prompts

October – daily Creative prompts

Continuing the experiment with creative prompts from Sketchbook Skool.  Here are your daily challenges for October, should you choose to accept this mission.

10-365ADAD-prompts-october.jpg

Sketchbook Skool is an excellent provider of online drawing classes – find this list above and more info on their courses over at:

https://sketchbookskool.com/blog/a-drawing-a-day-october-daily-drawing-prompts

 

Creative Prompts – what?

Creative prompts are a trigger, a starter, a warmup.  The idea is that you see the word and it’s a catalyst to make creative work sparked off by that thought.

10 Benefits of Creative Prompts

  1. the randomness.  It comes from outside yourself, so it take you out of unnoticed ruts
  2. it works quickly – read a word, start making
  3. the breadth of themes covered – just look across the month
  4. serendipity – you are likely to stumble accidentally upon a particularly meaningful       theme to you personally, in among so many choices
  5. it encourages play, you can experiment, there’s no big commission at stake
  6. you can engage in the same themes with other people, everyone knows what the theme for the day is, it can become a fun shared activity
  7. it gives a starting point, instead of a blank screen/page/canvas
  8. it’s something to aim for – and you can still be surprised by feeling drawn to something different as you begin – you can go with that ‘diversion’
  9. it’s fresh, daily
  10. someone else has done the work of thinking where to begin, you just respond
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Writing prompt 2

Take 10 minutes, start timer, pick ONE of the 3 possible themes below – and just write!

Write the first communication sent back to Earth after humans land on Mars.

Finish this sentence: The smell of an orange reminds me of….

A genie grants you three tiny wishes. What are they?

There will be another set of prompts for the next few days – all practice!!  I’ll publish them around 3 pm, when you may have a short break and a cuppa tea/coffee.

Taken from:

http://blog.ed.ted.com/2015/11/17/21-fun-things-to-write-about-in-10-minutes-or-less/

Write, right, what shall I write?

So, writer/wouldbewriter, the Christmas hols are over, either

a) you want to sit down at the computer and write for publication, but the horror of the flashing cursor on a blank page daunts you

b) someone has bought you a lovely journal to write in – or you’ve got your eye on that beautiful exercise book or pen that you’d love to have but aren’t sure you’d use….  What’s to be done?

Any or all of these starting points below should help.

1. Writing prompts.  This is where some external person suggests a phrase or outline to use as subject/jumping off point for creative writing.  You’ll find one new phrase for each day of this new year at

http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

2. Go through workbook developing a practice of being an artist (written or visual).  That helpful, instructive, encouraging and challenging voice in your ear.  Here’s a most useful book

“The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.  In print, read and used for 25 years, it is a classic – and therefore easy to find in most libraries for free.  (But it is worth buying even a secondhand copy).  Following it and doing what it says will build some very useful daily practices for being creative.

3. Listen to good advice.  Go to Audible and buy for download “Word by Word” by Anne Lamott.  This is the writer/speaker’s own voice, giving a couple of seminars (total 2.5 hours) on writing.  She encourages you to write and push through the awkwardness and early drafts which look hopeless.  Along the way she is funny, witty, down to earth and tells her own personal story into becoming a writer.