Today, start your warm-up with a lightning strike.

This could be a literal or metaphorical lightning strike; it doesn’t matter. It’s a swift, sudden flash of insight, energy, or destruction that comes from out of a stormy sky. You could use it to start off a story, scene, journal entry, or free-write–although I think this would make a particularly good story starter.

Character Dictation Tile Box

Technorati Tags: free-writing

Use any of the following snippets of dialogue as an “overheard conversation” story starter. In other words, start off a short story or scene by imagining that your main character has just overheard the following brief snapshot out of someone else’s conversation:

• “That’s when I realized that if I didn’t kill her, someone else would. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

• “She was the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. It was a pity, really.”
• “I’m telling you, he was there. I know he was dead, but he was standing right at the foot of my bed, clear as day.”
• “Go ahead. Open it. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Technorati Tags: free-writing, journaling, prompts, story starters, write, writers, writing

If you’re looking for well-chosen quotations or “word of the day” type collections, Original Cyn collects favorites from around the net, putting them all in one place (and linking to more) for you to find inspiration from. Any of these can be used for the kind of free-writing and word association exercises you’ll find in this blog. Just FYI though, there’s a content warning of “some content may be inappropriate for minors” on the blog. I rather like this quote on youth.

Technorati Tags: free-writing, journaling, prompts, quotations, quotes, write, writers, writing

Today, take a look at this ghostly building and imagine it as a part of a fictional world. Use it as the inspiration for a plot, or use it for world-building purposes and imagine what has happened there, what the location is used for, who might live or work there, and so on. Or, simply free-write using the photo as inspiration.

Photo.net contains many images under their “landscape” and “architecture” categories that could inspire fascinating world-building or plot material. Go to the gallery section, then to “browse portfolios”, and choose the category from the drop-down box before clicking on “search”. You can also use this to search for portraits to help inspire character-building.

Girl’s Best Friend Ornament (Oval)

Technorati Tags: free-writing, journaling, photo.net, photographs, prompts, world building, write, writers, writing

If you could take on any one position of influence and authority in the world, what would it be, and why? Free-write for at least 10 minutes about why you’d take this position and what you think you could accomplish with it.

For fiction-writers, consider answering this question for one of your characters. You can take it from one of two positions: what position would that character want, or what position would you want for that character?

Blank Journals

Technorati Tags: free-writing, journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

As an exercise in loosening up your powers of free association, sometimes it can be helpful to juxtapose absurd and completely unrelated things just to push yourself to come up with something creative and clever in return. One of the best examples of this I’ve seen are certain FARK photoshop threads, such as this one: photoshop a creep, something deep, and a marshmallow peep. The results can be silly, but some of them are also quite clever in their interpretations and associations. And either way, you exercise those creative muscles and teach yourself to come up with wild and crazy things that your readers won’t expect!

So today, take the above FARK photoshop thread and turn it into a writer’s exercise. Write about a creep, something deep, and a marshmallow peep. Set a timer for twenty minutes and go!

Messy Genius Tile Box

Technorati Tags: fark, free-writing, journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

Yesterday I stumbled across one of the most beautiful image blogs I’ve ever seen, Trebuchet; you can bet I immediately bookmarked it and made plans to stop back early and often! The images are abstract and surreal, and breath-takingly beautiful. They’re also incredibly inspiring. This morning, choose an image from this blog and do one of the following with it:

• Write about it–the feelings it evokes in you, how you see it, etc.

• Free-associate from it. Just see where it takes you.
• Write a short story (or an excerpt from a story), attempting to capture the feel of the image.

If you aren’t sure which image to use, try this one. Although it’s tough to pick, that’s one of my favorites.

Technorati Tags: journaling, prompts, art, write, writers, writing

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Today, take a look at the web site of the National Novel Writing Month and do one of two things:

• Write for a page, brainstorming a project you’d like to do if you were to participate in this wild and wacky program.

• Free-write for a page, listing out every possible project you can think of that you might work on if you were to participate.
• Read the quote in this blog entry on writer’s block and free-write a response for five to 15 minutes.

Blank Journals

Technorati Tags: free-writing, journaling, prompts, NaNoWriMo, write, writers, writing

For this exercise you’re going to take three different characters from three different professions or walks of life. You’ll give them a location for their conversation as well as a topic of conversation and a conflict, and then you’ll write up a page (or more) of dialogue between them regarding your chosen topic. Try to have their professions and attitudes come through in the dialogue without ever having to state them outright, but try to make it natural and not forced. Allow their personalities to show.

You can as always brainstorm your own choice of professions and topics and the like, but if you’d prefer, here’s a set for you.

Technorati Tags: characters, journaling, prompts, dialogue, write, writers, writing

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A gray-haired man sits before you at a table. On that table he has arranged four small wooden boxes, each one clearly made by an artisan of great skill. The first bears an angular geometric pattern of light and dark woods. The second has been stained a deep cobalt blue. The third seems to be made of rosewood; the pattern of the wood grain has been carefully preserved. The lid of the fourth has been inlaid with mother-of-pearl and various colors of woods, forming a lifelike barn owl with a moon above it. The man gestures at the boxes and says simply, “choose.” He smiles.

Which box do you open, and why? What do you find within? What happens next?

This writers’ exercise was inspired by the beautiful work of Patrick Parker of Arcane Art, who produces the most lovely wooden artwork and sells it at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

Technorati Tags: journaling, Maryland, medieval, prompts, Renaissance Festival, write, writers, writing

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