If you haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, then it stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 50,000 words of a novel in during the month of November. If that seems insane, then you can set your own goal. I’ve only ever attempted it once, and even then it was a pretty half-hearted attempt.
But this year, I’ve spent the past few months working on the more theoretical aspects of my PhD research, and it now feels like the right time to turn my focus back to my creative work, especially as my own teaching has almost finished for the semester.
To that end, I’ve created a set of creative writing prompts for myself, with the aim of responding to one each day of November. I’m not so worried about whether I reach 50,000 words, but I do want to re-establish my daily writing practice.
Now, these prompts relate in some way to the stories I already know I want to tell and the ideas I hope to explore. But I hope that you might also find some writing inspiration in them.
And if you don’t have time to write every day, then you could easily make use of these prompts by combining three, five or seven of the words into one piece of writing. Or simply choose the one or two that grab your attention and start with those. Alternatively, you could use my list as a jumping off point to create your own list of prompts that are more relevant to whatever it is that you’re working on.
And if writing isn’t your thing, then use the prompts to kick-start your creativity in whatever form you want to jump into!
1. heart
2. mountain
3. sport
4. scar
5. road
6. hospital visit
7. Respond to the following image in some way:
9. isolation
10. connection
11. “Hope” is the thing with feathers – (poem by Emily Dickinson)
12. blueberries
13. book
14. Respond to the following image in some way:
16. “I think we are all one traumatic incident away from breaking.” (Alicia, played by Monique Wilson, in the film Pieces)
17. cafe
18. sport
19. garden
20. “It was the best of times; it was the worse of times.” (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens)
21. Respond to this image in some way:
23. warmth
24. rupture
25. two truths and a lie
26. the boy next door
27. quest
28. Respond to the following image in some way:
30. birthday
Over to You
What are your creativity goals for this coming month? Are you planning on taking part in NaNoWriMo? Or, like me, will be your aim be to establish (or re-establish) a regular writing rhythm?
Just begin!
