This sculpture is titled SoundYard and sits on Belfast docks. When you step beneath its metal tubes, motion detectors kick a mechanism into life and small cogs begin to turn, recreating the metallic sounds of the vibrant shipyards that once thrived here.

It’s an ingenious way to summon an impression of history.

Just as Marcel Proust employed the sense of taste (his famous ‘little crumb of madeleine’) to plunge into memory, can you choose a sense to evoke a moment from your own or an imagined past that will transport readers to that time?

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 awful as I know the emissions are for our planet, I’ve always loved the magic of flight – something about the suspension between home and destination, land and air, and in this case day and night, hold me in their thrall.

Can you write a work of fiction prompted by that sense of between-ness? How can you make it central to your plot or character? How could it inform the tension and outcome of your tale?

You could even choose to focus on the suspension between safety and calamity. What might drive someone to leave a place? What hopes and fears might they carry with them?

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 recently had the pleasure of visiting Northern Ireland and took a trip to the Giant’s Causeway. This beautiful, natural basalt sculpture is steeped in folklore about a giant named Finn MacCool, who wanted to conquer Scotland, so built a route across, only to flee home when he discovered the giants there were far bigger than himself.

When the Scottish giant came to confront Finn MacCool, Finn was taking a nap, luckily for him. His quick-thinking wife covered him with a blanket and told the Scots giant it was Finn’s baby snoozing there. The Scots giant took one look, imagined the man who could sire such a vast baby, and ran home (presumably to Staffa Rock), destroying the causeway as he scarpered.

My home city of Bristol in southwest England has a gorge apparently scooped out by a left-handed giant. I love the thought that our land is riddled with tales of giants.

Can you write a myth of your own to explain an exceptional local feature or landmark? If you need to, invent the landmark too!

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.

Last week, Bristol enjoyed a visit from Little Amal, the 3.5 metre tall puppet of a Syrian refugee child who is walking across Europe as an envoy raising awareness of the refugee crisis.

Since July 2021 the moving sculpture made by Handspring Puppet Company has travelled over 8,000km, crossing Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine to focus attention on the urgent needs of young refugees.

In typical Bristol fashion, Little Amal’s visit gained the buzz of a party, with drummers, dancers and horde of hundreds joining Little Amal on her journey from Bristol Old Vic to the harbour where she boarded a boat.

There are so many directions you could take this writing prompt in, from the story of an actual refugee child, to a tale of the puppeteer inside Little Amal. With one of countless mobile phones in shot, you could even focus on the role social media has to play in spreading the word.

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 surrealism of this mannequin sitting in a charity shop as though it’s an airport, and like they’ve been waiting for hours to board a flight. They look ready for their holidays!

Can you write a story inspired by this? What other unlikely objects might want to head overseas and lie by a pool? What might be craving adventure or escape?

What does ‘holiday’ or ‘vacation’ mean to you? What could the best experience of this be, or the worst?

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 have a special place in my heart for ‘tree tunnels’ – those spaces where trees flourish with such vigour that they seem to curve their branches right over the path.

At this time of year the new green leaves and hopeful sunlight makes them particularly beautiful, and this Celtic cross seems like a road marker to a different era.

If you were to walk or ride through this ‘tree tunnel’, where might you emerge?

Can you answer that question with a story?

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 enjoy the floral extravagance of this small but overflowing garden. It looks like the house is being swallowed up by flowers.

Who might live here? What makes them so devoted to their garden? Is there a power at play here other than a green thumb? For instance, imagine a character who sees visions while they garden, or who can seed good (or bad) emotions into the plants they tend.

Can you transform this into an extraordinarily colourful tale?

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.

The world is full of castles that now resemble the fractured memories of skirmishes once fought or strongholds vied over.

This one is Duart Castle on Mull, once the seat of the Clan Maclean and now home to luxury afternoon teas and weddings.

Imagine the ghosts that roam these battlements. How might they show their shock and perhaps dismay at the state of their once proudly and fiercely protected isle. Which modern marvels might entrance them?

Feel free to set your tale in any castle you know or can dream up. What time-slip adventure can you conjure?

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.

How cute is this extra-long bicycle laden with boxes claiming to contain flowers?

But what if they didn’t really hold flowers? What if that was all a devious ruse? What could they contain instead, and why the subterfuge?

Can you write this into a comic or suspense-filled tale?

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.