It’s a new year, and potentially a new decade, depending on your definition of when one begins and ends. My hope for you is that you’re able to kick creative year off to a good start, especially for those of you on school holidays and with time to spare.
However, I am also aware that life sometimes makes that difficult, such as the loss of a loved one, or the occurance of catastrophic events such as the current bush fires in Australia. If that’s you, then I hope you can extend some grace to yourself at this time. If you’re like me, though, and it’s simply your own procrastination in your way, then I hope these prompts will help you to simply begin.
1. Random words
Use the following random words in a piece of creative work, whether that be a poem, story or piece of artwork:
- new
- annual
- kookaburra
- hope
- tea
2. Images
Create a piece of work prompted by this image:
3. A Line from Poetry
“If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.”
Write the story of a character who doesn’t listen to this piece of ‘advice’. What happens next?? (This line of poetry comes from ‘A Smuggler’s Song’ by Rudyard Kipling).
4. Observation
Head out and sit in a place where there are other people. Create a list of brief descriptions of the people you observe. Choose two or three, and make up a reason they are here: Where did they come from, and why have they arrived here? Is it to meet someone? For work? For fun? Just passing through?
5. Objects
Select an object that is important to you. Write the biography of that object: how did you come to have it? Who gave it to you? Why is it important to you? Where do you normally keep it? What memories do you have that includes that object?
6. Lists
Create a list of places you’ve lived or visited. Be specific. It could be somewhere on the other side of the country, or the world, but it could easily be the park at the end of your street, or the BMX track you helped make as a kid, or the set of a school play you’ve involved in. Select one as the setting for a story, whether that be fiction or non fiction. Alternatively represent that setting in a piece of music or art work.
7. Current Reads
Pick up the current book you’re reading. Turn to page 42. Select the sixth sentence. Use this sentence as the beginning of a new story. Alternatively, include it in a poem, song or piece of artwork.
Over to You
Now it’s up to you: just begin.
