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)
Mugs, shirts, prints and more

Technorati Tags: Dave Barry, free-writing, journaling, prompts, gifts, write, writers, writing

Today, surf on over to fic_simplicity for a new prompt: candy woes. It’s the perfect Halloween-day prompt! From that page:

You can take it however you like to, really. Not enough candy? Too much candy? It’s all dependent on your creativity, and how your characters feel about candy in general. There’s a lot of wiggle room with this one, really, so don’t be afraid to tax your brains and come up with something a little different!

You can also go farther-afield than that, of course. How else might candy cause or relate to your woes? I can think of some strange, odd, and humorous possibilities for this one. Has candy somehow managed to cause a household disaster of epic proportions? Did candy kill your best friend? What’s your worst memory related to eating candy? What’s the worst thing you ever ate that you were told was candy?

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

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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It’s tough to know what to give someone else as a gift, and some people seem to have a special knack for finding utterly useless or obnoxious gifts. You can do this exercise from the point of view of either yourself or a fictional character of your choice. Imagine that someone has given you the worst, most annoying, most useless, yet expensive gift possible. Freewrite about one or more of the following:

• The gift itself

• The gift-giver
• The scene in which the gift is presented
• A short story in which the gift plays a prominent or pivotal role

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

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Wander around your house or apartment for a bit and really look at the items around you. Pick three items that just don’t go together; for example, I might grab an ivory-colored pillar candle, a surgical steel griddle, and a cat bed. Use all three items in one of the following types of writing:

• Free-associate off of the combination and free-write for at least 10 minutes or two sides of a sheet of paper.

• Write a scene that includes all three items.
• Describe a setting that includes all three items.
• Write a journal entry (from the point of view of a fictional character) that makes mention of all three items.

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Make a list of some of your favorite food dishes, preferably about ten of them. Pick out the ones that have very ordinary names that purely describe the dish, like macaroni and cheese. Sit for a moment and imagine each one in turn, picking out significant details about how they look, taste, smell, feel on the tongue, make you feel, etc.; take notes. Now try to come up with at least one imaginative name for each recipe. Preferably brainstorm a handful and then pick your favorite.
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Pick one of your fictional characters and imagine she keeps a photo album. If she’s from a genre or time period without photos, figure out what her equivalent is (a journal? Scrapbook? Memory shelf of mementos? Private store of memorized moments that she occasionally mulls over?) or what her photo album would be like if she could have one. Write about this album, either following the wisdom of your own pen or answering one or more of the following questions:

• How selective is she about what she chooses to memorialize? The most important moments? Everything she can? Something in-between?

• How detailed or simple are the moments she captures, how complex or straightforward?
• How artistic and well-rendered are those moments?
• How accurate are those moments? If they’re colored by experience and emotion (as they undoubtedly are), in what way are they altered, and by how much?
• Are there many images of your character in these images and memories, or does she prefer to focus on others? Why?

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This evening I was playing around a bit with a description of hot chocolate. So for today’s exercise, I want you to choose a food you have a particularly strong reaction to, positive or negative. Have some if you can, eating slowly and concentrating on every nuance of flavor, texture, and your reaction to it. If you can’t have some then do this in your memory and imagination.

Describe this food in terms of something that isn’t food, trying to convey what causes this food to provoke such a strong reaction in you.
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Take five minutes to list out the most memorable gifts you have ever received–good and bad, tangible or not, for a special occasion or not. Circle the one ‘best’ gift and the one ‘worst’ gift and follow these instructions:
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Picture a locked box in your mind. It’s small enough to pick up and carry, but large enough that you can’t hide it under your coat. It’s rectangular, made of exotic woods and carved with ornate symbols that look vaguely familiar… but you can’t quite place them. Delicate inlays in a lighter shade of wood depict a tree with branching limbs and intricate leaves. The wood seems subtly perfumed, and the scent is dark and a little spicy. The box has some heft to it–enough that you’re sure there’s something locked inside of it, even though it doesn’t rattle when you carefully shake it–but not so much that you can’t lift it.
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