January Writing Prompts

Happy New Year, everyone!  And welcome to another month full of writing prompts!  I often write the prompts throughout the month when an idea or thought hits me. These ideas often come from snippets of conversations that I’ve had with family or friends. In fact, the first two this month can be credited to my blogger friend Kate, over at A Thousand Bits of Paper because of something important that she said to me. So essentially, these prompts are representative of my life, and all the fun, weird, crazy parts of it. I know some of you have written entire books based on these prompts, and that always leaves me in amazement, especially knowing that parts of my life are now intertwined with parts of yours. So as the new year unfolds, please enjoy these prompts, which are not always just random words, but rather words which mean something to me. I hope they’ll eventually have special meaning for you as well.

1. The light bulb moment
2. Shadow monsters
3. Hideously huge
4. The disappearance of S.V.
5. Butt cream and beer
6. The last book of Og
7. Along the Onofre river
8. Apple jelly jumping jacks
9. The absence of color
10. Superficial pleasantries
11. Transparent hearts
12. Life in the middle lane
13. Twisted tales and torture devices
14. Morning clover
15. Bring me the cheese please
16. After while crocodile
17. Five finger fiascoes
18. Portraits of time
19. Reuniting nightingales
20. Bittersweet goodbyes
21. Sleepless in the town of harmony
22. The end of an era
23. Bald eagle sightings
24. Crescent moon cravings
25. Indistinguishable words
26. Lasting truths
27. A thousand stars
28. At odds
29. Zelda, where are you?
30. Masters of madness
31. The pickle thief

If you’re new to prompt writing, and don’t really understand how to use the prompts, please consider the following writing exercise.

Settle into your favorite place in the house with a hot drink to warm your waking bones.  Once you’ve warmed up a bit; grab your journal, a trusty pen, and a timer.  Then, set your timer for ten minutes and begin writing about one of the prompts.  Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, neatness, or anything like that; just write!  Write about anything and everything that comes to your mind, and don’t stop until the ten minutes are up.

I often find myself writing short stories or poems during those ten minutes, but you can write about anything you like.  And don’t be alarmed if what you’ve written doesn’t quite make sense.  The whole idea behind doing this exercise is to get your mind ready and working so that you can begin your day.  Just think of it as exercise for your brain, and once you’ve done your ten minutes of writing, you’ll feel more prepared to tackle the rest of your day.

As always, I will be writing and posting over on my other blog, which can be found here. So please come visit me if you get a chance, and hopefully I can keep up with all of you!

And one last thing before I forget!  I made a quick tutorial for those of you who have been having trouble trying to figure out how to Pingback your posts.  Please go here, if you’d like to view the tutorial.  😉