On a rainy February weekend, I visited Bristol’s M Shed with my sister and nephews. This brilliant museum on the waterfront is packed with nuggets of the city’s history, from being the place the first chocolate bar was made by Fry’s to the site of riots and anti-slavery movements. There’s an exhibition celebrating the city’s formerly unsung heroes, and an assortment of model ships made by John Healy, presented in front of the real harbour.

A notice stated that John had a lifelong fascination with the port, photographing and recording every ship visiting from 1930 to around 1980 and making near-scale models from wood saved from wine cases.

I’m always intrigued by other people’s fixations.

Can you write a story about a character with a museum-worthy obsession?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

I love the fact that this impressive heart-shaped topiary stands outside an ordinary terraced house on a residential street.

What would it take to make you trust a person’s declaration of undying devotion? A ring delivered on bended knee, some impressive topiary, or something else?

As Valentine’s Day nears, consider the lovelorn and hopeful, and see if you can write a comic yet sympathetic tale about your protagonist offering or being offered love in an unexpected way. What details could swing their response one way or another? What baggage might they be lugging that influences how they respond?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I’ve enjoyed some unusual sightings on my lunchtime walks recently – a small egret that seems to have come on a city-break, presumably swapping a coastline or wetlands for the tameness of our urban streamside walk. It’s a wild creature of such beautiful grandeur, and yet as I stand and stare, people job, cycle and stroll by without paying it any heed. It makes me feel lucky to be someone who notices and finds pleasure in the rarities others overlook.

Can you turn this into an ecological fable, a story about community or something more fantastical?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

There are few more hopeful sights at this cold and grey time of year than a flash of yellow in wet, brown leaf matter. These primroses are a much-needed reminder of brighter, warmer days to come!

Imagine if you’d never before lived through a winter or had no memory of ever experiencing these cold months. How alarming might the apparent death of most growing things be? How keenly might you seek signs of life, and how might you respond to finding it?

Would you share the news or guard it jealously for fears these might be the only blooms, or that someone might deliberately or clumsily damage the precious plants?

If you choose to share news of the sighting, could this clutch of yellow flowers be the prompt for a riotous fiesta thanking unseen powers?

Can you turn this into a tale that works on more than one level?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

During the past 20 months or so of the pandemic, some people I know have written books; others have grown addicted to jigsaw puzzling. Whoever experienced this jigsaw-piece cascade was either utterly fed up or had a moment’s calamitous cack-handedness.

What intrigues me is that they opted not to gather up their fragments. Does that mean it really was the last straw? I suspect a temper tantrum of epic proportions, but what other distraction or emotional fall-out could explain this pavement disarray?

Or perhaps they’ve deliberately strewn the pieces here in a superstitious act intended to keep Covid-19 at bay.

Can you use this as the prompt for a tale about how we hold up (or fail to cope) in challenging times? What could these scattered jigsaw sections represent? Or what could you swap them with to give your tale a surreal edge?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

As I walked by this primary school early one day, I was struck by the atmospheric beauty of its towers against the morning light and paused to take this photo. At that moment a man came outside, and to explain myself I told him how dramatic the vapour looked pouring out of the boiler flue. I even commented: “I suppose that’s from the central heating.”

He responded with a grin: “Or the dragon.”

Ah, what a response. Now, here’s your choice: either write about the dragon that keeps a school cosy all winter long (what does it do in summer?), or write about the man who lives in the school and tells perfect strangers that it’s inhabited by a dragon. How could his imaginative whimsy transform the outlooks and lives of other people?

Whichever angle you opt for, make sure it has plenty of heat!

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

A yellow Post-it note pinned to brambles instructs us to take the next left.

How intriguing to come across an instruction like this in an urban woodland! What would you do? Walk on in the direction you’d already chosen, or follow the sign wherever it leads?

I particularly like the ps: If you dare…

What dangers or rewards might lie ahead?

Can you weave these possibilities into a tale of peril and adventure?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

With Christmas Day wrapped up for another year, the surviving turkeys across the UK should be breathing a sigh of relief! We assume they don’t understand what’s going on, but imagine if they did. It would be a fantastic cue for a dystopian tale or a story of resilience and survival against all odds.

There’s no reason your story should be depressing, however. Aardman imbued a similar topic with humour in Chicken Run. Perhaps you could change the species from turkey to human, or give a gang of middle school kids the job of saving a town’s turkeys, go mystical with a tale of wild turnkeys living in harmony with humans, or even give the tale an Orwellian political satirical twist.

However you tackle this writing prompt, have fun creating characters that will make us care and take us along for the ride!

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

I adore knowing that in Bristol even the boats are full of festive sparkle! This gorgeous narrowboat is all set for some seasonal revelry.

It’s not long till the big day now, but you still have time to conjure a tale of wonder, whether it’s a modern take on the Nativity with a narrowboat standing in for a stable, or the idea that inside this shining vessel Santa and a few motley elves are putting the finishing touches to gifts in preparation for a few water-bound deliveries.

What can you create with this scene as your starting point? It’s up to you whether you write a tale to delight the children in your life or angle it towards adults with a few comic or darker twists.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.

This glittering bird caught my eye when meandering at dusk with two small nephews. They were entranced by the magic it suggests, and it made me think what a fabulous fairytale it could prompt – a bird made of ice paradoxically powered by fire, perhaps, or an enchanted robin condemned to only sing after nightfall. You could even give it an ecological spin!

Alternatively, you could focus on the person who decorated their home with such shining decorations. What are their hopes and anticipation, or what loneliness are they keeping at bay?

What could you dream up in the best Hans Christian Andersen style? Could you give it the underlying darkness that always seems to thread through those traditional tales? Or do you want to make your story as bright and cheerful as this festive light? The choice is yours.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please send it to me in an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com for possible publication on SkyLightRain.com.