Writing prompt – positivity

#Happytoes

A couple of years a friend and I wrote up a mass of cheery statements and attached them to my nephew’s discarded baby socks, then scattered them through the neighbourhood. It became part of the Totterdown’s Front Room Arts Trail 2015.

Our only goal was to spread a few smiles.

Why not attempt something similar with your writing?  Word or poetry bomb a public place to make someone stop in their tracks and think for a moment.

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 might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – goat

Goat by Judy DarleyImagine this goat is the wisest creature you will ever meet. Imagine it has the answers to any question you could ever want or hope to ask.

How would you communicate? How might people treat this wise old goat? Might they honour it, or fear it? How did it become so very wise in the first place?

Only you have the answer to that.

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.

Writing prompt – in perpetuity

Arnos Vale Cemetery cat cr Judy DarleyI was walking through Arnos Vale’s Victorian cemetery recently, when a plea for help caught my eye. Apparently, rather than buying a plot, the Victorians’ preferred to rent theirs – I suppose they surmised that they would only need it for a generation or two at most.

According to the sign: “The Victorians often lease family grave ‘in perpetuity’, or for 125 years, with little thought about who would pay for their care after that. Thousands of family graves have been effectively ‘abandoned’ over the past 50 years, so funds for upkeep have ceased.”

What now?!

I immediately pictured countless wraiths being evicted for failing to pay their rent. What form might they take? Where could they go in search of refuge? Who might let them in?

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. If you’d like to donate to Arnos Vale Cemetery, visit their website.

Writing prompt – voyage

Voyage by Judy DarleyIt’s always intriguing to see a boat out at sea. Where are they going and where have they been? Is this about pleasure, arduous work or desperation? Is this the end or just the beginning of their voyage? Weave a tale from this simple image.

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 might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – angles

London angles by Judy DarleyThe angle you take with a story is as important as the story itself, whether you’re writing fiction, non fiction, or something in between.

What you leave out, what you add in, how you emphasise the heart of the tale are all crucial to your end result.

To me this slide of London represents that perfectly, taking in past, present and possible futures.

What direction would you choose to take from here?

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.

Writing prompt – miffed

Geese by Judy DarleyEver noticed how much we humans love to anthropomorphise? This seems particularly true of birds. If I see a group of pigeons, I might mention them gossiping, or if I see a pair of ducks in a hotel swimming pool, my immediate thought is that they’re on holiday.

How about these geese spied recently in Bristol and looking somewhat peeved as the rain churns up their holiday idyll? How might their conversation go?

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 might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

 

Writing prompt – fairytale

Repunzel photo by Judy Darley

I spotted this torn and disfigured book cover on a shady cemetery path. It feels like an apt reminder of the darkness inherent in traditional fairytales.

As a child the retellings of myths gathered or made up by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen frequently chilled me to my bones. Only in recent years have these twisted tales riddled through with warnings become saturated with the Happy Ever Afters we crave.

Write something skin-shiveringly unsettling inspired by this image.

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.

Writing prompt – view

View by Judy DarleyIt may not seem like much, but this is the view I lost when some idiots decided to build a house a few feet from my backyard.

I’ve always relished having some space in front of me – a bit of distance on which to rest my eyes and some inspiring sky to help me come up with the next sentence or the perfect closing line.

What do you take for granted that you would miss if it was taken away?

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.

 

Writing prompt – time slip

Port Meadows cr Judy DarleyVisiting Oxford recently for a friend’s significant birthday, we took a boat ride down the leisurely River Thames to where the waterway assumes the name of The Isis. Away from the hoards of punts and hapless tourists, we reached Port Meadows, where cows and wild horses meander the banks and wade in the shallow water.

It was remarkable to reach a space where nothing has changed for hundreds of years, In fact, its history stretches back to 2000BC. This is where Lewis Carroll rowed with Alice Liddell and told her stories of Alice in Wonderland, and where William Turner drank in the scenery while working on his early landscapes.

Imagine a boat ride that carries its voyagers through time to encounter the people who once walked alongside here, or paddled through its water. What might they learn about their own time?

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 might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – hardware

Clamp by Judy Darley

I love a random bit of hardware – the more industrial-looking the better. This one seems ripe for transformation into a clue, a character or a threat.

Imagine it scaled up to something far bigger, or re-envision it miniscule. Now build a story around that image.

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 might publish it on SkyLightRain.com.