1.

Write a piece using or moving through all five (six? seven?) senses.

2.

Create a piece with an interruption of some kind, or many. Maybe a person is interrupted by someone else, or by their own mind or body, or there is an outside interruptive force. Maybe it’s the story of a life interrupted, or a season, or it’s a conversation made up of many interruptions.

3.

Write 10-20 first lines with the intention of sparking the reader’s interest right away. Choose your favorite and expand it into a short piece.

4.

Pick a paint color name (from here or here or another source) and create something inspired by that word or phrase.

5.

Choose one of these to prompt your piece:

• “When technology fails”

• “Lost in translation”

• “Missed connection”

6.

Write about measuring time with something not expressly intended for that purpose, like cracks in a floor, scuffs on a boot, or weeds in the flowerbed. Prompt via Submittable.

7.

Write a piece in reverse chronology.  Inspiration: Lorrie Moore’s “How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes).”

8.

Weather: extreme weather, changes in weather, storms, how weather affects the moods of people and animals. Write a piece in which the actions or behaviors that unfold would have been different had the weather been different. 

9.

Locate an item in your home or office that has overstayed its welcome. Write a eulogy for it: extolling its value, recalling any significant moments you two shared. Then, get rid of it. Prompt via Submittable.

10.

Do you believe in ghosts or spirits? Do/did your relatives, friends, or children? What about ghosts or haunting interests you? What places do you haunt, in person, in spirit, or in memory? 

11.

Lists. Write your piece in the form of a list, or incorporate list-making in some other way, either in the piece’s creation process or final form. Perhaps be inspired by Sei Shonagon (.pdf) or Gretchen Legler.

12.

Record yourself telling a story to someone. Transcribe it exactly (likes included). Try formatting it with punctuation and without. Inspiration: Khadijah Queen. Prompt via Dennis James Sweeney.

13.

Select an item of packaging in your home, and use its language as the basis (or, better yet, the sole available vocabulary/word list) of your piece. This works with other found text, as well.

14.

Write in a sensual way about something not usually thought of as sensual.

15.

Write a joyful piece celebrating an aspect of your neighborhood and post it, anonymously, on a telephone pole or somewhere else public. You may want to write and post a few.

16.

Research your birthday or another significant date: What observances occur then? What happened in history? What were the stars and planets doing? Follow a thread you find interesting. Prompt via Submittable.

17.

Call someone and play a word association game for a few minutes, writing down all of your and their words. (Even better if you can audio record it so you aren’t slowed down by typing or writing, then transcribe the recording.) Later, circle a few words that catch your attention and write a piece incorporating those.

18.

Write your piece in the form of instructions or a “how to.”

19.

Use Wikipedia’s “Random Article” feature to find an odd tidbit that sparks an idea. Keep hitting “random” or use it once to get to a random page, then click a link on that page, and another on the resulting page, etc., until you find inspiration. You can also browse the “Did you know” and “On this day” sections of the homepage. Beware the rabbit hole! Set a time limit for this portion. Prompt via Latif Nasser.

20.

Using phrases relating to one subject or idea, write about another, pushing metaphor and simile as far as you can. For example, use science terms to write about childhood or philosophic language to describe a shirt. Prompt via Bernadette Mayer.