing prompt is the same one Adair assigned to her students on that hot August night in the octagonal room that served as her writing classroom, the room in the sunny yellow Victorian, where we had to walk up a gazillion stairs to reach the front door. I so want to add, . . . and where we were greeted by her tail-wagging, smiling pooch, but that would be too much, wouldn’t it?
Writing prompt: Write five images for seven days using as many of the senses as possible. Set aside to simmer.
Stir the imagination when re-reading your list, looking for images that call to you, that want to be sniffed out, that won’t fade away, images that linger.
Use that imagery to write whatever comes up for you.
For more creative and juicy writing ideas, pick up a copy of Adair Lara’s book, Naked, Drunk, and Writing, with over seven pages of “Suggestions for Writing” as Adair calls these writing prompts.
Writing Prompt #276 and my freewrite in that post were inspired from Adair’s assignment first encountered on that hot August night in the octagonal room . . .
What are vegetables good for, besides eating?
Some gardens are bursting right about now with zucchini, green beans, summer squash, cucumbers, yellow squash, kale, rhubarb, patty pan squash, lettuce, have I mentioned squash?
Here in northern California, growing squash is easy and so abundant that we don’t leave our car doors unlocked, or we might find a bushel of zucchini on the seat.
Write about other things that vegetables can do.
Inspired from Adair Lara‘s writing workshop.
Write about new uses for vegetables.
Excerpt from I Could Do Anything . . . If I only knew what it was, by Barbara Sher
Rescuing Your Past
Something inside you is too loyal to permit you to turn your back on everything you loved and simply walk away. No matter how many times people tell you to let the past go, it’s never possible. You’ll never move wholeheartedly into the future unless you take your beloved past with you. And that’s exactly as it should be.
There’s no reason to turn your back on a happy past. Sometimes we try to turn away from the past because we feel it somehow betrayed us. It’s as though we loved our past, but our past didn’t love us. So we go on strike and pretend we don’t care, as if to punish fate for being unkind. Fate never cares, of course, so we only hurt ourselves.
Prompt: What do you pretend to not care about?
I’m thinking about our connections with one another. This excerpt seems timely.
Excerpt from Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox
“Pre-modern people didn’t think of themselves as individuals — they were members of a tribe as well as of a family. Ancient philosophers knew that human dignity begins with ‘We are a people, therefore I am.’ Modern people are tribal too but we call our tribes by different names — churches, corporations, states, nations. Each of us was nurtured within and shaped by several corporate bodies, voluntary organizations and professional corporations that molded our values and behavior — schools, athletic teams businesses, clubs, temples, and local, national, and international governments.”
Prompt: I am from . . .
Or: What uniforms or emblems have you worn?
Or: What groups have you been a member of? Brownies, Blue Birds, Daisies, Girl Scouts, athletic groups, sorority, secret clubs.
I’m thinking about ancestors this week and how we inherit some of their traits, like threads weaving from one generation to the next, connecting us.
For this prompt, remember your grandfather, your father or an uncle doing something he likes, or liked to do, whatever it is or was. If they built something or maintained something . . . picture what that looks like.
Take a deep breathe in. Let it out.
Now, think about your grandmother, your mother, or an aunt, doing something she likes, or liked, to do, whatever it is or was.
If she built something, or made something, picture what that looks like.
Go back a generation or two or three, before electricity, before modern conveniences, pioneer days.
Picture your grandfather or grandmother or great-grandparents. If you know how they spent their time, picture that.
If you don’t know how they spent their time, use your imagination.
Perhaps someone chopping wood for the fireplace.
Maybe great-grandmother is sitting by the fire, with her needlework on her lap. Perhaps she wears a contented smile as she darns, or knits, or crochets.
Deep breathe in. Let it out.
Maybe she reflects on her ancestors, those who told stories either orally or through their needlework.
Maybe you remember a special quilt, or a tablecloth or a doily—something your grandmother, or her mother, or her mother made—maybe an embroidered pillowcase or a sampler.
This is where we come from—these ancestors. We are hand-me-downs of these people. We have their characteristics, their traits, their mannerisms.
Writing Prompt: When you’re ready, write about something an ancestor made.
Wall hanging quilt made by Marlene’s sister, Janet.
