If you’ve been following along with my Friday posts, then you know that today is a Creativity Prompt. The reason why I call them Creativity instead of Writing prompts is that a prompt can inspire any artist. I might look at a creativity prompt and be inspired to write a poem or a journal entry or even a story. Someone else might be inspired to take a picture or paint a picture or create a mixed-media display. We’re all different and we look at the world differently, but we ALL also sometimes get stuck in a rut. This is how to shake up your artistic routine!
The Prompts
Usually, I’ll share a picture as a creativity prompt. I started using a picture because I didn’t see a lot of them being used and because I get inspired to write something by the pictures that I see. Then my husband suggested that I should use the last line of a book instead of the first line. Those were pretty fun too and one of those inspired a blog post. I’ve also included favorite movie lines and recently started adding in first sentences.
The first sentences came about because while downsizing, I found my old writing notebook from the ’70s and ’80s. And in it, I found this writing exercise that I was doing. I just wrote these first sentences, with the goal to make them interesting enough to pull a reader in. So I would just practice writing these sentences in the hope of finding something that I wanted to develop further. I found a whole page of these first sentences and decided to share some of them with you. That’s today’s creativity prompt. A first sentence.
I hope this inspires your creativity, no matter the form it takes. I’m always interested in seeing where my prompts lead you, so feel free to link back to any post you created based on my prompts or share pictures of your art.
Not sure anyone would want to see the painting I might create from this 🙂 perhaps it would be better to write something instead! Although thinking about it, some of my paintings look as if they were inspired by the idea of violent illness!!!
One would think your painting outfit would fit the bill for this Prompt.
Writing first lines as a practice to draw the reader in sounds like a good one! I’ve never thought of doing that before. I joined Twitter as a way to train myself to make a point in a very short period of time. The Twitter pitch Party #Pitmad is good practice for that too! I am thinking of entering the Writer’s Digest short fiction contest (mostly for the practice) and don’t have a story idea I’ve fixed on yet. Maybe I’ll play around with this prompt and see what happens!
I hope you do create a short story out of this and share it with me. There are so many possibilities.
Creativity is something we are all blessed with but we don’t always know our own capability!
Very true. Everyone is creative, but most people don’t realize they are. One of the things I try to do on my blog is have people explore their creativity.
That’s lovely. I like that!
I love prompts; they are the perfect poke when we feel stuck.
I love them too. Many of my prompts became just writing practice for me. But there are several that have generated blog posts for me.
I use an iPhone app called Prompts as well.
I will have to check that out.
That is a great first line – why was she ill? How did she become ill? Is it a one time thing or something more serious? Was she alone? What happened after she was ill? So many questions!
I’ll have to remember that the next time I get writer’s block.
So many questions indeed. Was she poisoned or is she pregnant? Was it food poisoning or did she see or hear something that made her sick?
That’s an interesting prompt! And this post reminds me to go back and re-do The Artists Way – and try to finish it this time!!
I just got It’s Never Too Late To Begin Again because I figure it fits where I am now!
Lovely idea and good tip about first sentences for a couple of reasons; one being they can themselves become a series of prompts for later use; never throw any writing away as you never know when a line might discharge block. Second, its a skill to get a short sentence that grabs attention as soon as the book is opened. Not my best one in truth! Good post and timely reminder 🙂
I’m glad you stopped Gary. I certainly found the benefits of keeping old writing. It’s amazing that after three moves, I still had stuff that I wrote when I was in high school!
I once made a mistake of not copying files onto a new pc; nothing large, but several years later I regretted it because there was a piece I knew I’d written that was perfect for a new project! Lesson learned the hard way!!!!
I’m a longhand writer first. So everything I find is in old notebooks. I even found old encouragements that I would write down. One of my favorites is “A writer is someone who wrote today.”
Wow, I haven’t written longhand like forever; possibly because science required word documents as proofs and I grew up/trained doing it that way. My notebook I snow an iPad. I do all my base work on that and then import it into my manuscript template. Brilliant quote too. I must stick that above my PC !!!!
I’m glad you like the quote. There weren’t any iPads in the 70’s. I didn’t even have an electric typewriter! So everything I wrote started in longhand and I find that even today, I start in longhand and finish on my laptop.
I hear you! I remember pre-tech days too, I was “fortunate(?)” enough to see tech come into academia and ended up having to use it for papers and theses. I often edit my stuff first from printed versions mind. I find that more comfortable than a screen for first edits.
So you do use paper at some point! LOL
Heck yes lol, The printed first draft is double spaced and single sided. You should see what it looks like AFTER I’ve been through it. Folk say isn’t that printing wasteful; I say nope; the blank page contains story arc issues and continuity and the double space hits first round bloopers, typos and WTF is that supposed to mean? 🙂
I used to edit best by printing it out and it’s a fallback for me. But now, I read everything I write out loud to my husband. Between the two of us, we can usually pick out the problem spots. Usually, being the key word here. 🙂
Good show and its excellent he supports you that way 🙂 For me, nobody sees first draft until I’ve plundered it first. Well, I have a few beta readers if I just want to find out if the tale is worth pursuing. They often get raw chapters to battle with 🙂
Well, he doesn’t actually hear it until I’ve done my best to edit it. So I guess he’s there for my second draft? 😉
Ha-Ha, see, we do things pretty much the same really lol
This looks interesting! If I get a chance, I can come back to it to see what comes to mind!
If something does come of it, I’d love to see it!
I’ll be sure to let you know!
What an awesome idea. When I have writer’s block, I may try this just to dig myself out of it. Thanks for the idea!
I’m glad you like this idea.