I was meandering in Arnos Vale Cemetery the other day, and noticed that someone has taken up residence by one of the more secluded paths. Like a nylon mushroom, a tent has sprung up.

As rents increase in this area, it looks like a distinctly tempting option, though living among the graves may not be to everyone’s taste!

Similar tents crop up in parks all over the city at this time of year, offering alternatives to the local homelessness hostels, and ripe fuel for fiction as well. Who might live here and why? What consequences could this have?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Few things shout summer like a traditional seaside MerryGoRound. The blaze of colour and eerie nostalgic music, promises kept or broken, first snogs, first betrayals, or simply the dizzy pleasure of being whirled round and around as seagulls scream.

Use this setting as your starting point.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

What could this rather exquisite contraption be? A musical instrument or a surgical device, a mixer of dreams, a time travel machine or an experimental invention for reading minds?

You decide, then make that the starting point of your story.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Walking to my sister’s house, I spotted this shop window brimming with balloons. What could be happening here – preparations for a birthday party, a third wish gone awry, an attempt to spell out a secret message using a code of coloured latex, or something else entirely?

What metaphors could they represent, or what potential catastrophe? Are they harbingers of happiness, or something far more sinister?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

In Hay On Wye, a curious structure stands: a rusted-up pyramid entombing classic books. Small windows show the books encased within.

In places these windows have been cracked and broken, allowing spiders and insects to make their way among pages mildewed by rain, rotted by weather.

There are so many directions you could take this prompt in – imagine it as a sole reminder of our bookish past for future generations to discover, or have it found inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid – an uncanny duel link to the present within the past.

Choose as your protagonist an alien, a spider, or a small, puzzled child. Turn the structure into a metaphor for humanity, or for a relationship. Make this the site of a significant meeting between two unlikely characters, and see where they take you next…

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I spied this small butterfly while strolling in the beautiful wilderness of Arnos Vale Cemetery. I think it’s some kind of fritillary. As I paused to watch it bask in the sunlight, I thought about the stories it could inspire.

Symbolism works powerfully in fiction. Place a butterfly at the heart of your tale and let that image direct your themes. You could end up with an ecological futurist fable, a sweet story about a harried man or woman learning the value of stopping to effectively smell the roses, or even a piece about freedom, and the brevity of life.

It’s up to you. Where will your butterfly take you?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

I’ve been reading rather a lot of Neil Gaiman short fiction recently, and he’s reminded me of how worlds can nestle within worlds, with magic hidden in plain sight.

If you take a moment to glance upwards at the rooftops you walk beneath, there’s always a chance you may glimpse something uncommonly beautiful, such as these unicorns dancing over Bristol’s City Hall. According to Bristol Post, the architect Mr E Vincent Harris who came up with these reputedly added them without informing the council, choosing art over bureaucracy. Brilliant!

This week, I urge you to look up, then write a tale or create something inspired by a detail that catches your imagination there.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.