Here’s Round Two, for our creative friends. Are you looking for a starting point, or some inspiration for your work? We’ve assembled a list of prompts to help you put creative rubber to the road.
The following prompts should be broad enough to apply to all writing genres. Non-writing mediums can make use of them, too: just swap out the word “write” for “draw” or “choreograph” or whatever is your creative verb of choice. We recommend not overthinking it. Set your phone to airplane mode, silence your inner editor, and go!
- An obituary or elegy for an inanimate object.
- Think about a piece of outdated or obsolete technology. First, describe it physically, as though for someone who’s never seen or used it. Next, write about any specific memory in which it plays a part.
- Write a letter or epistolary poem to someone who’ll never be able to read it (because they’re deceased, estranged, lost, imaginary, etc.).
- Write a one-page summary or synopsis of your current creative project. Now, write a one-paragraph version. Finally, a one-sentence version.
- Write a moment or scene involving relief. Think about physical, psychological, or financial relief; of a bullet dodged, or a general sense of unburdening.
- A holiday dinner, entirely in dialogue. Or a holiday dinner, as a series of sense-driven images.
- Write about wind on any scale, from hurricanes to paper fans. Think about wind as as both a dangerous and damaging force, as well as a force for beauty, entertainment, and relief.
- Name three blocks that are currently preventing you from making the progress you want with your creative work (with respect to either a specific project, or your art more generally). Now, come up with six things that you could do in order to address, and move past, these challenges.
- Write a detailed inventory or create a poem using everything blue that you see in your immediate vicinity.
- Make a list of every house, apartment, or other structure in which you’ve lived or stayed. Choose one, and write either a close physical description of one of the rooms or a prose poem that mimics the shape of the space.
Did you miss our first prompts list? Here it is.
Like what you’ve written? Put it away for a week, then revisit, and revise, revise, revise. When it’s ready to go, submit. If you have feedback, or ideas for prompts, please get in touch.
[Art: ‘Lone Pond with Outlet and Rocks’, by Submittable team member Ben Bloch]
