Are you on school holidays at the moment? Or perhaps school has just returned, only you’re having to study from home—are you loving it, or already realising how good you had it face-to-face, or somewhere in between. There’s no wrong answer, just your personal response. And it’s okay to feel however it is your feeling about being at home for extended amounts of time.
I’m wondering how you’re passing the time, and whether you’re bored yet. We all resist being bored, even when we’re not being told to stay at home, and yet research suggests boredom is one key to creativity. For it’s when we are prepared to sit with our boredom, rather than racing to fill up the space with distractions, that our creative brain kicks in.
In case you need a little nudging in that direction, here’s some creative prompts to get you started. Choose one, or choose them all. And while I’ve designed them as writing prompts, you could easily adapt them to create a piece of music, or a sketch, painting or some other art form.
You are only limited by your imagination!
1. Five Random Words
2. Eggs-emption
After the Premier gives an eggs-emption for the Easter Bunny to enter the state, you and your brother/sister/dog/favourite stuffed toy (choose one) are determined to wait up and catch the Easter Bunny hopping into your back yard. Write what happens.
3. Bookshop
While visiting your local bookshop, you go searching to see if it has the book you want to read (or re-read) next. As you slip between the shelves, you sense yourself disappearing from the present, only to reappear in the world of that book you were looking for.
What is the book, how do the main characters react to you, and what happens next?
4. Images
Choose one of the following images as the inspiration for a story, poem, or piece of artwork.
5. Line from a book
Pick a book at random from your bookshelf. Turn to page 10, and select the third sentence. Use this as the start of a new story, poem or the inspiration for a piece of artwork.
Over to You
Which creative prompt will you start with?
Feel free to get in touch via the contact form and let me know how you go.
Start writing today!
