If you’re wondering why there are daisies in my photo today, it’s because, where I live, January had only 12 hours of sunshine. Something cheery was required. On the plus side, gloomy days do encourage the drinking of warm beverages and curling up with books to read and journals to write in–and naps. All good.
I’m taking part in a writing challenge with a friend, and if you’re finding it hard to keep to your resolution about writing every day, I encourage you to do the same. If you know someone who has made any kind of resolution (exercising, eating less sugar, finishing a knitting project, decluttering a room) team up with them to send a weekly accountability message. If you kept to your resolution, you send the simple word “done.” If you didn’t, you can send an “almost” or “it was one of THOSE weeks,” whatever works for you. It’s amazing how you stay focused on your goals when someone is waiting to hear about your successes every week.
What’s helping me meet my goals this time around is keeping them small. My goal it to write 25 words a day. Nope, that’s not a lot, but it means that I haven’t missed a day since I started two weeks ago. Sitting at the laptop and knowing that I only need to write 25 words to meet my goal takes off a ton of pressure. And because the pressure is off at the start (I mean it’s only 25 words), I manage to write a lot more. When I’m not afraid of failure or trying to force myself to meet a larger goal, the words flow more easily. Here’s one of my favourite posts on the topic of mini-habits. I certainly inspired me: https://www.kristiholl.com/not-enough-willpower-goals-make-mini-habits/
Here are some writing prompts that I hope will inspire and help you meet your writing goals this month.
Use one, some, or all of the random words in one of the following lists to write a story or poem.
- Rain, wall, dog, chain, red, fear
- Sun, rays, carpet, clue, thief, time
- Step, mud, train, escape, midnight, silver
- Fire, smoke, woods, haunt, shadow, black
- Gate, creak, overgrown, hidden, glow, yellow
Maybe one of these titles will inspire a story: The Snow Globe, Wander the High Ground, Tarpin’s Mistake, A Better World, While I Remember, Red Force One, A Million Secrets, Castle of Fear, Bennie to the Rescue, Goodbyes are Hard, A Fool to Fall, Gwillam’s Star.
Try one of these opening sentences for your story:
- It was too quiet.
- Sperron’s luck had run out.
- Dust from the explosion shrouded the twisted beams.
- Helen yanked the earbuds from her ears. She couldn’t have heard that right.
- Why wasn’t anyone answering that phone?
- The tour guide went white and hustled our small group back outside. That’s when I noticed that Henry was missing.
- Helen had never cheated before.
- The van stopped on the street just ahead of us.
- Turn that light out!
- Shadows crept through the forest.
Here are some dialogue excerpts that might help you create a scene or story.
We need to
get out of here now.
Why?
Can’t you hear that?
What?
Sirens.
Henry promised he would stop.
And you believed him?
Yes.
Then you’re a fool.
Third door on the right. That’s what he said.
This is it.
So, open it.
Okay.
What’s the matter?
Run! Now!
Someone’s following
us.
Turn right here.
No.
What’s the matter?
I just don’t feel right.
Me neither.
What was in that tea?
Wishing you a writerly month!
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