Many of you will have heard of Julia Cameron and her book The Artist’s Way, which is essentially a twelve-week course to help recover your creativity. Although there is much more to the book, two of the key practices Cameron encourages is the idea of morning pages and artist dates.
Morning pages are three hand-written pages of whatever comes to mind, akin to a brain dump. The idea is that you clear whatever is in your head so that you can then tap into your creativity. My morning pages sometimes start with “I don’t feel like writing today …” or a to-do list or what I am worried about. Sometimes I start with the idea I was working on the previous day.
And, often, I find a creative prompt a useful way to start writing instead of staring at a blank page – which is why I started creating these monthly writing prompts.
The artist’s date is not as regular a practice for me, but one that can be really helpful for nourishing our creativity (and just getting us away from our screens), so I have attempted to include a suggestion for one each week.
With the one-word prompts, choose a different word each day, or select all five for the week to include in a single piece.
As for the images and poems, I’ve included these because they are still among my favourite types of prompts.
Of course, please use whichever prompts speak to you and discard the rest. Use them with your current work-in-progress in mind or simply as a 10 minute warm-up.
Week 1
1. One-word prompts: spring, light, breath, shoe, lake.
2. Image:
3. Poetry Portion: Read “[in Just]” by e. e. cummings. Use “In Just -” as your starting point.
4. Theme/topic: changing seasons.
5. Research: research the First Nations seasons in your area. What does the description of the season offer in terms of observations of the natural world? As you go about your day, keep an eye and ear out for some of these.
Week 2
6. One-word prompts: warmth, walk, wonder, wander, wild.
7. Image:
8. Artist’s date: Visit a local cafe, park or other familiar place. Spend some time observing. Notice the small details. Make notes of your observations. Incorporate into a piece of writing
9. Theme/topic: leaving home.
10. prompt: Read “I worried” by Mary Oliver. Use the first line as a prompt to start writing. If you feel so inspired, use the first line of the last stanza to continue writing.
Week 3
11. One-word prompts: heartless, heavy, heron, hold/held, happenstance.
12. Image:
(Or choose an image related to your current work-in-progress.)
13. Theme/topic: returning home.
14. Poetry Prompt: Read “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry. Choose your favourite line as a prompt to start writing.
15. Artist’s date: Visit a local art gallery, exhibition or piece of street art. Choose a painting (or other piece or artwork) as a starting point for your creative work. If you are unable to get out and about for an excursion, there are numerous art galleries that now have access to online images of artwork. Alternatively, choose an artist you are curious about and find an image of a piece of art online.
Week 4
16. One-word prompts: bowl, bow, borrow, bend, believe.
17. Image:
18. Theme/topic: first memory.
19. Borrowed from a book: There was still love … (title of a wonderful novel by Favel Parrett, which you can find reviewed over on Whispering Gums and also on booksaremyfavouriteandbest; both are reviewers I respect a lot).
20. Artist’s date: take five to ten photos of a setting/place of your choice. Use them to spark a piece of writing or artwork. You may like to consider the physical space and your relationship to it (or the relationship an ancestor or fictional character has to it). This place may or may not be the same place you chose in week 2.
Over to You
Whether you start at the first prompt and work your way through them, or just select one that appeals to you/offers you a way into your current work-in-progress, the choice is up to you. The only thing that’s important is that you …
… just begin.
PS.I have sourced the images in this post from Unsplash, which offers permission to do so under a creative commons agreement. I have also provided links to poems rather than reproducing them here out of respect for the copyright belonging to those poets. I refuse to use the assistance of generative AI partly because I enjoy develop these prompts, and partly because of the unethical practices of companies who can only build generative AI platforms by stealing the intellectual property of creatives, while lining their own pockets. Nor do I give any of them permission to scrape and use the material I have developed here. However, if you are a writer or artist who needs a little encouragement to stop procrastinating and start creating, then please use and share as much as you like!
