Here, on day three, what better way to give you endless things to write about then a link to a Writing Prompt Generator. Here are three prompts it has generated for me thus far:
“She seemed like such a sweet old lady. Who would ever believe that she was really…”
“Yesterday at school, you discovered a giant hole in the middle of the playground. Write a story about what happened next.”
“If you planned a field trip for your class where would you go, why, and what would you do?”
Okay, so the prompts are from Jefferson County Schools’ Web site in Tennessee (hey, I googled “writing prompt” and that’s what I got!). As you probably noticed, they are geared towards gradeschoolers and many of us are writing “LITERATURE,” oh that loftier thing… But remember when “Writing” was still just “writing,” and you actually enjoyed it?
In another TED Talk (which I won’t post here because I’m posting another one tomorrow and then I’ll quit for awhile, I swear), Sir Ken Robinson talks about the way we are taught out of being creative. Our artistic pursuits are shut down or medicated out of us in favor of what we perceive as more important societal goals. It’s pretty moving stuff, and perhaps the most convincing argument in favor of keeping the arts in schools that I’ve ever heard or seen.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is perhaps encapsulated by something Picasso once said (as quoted by Sir Ken Robinson):
All children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.
With that in mind, perhaps today’s message is to not take ourselves so seriously. Be child-like. Stop resisting things. Take one of these grade school prompts and just let yourself have fun with it. And with that in mind, here are three more:
A Writer's March 