WHAT MATTERS Creative Writing Prompts

Photo:  Silly Kids by Martika G

Before free-writing, enjoy the poem on Your Daily Poem called What Matters and What Doesn't by Guatan Sen.  

After reading the poem, free-write for 8 minutes on specific things in your life that matter, and the things that don't.  For example, I might write that it doesn't matter that I slightly burned the pizza I was cooking the other night, but it certainly does matter that I got to enjoy a great day with my entire family, including my daughter's boyfriend, because the time spent together is more precious to me than what we eat.  Make a list of specific things from your life and expand on the ones that move you.  If you want more time than 8 minutes, go ahead and take it if you have it.

After your list is made, try weaving those things into a poem or an essay.

For fiction writers, you can focus on a character (one you are already working with OR a new one) and make the list of what matters and what doesn't for your character.  Then put the character into a scene doing one or the other.

Father's Day Writing Prompts

Father & Daughter Fishing Wacissa River, a photo by MyFWCmedia on Flickr.

It's Father's Day. Read this poem by Donna Pflueger on Your Daily Poem.


After you read the poem, write a story or poem about your dad or a man who gave you wonderful memories.

Happy Father's Day!

Writing Prompts with Snow and Trees

Snow getting more ridiculous, a photo by Joe Crawford (artlung) on Flickr.

For today's free-write, please start by free-writing from the image for 5 minutes without stopping

OR

free-write for 5 minutes from this phrase:

The snow on the trees reminded her/him of. . .

After 5 minutes, look at what you have on your paper and find a spark you want to explore through a story, essay, poem, song, or ???

Happy Writing!

Writing Prompts: Let There Be Peace on Earth

 

 

Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of 9-11, and where I attended worship, we ended with this song which moved me beyond belief.  

For today's writing prompts, I want our theme to be "peace."  Enjoy the video and the great quotes within.  

Then write a personal piece of writing about how you can add one little fragment of peace in your life today.  Could it be spending time in prayer or writing a special prayer for peace?  Could it be enjoying a moment outside?  Could it be writing a small stone that brings you peace?  Could it be just lighting a candle and remembering a loved one?  Would you like to write a song or poem about peace?  Write about what you would like to do to add peace to your life today, then find the time to do it.  

Old Houses by Robert Cording : American Life in Poetry

Old house, Dendron, VA

For today's creative writing prompts, first enjoy the photo and read this week's American Life in Poetry column below.  After you gaze, enjoy and read, you can choose to either start a story from the setting of this old house, write a poem about any old house, or write an essay about any house from your life.

ENJOY!



American Life in Poetry: Column 333
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Here is a lovely poem by Robert Cording, a poet who lives in Connecticut, which shows us a fresh new way of looking at something commonplace. That’s the kind of valuable service a poet can provide.

Old Houses by Robert Cording

Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly

how old houses hold themselves—

before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—

as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.

I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil

without need of a sign, awaiting nothing

more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.




American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Robert Cording from his most recent book of poetry, Walking with Ruskin, CavanKerry Press, Ltd., 2010. Reprinted by permission of Robert Cording. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.



Old Houses by Robert Cording : American Life in Poetry

Random Words Writing Prompt

CARIBBEAN ISLAND
© Slidepix | Dreamstime.com

Today we will combine the picture with random words (or any version of the random words) for our creative writing prompts.  You will find the random words below. 

1.  Use 4 of the words below to write an opening sentence that connects with the picture.  Then write for 5 minutes without stopping use that sentence as your starting point.

2.  Poetry Writing:  Write a poem about the picture in 10 lines or less.  Choose a word from the list to be your title. 

3.  Use either the picture OR the some of the words to to write about whatever you want.  Write for 10 minutes without stopping. 

Random Words:
wonderment, struggle, lemon drop, ridge, burnish, vein, sweetness, 24, mouth, choose, twin, primitive, banish, glaze, up, hand print, gaze, recall, auction, chicken, future, city, tree, forget, melody, solo, bead, fly, unwind, stone, change, drum, cymbal