Insert this into your writing

1. A character thinks about a fear. This could be something practical, like the upcoming results of a medical test, or something vague and indefinite... Write their thoughts, or describe their thoughts through their actions.

2. Write a nonfiction or fiction scene that has a lot of people in it-- a crowd or a group. It could be a party, a church dinner, a class, a bar. Describe the scene using the people as part of the setting: colorful clothes, or a mass of unfamiliar faces, etc. Don't forget the sounds and smells as well as the visual details.

3. Put a knife in your piece of writing. If it is fiction, have someone set a table or find a hunting knife in the barn, etc. If you are writing memoir, consider your own experience with knives: scaling fish? polishing the silver? spreading peanut butter?

Robert Penn Warren writing prompts

Writing prompts!

"infinite motion of sky"

"And tomorrow would rise and do all the old things to do"

"To lay ear to earth for what voices beneath might say"

"Into the blind and antiseptic anger of air"

"And in the forgetting to make it all more true?"

All above lines are from Robert Penn Warren poems in the collection, Now and Then.

Artist Statement prompt

Here's Brandon Smith's artist statement. I thought it'd make an interesting writing prompt. :)

"Often staring, large and distorted, the cow within my work occupies the role of artist, the hero and subjugated victim... They become metaphors for the human condition in its dichotomy of frailty and power." - Brandon Smith, quoted from his artist statement, 2007

Various writing prompts

1. Write a natural prayer. You may use any definition of natural, any form of prayer, whether that be overtly religious or spiritual without any religious attachments.

2. Look for a sign to be the starting place -and the title - of a poem or story. Examples: roadside sign, store sign, advertisement in a newspaper, magazine or on TV, etc.

3. "Peace" by C.K. Williams looks at a kind of peace, but the word holds different meanings for each of us at different times. In times of war, the absence of war is likely to be the first definition to come to mind. When "we fight for hours", as in his poem, I would guess that tranquility, quiet and harmony in our relations would better fit the bill. We also use the word at times to ask for silence or calm or as a greeting or farewell. What does the word mean to you right now in your life? Is it a place, state of mind, something you long for or have found? Do your thoughts turn political? Use this abstract noun as your starting point and, following Williams' lead, avoid the obvious definitions.

4. Look specifically at how we let someone go from this world. What is it that we say or do that allows us to let go?

5. Tercets are any three lines of poetry, whether as a stanza or as a poem, rhymed or unrhymed, metered or unmetered. The form has Italian roots. Dante's The Divine Comedy is a common example. It uses three line stanzas with every first and third line ending with a rhyme. (This is known as "enclosed" as the rhyming lines enclose an unrhymed line - the scheme being aba. Get really classical and use iambic pentameter and you have a sicilian tercet. Fancier still - interlock enclosed tercets by having the middle line rhyming with the first and third lines of the following stanza so that the pattern is aba bcb cdc ded ...)

Five May Prompts

1. Write about a first time, ie, first time on a swing, on a bus, visit to a city, swimming in a creek, etc.

2. Write about a last time, ie, last time you talked with someone, last time went hiking, etc.

3. Write about something you don't recall about yourself but others retell the story about you.

4. "How _____ Behaves." Insert a word or phrase in the blank & write about it.
(example: song title by Feist, "How My Heart Behaves")

5.
"What rises high
springs from deep."
- Harry Brown, "To Tell the Truth"