keep cranking the rusty handle: writing prompts 1-7 November
and how to use writing prompts to loosen up your writing, boost your creativity, find new angles in your non-fiction and unearth treasure from memory
I’ve done these prompts for a week now, so some thoughts about how to use them:
just do free-writing. get a notebook and a pen, set a timer for 15 minutes and write long-hand. Or, if you are trying to squeeze your writing into your life, sit on the loo1 for 5 minutes and write on your phone. Just let your mind wander, allow whatever comes up to come up.
if you have a work-in-progress then use these to get a new perspective on a character. You can change the pronouns, if it says “I” or “he”, you can always change that to “she” or “they” or “the alien from Zorb”. It can knock something loose to just think about them from a different angle.
they can even work for non-fiction. If you don’t have research on that part of your subject, then spend fifteen minutes writing on how it might be connected, all the thoughts that come up around this question and how it could be related to your topic. Or just use the free-writing to loosen yourself up for your subject.
and even better for memoir, where just allowing yourself to write freely can awaken an old memory that you couldn’t get to another way.
It does work. You pump the rusty handle of your writing until the water starts to come clear. My first novel Disobedience came from doing writing prompts exercises like these over about a year - eventually a character called Esti turned up in repeated free-writing and I knew that I would have to make a whole book around her.
And if you’re only just seeing this, pick whichever one appeals most right now:
1st November: write about finding an old photograph
2nd November: Write about what you saw through the window
3rd November: write about the dish they always used to cook
4th November: “I could tell he’d fallen asleep by the way his breathing changed”
5th November: “By the time I got to the front door, the noise had stopped”
6th November: write the contents of your character’s bedside table
7th November: write about a broken bone
My advice is: just stick with it. The first few weeks might feel difficult. Eventually the water will start to flow clear and swift.
or another private place - coat cupboard?