Tomorrow sees the start of “First Thing Monday.” Right now, the intention is for the feature to be three things:
- A weekly feature at The Life Mosaic.
- A writing prompt to get your creative juices flowing.
- An exercise designed to require fifteen minutes of work.
This may fluctuate in the future but for now, anticipate the above recipe.
I enjoy writing prompts. I like receiving them in a class or group or seeking them out on my own and I enjoy offering them to other people in teaching, training, and other spaces like this blog. I think any writing prompt allows one to stretch his or her creative legs to walk to places he or she perhaps wouldn’t otherwise travel. Really, that’s “any” writing prompt. Even the bad ones, the cliche ones, even those can take someone to somewhere new if one is open to it. That said, here’s hoping the writing prompts I offer here aren’t “bad” and seldom dip into the “cliche” pool without intention.
One of the key reasons I enjoy writing prompts is they simultaneously gift a writer with creative freedom and creative constraint. Freedom, because the potential direction the writing can go are limitless and constraint, because there is direction at all. Embracing constraints may be just what one needs to be laser-focused on his or her art. You’ll take to some of the prompts naturally and others you’ll circle with apprehension. But if a writing prompt strikes you, I encourage you to adhere to its directions and give it your full attention. And if it works out for you, by all means – leave a comment on the prompt and let me and the world know!
So I hope you discover something new. Maybe this will be a gateway generator of new ideas about how you approach voice, tone, genre, shape. Perhaps you’ll explore old characters in new ways or new characters in familiar territories. I’ve offered prompts in the past on another blog and some of those prompts may appear here, in their original format or modified, along with fresh original prompts, too, of course. But here’s something different for me. A promise:
I will do the prompt, too.
When last I offered prompts, sometimes I tried them right away, sometimes I did them later, and there were some I never got around to doing. Those last few weren’t bad prompts; I just didn’t allow myself the creative space to do. I ask you to give yourself creative space to do and I am doing the same for me. Sounds like a square deal to me.
Write it up and see what happens.
-nm