It's a rare day when I have nothing to say. This is not a G.E. moment complete with light bulb in a thought bubble over my head. It just is.
But there are days, even weeks, where my writing is worse than constipation. I'm either bloated and full of gas or stopped up. Neither situation is desirable -- from a personal hygiene or from a creative perspective.
This is where the beloved writing prompt comes in. For me, the simpler the prompt is, the better it works. Too much instruction takes away from the exercise and makes it just that: physical exertion rather than play. And play is really what writing for me is all about, finding a fluid creative state where the words seem to magically appear on the page. Channeling my inner imp, if you will.
I like to look through magazines, looking at advertisements for unusual business names or odd services. Last week I saw this one: Head Fairies (yes, they are nit-pickers since 1995 in New York, Chicago, San Francisco & Los Angeles). I might write a vignette about a job seeker who applies for a position as the head lice lady.
Another place to give yourself a quick start is the newspaper. I like looking for true crime stories -- the suitcase that washes up on the beach with body parts, the classroom of third graders created their on K-Team complete with duct tape and a rusty knife to knock off their teacher. You might like truth is stranger than fiction stories. These three and four paragraph who-dunnits are ripe with possibility for writing dialog or character sketches.
Often I write poems because they are image-rich and dense with meaning, and can later be expanded to something larger and more complex. Haiku seems the perfect way to tell a short story in three lines.
Lastly, I like old photographs -- not necessarily my own -- and found objects to hone my descriptive skills. These prompts are good for practicing the art of metaphor and simile.
Now, get to your keyboards and play!
