For this week’s creative prompts, the theme is spring. It’s a time of new beginnings, chilly false starts, thawing ground, and messy mud puddles. Take a few minutes, or more, to write into the coming change—or art it out, whatever your medium may be.
Before you begin, remember: the most important thing about a first draft is that it exists. What you write doesn’t have to be anywhere near perfect. This is a time to let your inhibitions go, to let your mind wander, and to stop thinking about what other people might think. It might even be a time to have fun.
- Passover, Easter, Aviation Maintenance Technician Day: springtime is chock full of holidays. Write a scene or some verse about a holiday event gone terribly wrong–or wonderfully right.
- Write a screed or polemic from the perspective of a newborn animal.
- Think about surprise parties, unexpected marriage proposals, or any other unanticipated event. Write a scene or persona poem from the perspective of the one being surprised.
- Make a list of every word you can think of (or that you can invent) that rhymes with “spring.” Use one or more of these words to create something.
- Think about technology involving springs: watches, mattresses, trampolines, screen doors. Write a scene or prose poem in which one of them fails.
- Write a piece of flash prose, or a poem, of no more than one page in length. Incorporate all four of the seasons. Begin, or end, with spring.
- Consider the spring thaw: pristine winter snow running down from mountaintops or fetid parking-lot puddles exposing horrors once safely encased in ice. Write a scene or poem in which the thaw serves as a backdrop.
- Use a field guide as a source for titles. Either create something from a created title, or work the idea of titling into a piece of writing–ie. a list poem of potential titles, prose about someone seeking just the right title.
- Make up a list of paint names inspired by the colors of spring: Crocus Stamen, Languishing Snowbank, etc. Paint something with one or more of these colors in a piece of writing.
- Think about the sun. Find out more here, here, or here. Use anything you didn’t already know to prompt a scene or poem.
Did you miss earlier prompts lists? Here they are.
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.
[Photograph is a composite of images by Submittable team member Kelly Hart]