From Paintbyletters:

TOUCH

Touching fabric or skin or someone’s heart, touched in the head or by an angel. Take any spin on the word you like. Have fun with it and try to approach it in as inobvious a way as possible, or just go with whatever first pops into your head.

After you do your own exercise, read “justawetdream”’s attempt. It’s really quite beautiful.

Character Dictation Large Mug

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

At Despair, Inc. they have one of my favorite indulgences–the DEmotivational poster. These frobbies are like the traditional saccharine motivational posters (you know the ones: teamwork, etc. with pithy sayings added underneath and some stark photo in the middle), but with a twist: they employ a dark sense of humor and underlying pessimism in contrast to the overly-bubbly originals. One of my favorites is dysfunction, because it always makes me think of an old housemate!

There’s a web tool for creating motivational posters, and Despair Inc itself now has a parody motivator generator. You can probably already guess what I’m going to suggest for today: grab a favorite photo and make your own motivational, demotivational, or inspirational poster! For bonus points, make a good handful and then pick your favorite.

This may not seem like a writing exercise, but sometimes it can be a lot more difficult to come up with a very short, succinct phrase that really hits home than an entire lovely paragraph.

Here are my own attempts.

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Technorati Tags: Demotivators, Despair, Inc., journaling, prompts, motivational posters, write, writers, writing

Today, tell this woman’s tale. It might be a fairy tale or a stream of consciousness. You might use the unusual image figuratively or literally. Consider the path she’s on, where she might come from or go to, what her journey might be like. Is it an inner or outer journey? Does it take place in the world, in her mind, or someplace else entirely?

Unusual and somewhat surreal images can inspire you to think in directions you might not have considered before. If you can’t immediately think of something to do with this, set a timer for five to 10 minutes and jot down every question you can think to ask about the image. Then choose one and turn the process of answering it into your story.

Girl’s Best Friend Tile Box

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

First read Dave Barry’s Holiday Gift Guide: Just what your loved ones never wanted. Then, set a timer for 10 minutes, grab a pen and paper, and brainstorm a list of silly, ridiculous, outlandish items that people might buy for each other as gifts. Jot them down quickly without worrying about whether the ideas have any merit or not; just free-write. When you’re done, pick out a handful you think you can get the most interesting material out of and write up a Dave Barry-style tongue-in-cheek guide to holiday gifts!

“I’ve got the holiday spirit!” (Mistletoe)
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Technorati Tags: Dave Barry, free-writing, journaling, prompts, gifts, write, writers, writing

Since it’s nearly holiday-time, here’s a simple exercise for you today. First, look at this dark-eyed photograph.

Then do one of the following:

• Use the photo as a story starter.

• Free-write about the character whose eye this is.
• Write a poem about the photograph.

Epic Coffee Large Mug

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

Holocaust Survivor Leaving US — Sees What’s Coming

Read the above article. Try to imagine what it must feel like to be this man, who has seen atrocities and fears seeing them again. Then do one of the following:

• Journal/free-write about your feelings after reading the piece. Set your timer for at least 20 minutes to make sure you get past surface feelings to the deeper stuff.

• Write a short story exploring such feelings of fear and the atrocities that provoke them.

Lest you think I’m somehow making light of this gentleman’s concerns and history, remember that writing (fictional and otherwise) has been used for centuries to better shed light on those things that needed to be said. The best cautionary tales don’t pontificate or preach–they allow us to experience the world from someone else’s point of view, and to be enlightened by that.

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One exercise often taught in creative writing classes is that of re-telling an old fairy tale from a different perspective. This is so popular, in fact, that it has produced quite a few novels and books of short stories, including a wonderful series of anthologies with such titles as Silver Birch, Blood Moon and Black Swan, White Raven.

Although this is definitely a wonderful exercise and you should certainly give it a try if you haven’t before, today I’m going to suggest something slightly different. Today, tell your own fairy tale on your own terms. If you need someplace to start, I highly recommend using any piece of artwork from this page for inspiration! If you currently have any fiction set in a fantasy world of your own devising, or if you’re a game master who has created their own campaign world, try setting it in that world.

Adventurers’ Last Words:
“I try not to wake it up”
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Technorati Tags: fairy tales, journaling, prompts, write, writers, writing

When writing a story from a character’s perspective–whether in the first- or third-person point-of-view–it’s important to see things as that character sees them, and to understand that this character will see things a little differently (sometimes a lot differently!) than everyone else in the story will–and differently than you would. One of the most popular ways to play with this is through the use of the Rashomon effect, whereby you tell a tale through the eyes of several characters. The accounts differ in certain contradictory ways, and yet because of the vagaries of perception they are all true.

Technorati Tags: cats, journaling, perception, prompts, perspective, write, writers, writing

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Yesterday I posted the following video to my blog:

Watch it and think about the difference between perception and reality. Journal about that difference, free-write about the concept (or wherever it takes you), or write a short story in which the difference between perception and reality plays a key role.

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Take a look at the following tattoo:

(Note that if you click through and look at the full photo of the tattoo, it’s mildly NSFW, since it covers someone’s buttocks and thighs.) The translation of the runic text in the tattoo is apparently roughly as follows:

Cattle die,
kinsmen die
all men are mortal.
Words of praise
will never perish
nor a noble name.

Also from the above page:

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

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