You find a lamp in the sand at your favorite beach, in the desert, or other unexpected place. When you touch it a Jinn emerges and offers you one wish. What would you wish for? The following assumptions apply:

• Your Jinn has great powers, but not ultimate power. He cannot simply remake the world.

• Nothing you wish for can get you more wishes–you only get the one.
• As tends to be the case in so many tales of Jinn, the Jinn’s method for making your wish come true might not be exactly what you expect.
• Your wish must be simple; no legal documents!

Free-write about what you wish for, what the Jinn actually does in response to your wish, and what happens as a result. Consider giving the Jinn a personality that shapes his actions.

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Today’s exercise is inspired by this FARK survey thread:

If you could be deity/god/goddess of anything, what would you be?

Free-write for 10-20 minutes before looking at the above-linked thread. You can be serious or silly, broad or specific. You can delve into the whys and wherefores of your choice or you can explore the traditions and celebrations of your worshippers. You could come up with your own creation myth if you’d like, describe your whims and tendencies, or anything else that comes to mind.

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Today’s prompt is a journaling prompt by way of a crafts blog:

[W]rite about current events and how they affect [you]. At least it will give those grandchildren some good fodder for when they have to write essays about what it might have been like to live in our day! I’m trying to include events that might “define” this age, such as the popularity of blogging, using the internet for social networking, and the Iraq War.

In other words, imagine that you’re leaving a little time-capsule-like legacy for your descendants, to give them a better understanding of what life was really like right now. How would you go about that? What would you include? Remember that given today’s multimedia focus you aren’t limited by pen and paper–you could always plan out a mix of writing, video clips, and so on. Either go ahead and start writing your legacy, or brainstorm a project that would serve as this legacy.

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Take a look at Christian Lorenz Scheurer’s amazing painting Procession. Spend a few moments drinking in every detail, then set out two sheets of paper and free-write your thoughts about the piece–or the beginnings of a story or story concept based on it.

Things to think about:

• These days religion is a huge sore spot for so many people and is at the heart of so much conflict in the world. How can you continue to address it in your art and writing in ways that lend insight, and allow people to learn about themselves, without preaching or pushing an agenda? How can you address religion without either pushing away or pandering to an already-sensitized audience?

• How can you work with the concepts of light and darkness in your writing? How can you approach them in a non-stererotypical manner? How can you allow them to inform a piece without overshadowing it (so to speak)?
• How do society, spirituality, and religion interact and interrelate in your work?

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Perhaps you’ve heard of the ask a ninja phenomenon. Today, brainstorm your own variation on this theme. Pick an outlandish and/or anachronistic icon of your own (pirate? knight? wizard? enchantress?) and brainstorm questions that folks might like to ask of that icon, much the same way that people email questions to the ninja. Then come up with some answers, using them to construct and project an intense and interesting personality. You could take a wacky and wild approach, a faux-serious approach, or anything else you’d like. The focus, however, should be on the creation of this icon as a character. If you need some ideas, take a look through the ask a ninja site.

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Limiting the number of words you have to work with can be a great exercise. It forces you to make every last word count, and to choose your words with the greatest of care. It makes you pare out absolutely everything that’s inessential, so all that’s left is the barest essential of story. In Noctuary, author Thomas Ligotti introduces us to the perfect two-sentence story–and I have to admit, it’s chilling.

This morning I stumbled on a site called 55 Words:

All the stories have 55 words. I tried different lengths but settled on 55 because (for me) this was short enough to be tricky but long enough to tell a story.

Today, write a 55 word story on any topic (if you have trouble coming up with one, look through the rest of this blog for an idea). If you like how it comes out, submit it to the site as a guest story.

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Work the following items into a piece of fiction. Start free-writing the piece of fiction itself, or free-write ideas for the fiction until you have something you think you could work with:

• A filigree wedding band

• A portrait photograph, in black-and-white, of a stern-looking woman
• A red scarf

If you want a further constraint to make things more interesting, pick one of the following genres to hold yourself to:

• Fantasy

• ‘Memoir’ (in quotes because it’s fiction written in the style of a memoir, not an actual memoir)
• Mystery

Set a timer for 15-30 minutes and dive right in!

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The next time you go out on the town, keep an eye out for shop signs that are next to each other and could be combined in strange and interesting ways. For example, this morning I saw a sign that on the top said “Carlson’s Donuts” and on the bottom said “Thai Kitchen.” Of course it was actually listing two separate establishments, but how much more interesting would it be to have one of the following establishments:

• Carlson’s Donuts and Thai Kitchen

• Carlson’s Thai Kitchen
• Thai Donut Shop
• Carlson’s Thai Donut Shop

All of those are much more unusual signs that would probably herald a rather unique establishment. Find a couple of signs to string together in a new way, one that suggests something a little (or a lot!) out of the ordinary. Then free-write about this establishment, or use it as the setting for a piece of fiction.

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One of the most fun design series I’ve worked on has been the Adventurers’ Last Words series. The very simple idea was this: there are times when roleplaying (particularly in D&D!) when someone says something and you groan, saying, “famous last words,” just knowing you’re about to die. For example, your characters find a “Deck of Many Things” (magical cards that can grant you treasures (or misfortunes) when you draw them), and after getting something good, one character says, “I draw one more card.” You just know that next card is the one that’s going to wipe out your entire group! Adventurers’ last words can also apply to fantasy stories, adventure stories, and so on.

Without looking through all of our designs, sit down with a piece of paper, set a timer for ten minutes, and free-write all the “famous last words” you can. (If you want to look at ours afterward you can, but try to do your own list with a fresh perspective.) They don’t have to be fantasy-oriented. They could apply to your own fictional universe, or they could come from everyday life. They also don’t have to be life-or-death things; the saying ‘famous last words’ has come to refer to any utterance that immediately strikes you as potentially ironic.

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Today, surf on over to Hodgepodge for the “Angel of Advent” prompt. Spend a few minutes just looking at the lovely piece of artwork, then read the prompt, part of which I’ve quoted here:

With this writing prompt, just release the flood gates on that imagination of yours and see where it takes you. If you wish to focus on something for this one, use the wings and try to incorporate metaphors of flying into your piece.

Christmas, angels, and flying… take those and turn them into something sweet, lovely, maudlin, dark, sappy, pretty, surreal, or anything else that appeals to you.

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