Contemplative Writing

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Roar!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014  Prompt #72

zoo

Yesterday afternoon, I wandered through Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, the inspiration for today’s writing prompt.

 

Write about zoos.

 

 

 

Writing Tips:

  • You can focus on a particular zoo, animal, visit, or a opinion about zoos.
  • Or you can write in a more abstract, mixed-up, or interwoven kind of way.
  • This prompt lends itself especially well to sensory descriptions: be sure to include the sounds, sights, textures, and smells all around you.
  • Explore your emotions and state of being. What was your motivation for being at the zoo? Were you eager or reluctant to be there?

Further Writing

  • Shift your perspective with that of one of the animals. Write for 20 minutes.
  • Write about being in a zoo at dawn or dusk.

Writing Group Variations

  • Visit a zoo and spend time writing there.
  • Or swap zoo stories and write from there.
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Breakable

For Monday, July 14, 2014  Prompt #71
IMG_2104

 

 

Write about something fragile, either literal or metaphoric.

 

 

Instructions

  1. Find something fragile in your home or someone else’s home (with their permission of course). Hold it (carefully!). Put it down, describe it, using a variety of sensory details. Is it heavy in your hands? Does it make a sound if you tap it gently? Is it old and worn?
  2. If you know about the origins of the piece, write about it.
  3. Write about what it means to you.
  4. If you are remembering something long gone, write about it to the best of your recollection or fictionalize the account to add interest.

Further Writing

  • Did you ever break anything valuable? Yours or someone else’s?  Were there repercussions? Where did this take place? How old were you? Examine your emotions and state of being.
  • Write about fragility from an emotional perspective. Was there ever a time you or someone you loved felt or seemed broken?

Writing Group Variations

  • Bring something fragile to your writing group.
  • Write about your piece or someone else’s.
  • Share your writing to hear the variety of stories group members devised. What is common? Where do the stories differ?

 

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Caught!

For Sunday, July 13, 2014  Prompt #70IMG_2052

 

Today is another quick prompt:
Write about your experiences fishing or watching others fish.

 

 

 

 

Writing Tips

  • Include sensory details, including sense of smell, about place, time, weather conditions, or what you were wearing.
  • Include  specifics about the kind of fishing you were doing or watching. Ocean or river? On a bank, from a bridge, or in a boat? Talk about gear, flies, bait and other details.
  • Examine your emotions and state of being. What was your motivation for being there? Were you eager or reluctant to take part.
  • Include action — large or quiet.

 

 

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Ritual

For SaturPhoto1day, July 12, 2014  Prompt #69

Write about a ritual, either personal or public, that you have taken part in or regularly take part in.

Instructions
1. Write about the ritual in a factual step by step detail. Write for 10 minutes.
2. Next, add in emotional and sensory details, perhaps explaining what draws you to this ritual, what you like and don’t like about it, how it has changed over the years, or how you have changed it, or how you would change it if you could.

Further Writing

Create a  ritual for yourself and describe the who, what, why, when, and how of it.

For Writing Groups

  1. Share a ritual with the group.
  2. With each others’ permission, write about a change to the ritual and the reaction that participants have because of it.
  3. Read the altered rituals out loud to each other.
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Thursday Thoughts: Why Write?

IMG_2214July 3, 2014

It’s Thursday Thought-day again, so instead of posting a prompt, I’m posing another writer’s question.  Ponder, discuss among friends, consider, debate.

We write for different reasons at different times. Why do you write? Do you write to understand life more fully — to explore subjects, people, or places? To better understand yourself? Do you write to express and share beliefs? Do you write to create beauty?

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

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Inspiration Online: Paintings, Prints, and Photos

Summer Sky

“Summer Sky” by Dan Namingha, [Hopi-Tewa, born 1950]. From the National Museum of the American Indian.

 

June 5, 2014.  Prompt #36

Today we turn to the Smithsonian’s image gallery to be inspired by one of the thousands of images there. Warning: This is a mesmerizing site. Don’t get so lost in exploring that you forget to write.

 

 

 

 

Instructions

  1. Go to www.siris.si.edu.
  2. In the “Search All Catalogs” box on the right, type in a keyword. (If you can’t decide on a keyword, type in “summer.”)
  3. When you receive your search results, scan the images until you find one that inspires you. If you can’t decide which to use, choose the 3rd one.
  4. Enlarge it and free write for five minutes, noting any questions, emotions or observations that arise while you look at the image.
  5. Next, circle three words or phrases that stand out for you.  Write one of them at the top of new piece of paper.  Write for more fifteen minutes.

Tomorrow:  Further Writing Tips and Variations for Writing Groups


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Inspiration Everywhere: Public Art II

June 4, 2014.  Prompt #35

photo 2

Today’s prompt follows up yesterday’s post on artist Gary Hirsh’s Bot Joy interactive mural. Learn more about the mural here and at #botstories.

Instructions

  1. Writing for five minutes, list people, situations, activities, and emotions that you are afraid of.  For instance, mine would include gondola rides, small planes, glass elevators and global climate change.  (I also think clowns are creepy, but I’m not actually afraid of them.)
  2. Next, for fifteen minutes, choose one of the items above and write about it in details.  Include large and small descriptive details and well as emotional ones.

Further Writing

  • Write about something that is both scary and pleasant, perhaps at different times or at the same time. (Mine would be light houses.)
  • Write about a fear you’ve overcome or a new fear that didn’t used to bother you.

Variations for Writing Groups

  1. As suggested above, write about a time you experienced fear. Re-reading what you have written, circle twelve to fifteen of your strongest or most surprising words and phrases. Re-write them all on a new piece of paper to create a poem or prose poem.
  2. Using a story, essay, or poem you are currently writing or revising, work in a moment of fear. How does this enrich the work?
  3. Write a piece that combines fear and joy.

 

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Inspiration Everywhere: Public Art

June 3, 2014.  Prompt #34

photo 3

 

Last month in Boulder, artist Gary Hirsh of Bot Joy painted an interactive mural at the northeast corner of Arapahoe and  13th Street, near the Farmer’s Market.  The mural poses several introspective questions of its viewers. You can find out more about the mural here and at #botstories.

For today and tomorrow’s prompt, we’ll work with two of the “bot prompts.”  Feel free to draw your own bot to complement your writing!

 

Instructions

  1. For five minutes, free write about joy. Include whatever associations, people, places, activities—general or specific, arise.
  2. Next, for fifteen minutes, focus in on a time when you were filled with joy. Include the both large and small details of the setting, who you were with, what was happening around you and inside you. Include sensory details. Did the joy last for days, hours, or just a moment? Had you worked to create it or had it unexpectedly emerged?

Further Writing

  • Write about a time when you experienced unexpected or fleeting joy.
  • Write about daily small joys that you try to cultivate in your life.

Variations for Writing Groups

  1. As suggested above, write about a time you experienced unexpected or fleeting joy. Re-reading what you have written, circle twelve to fifteen of your strongest or most surprising words and phrases. Re-write them all on a new piece of paper to create a poem or prose poem.
  2. Using a story, essay, or poem you are currently writing or revising, work in a moment of profound joy. How does this enrich the work?

 

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Inspiration Everywhere: Maya Angelou

June 2, 2014.  Prompt #33

mayaAs a writer, I am often asked, “Where do you find your inspiration?” That question always surprises me, as I find inspiration everywhere. In this week’s posts, I’ll offer a variety of people, places, and instances that may inspire you.  Using your writer’s notebook, track what engages you throughout the day.

 

Maya Angelou

Last week, writer, performer, professor, and activist Dr. Maya Angelou died.  My Facebook feed was filled with tributes and quotes. This was among my favorites: Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.

Instructions

  1. For five minutes, free write about the word courage. Include whatever associations—people, places, situations—arise.
  2. Next, for ten minutes, write about a time when you acted courageously, in either word or action, either big or small.

Further Writing

  • Write about a time when you (or your character) were not as courageous as you wished you’d been.  Was there a time when you missed an opportunity to act courageously?
  • My father used a say, “Discretion is the better part of valor”  (originally “The better part of valoris discretion,” from Shakespeare’s Henry IV.)  Write about the difference between valor and courage and the complexity of courageous acts.

Variations for Writing Groups

  1. On an index card, write a short description of a real or imagined courageous act.
  2. Place the cards in the middle of the table and choose one to write about for 15 minutes.
  3. Discuss the power of big vs. understated courageous acts. What are the challenges of writing about each of them?

 

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Uniform Writing

ice womenMay 31, 2014  Prompt #31

To wrap up Clothing Week, today’s prompt is short and sweet:  Write about work clothes.  Your work clothes might be an actual uniform or simply what you wear when it’s time to earn a living or get the job done. If you need more structure, refer to the prompts from earlier this week. The guidelines and suggestions are largely transferable.

Have fun and get to work!