When it
comes to the imagination, I believe it needs continuous feeding…to keep it fit
and free from lack of use. There are
many ways to keep the imagination fit:
reading, writing, puzzles, drawing, painting…take your pick from these
or the many other ways you can choose to use your imagination.
While there
are many ways I keep my imagination fit, one of the ways I feed my imagination is
with writing prompts. As I began to add
to my collection of writing books, I found a book titled “A Writer’s Book of
Days” by Judy Reeves. It has become one
of my favorite books when it comes to a mix of sound advice, useful
information, great quotes, quirky tidbits about the writing life of authors, as
well as writing prompts for every day of the year.
The writing
prompts are an odd mix. As you can
imagine, 365 ideas to write about might be a very long list to come up
with. But they are an odd enough mix so
as to make your imagination work hard at coming up with ideas when each one is
so different from the other.
To give you
an idea, here is one example:
Prompt: “A summer garden”
I came up
with:
A summer
garden with dew lightly covering petals and leaves. Bees, dragonflies and butterflies touch,
taste and linger. The sun rises and
tantalizes all it touches with soft warm rays of light. As the sun rises to its peak, the sunflowers
cheerfully follow from their place in the summer garden. A kitten stretches out on a garden bench,
enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun.
As the day passes slowly and the light begins to fade away, the ground
cools, the garden sleeps and soon the summer garden is ready for a brand new
day.
Here’s
another…
Prompt: “Nearing midnight”
The moon
might be a sliver of light, offering very little comfort on a dark and foggy
night. Or the moon may be full, the
evening free from shadows except those cast by the moonlight. It is a time of quiet as we settle in for the
night; it is a time of discovery for the critters who feel safer in the
dark. Nearing midnight we look forward
to a brand new day. Maybe better, maybe
brighter, but a new start nonetheless.
As midnight draws near, we may look back at the results of the day behind
us and hope to have few, if any, regrets.
Nearing midnight we say goodbye to one day and hello to the next, as to witness
the beginning of another new day we can only feel blessed.
What do you
think? Don’t you agree how writing
prompts about various subjects can only do good things when it comes to keeping
your imagination fit? Try it yourself…choose
a random topic, write freely and see what you come up with. Here are a few off the top of my head:
What if we had
a memory like an elephant?
What is the
most vivid dream you can remember?
If you had
to trade places with any animal…which would you choose?
What if an
alien landed in your back yard and asked you to take him on a road trip?
Hmm, all of
those prompts have me thinking…now I have something to feed my imagination as I
think of my own answers while I take care of routine chores for the evening. While I fold laundry this evening, I will
especially enjoy coming up with ideas on what kind of road trip I might
actually take an alien on.Think hard, play hard and enjoy your week!
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