Prompt for today:
Today it is all about an animal.Think about an animal you may have had, or once had contact with, and write about it.
Start it out with this: I remember the _____. Let your imagine go. This isn’t necessarily nonfiction.
Tag / prompts
June PoWriMo Prompts #23 & #24
Prompts for the 23rd and 24th.
#23 Pick a language. Doesn’t matter which one.Just don’t use English. Pick a word from that language. Why did you pick that word? What does it mean? Try using it in a narrative, but not one of its native origin. (For instance, from French “chaine.” A word often used in dance, this word means to turn rapidly in a straight line. Do not use it in this context, but in a different way.)
#24 This is a take on the erasure poem. Grab a news article off the internet. Copy and paste it into Word (or another word processor). Randomly throughout the article, select a word or phrase that interests you. Select about 10, then erase everything around these selected words. What do you have left? Scramble them. What can you make out of these words? What do these words inspire?
June PoWriMo Prompt #22
Today’s prompt is inspired by the summer drink. A poem I had just gotten accepted was about drinking hot Kool-Aid. Yes, you read that right. And, yes, I lived to tell about it. You will have to wait until Sunday to find out more about this drink, in the poem Korean Cherry Tea.
Of course, I thought about all the COLD Kool-Aid I had consume in my younger days. That, and how nice, refreshing and comforting such drink is during an unbearable heat wave (OK, so that is a stretch in Alaska).
Think about your favorite cool drink. Think about summer. Write about it. And, if you want, you can even contemplate hot Kool-Aid, if you want. I won’t judge.
June PoWriMo
Prompt for the day:
In the most unusual places, I got nostalgic for the 80s. It was in church, of all places, that the pastor mentioned 80s hair bands. Our pastor has a great love for Jim Carey, Modern Family and other facets of pop culture, that he works into each sermon. Today’s sermon included a story about another pastor’s son, his dark poetry and the 80s power ballad: quiet mediation and angst within a 3 minute rotation. I will let your mind fester on that a bit.
I consider myself a late 80s/90s child, and it got me thinking about the trends of that era. Some of the things that came to mind: Voltron (out again!), Barbie, She-ra and Jem. Yes, I was thinking mainly about toys.
Prompt: think of the era in which your grew into maturity. What were the trends, what did you love from the era? Write 5 minutes (or more) about these thoughts.
June PoWriMo Prompt#18
This is a technique introduced to me at a workshop at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference that I found interesting and effective. It is negative inversion. In this technique, you take an existing poem (yours or someone else’s) and flip (or reverse negatively) the nouns and verbs in each of the lines.
Take this example, from one of my poems.
Her whisper guided him along the banks
of the river where the rocks..
Flip the nouns and verbs negatively:
Her scream pushed him away, away from his embrace
across the room and beyond his walls,
or something similar. This is just a crude example. This is a technique of play and word manipulation. Try it out. You may get nonsense or it may take you somewhere you may never go on your own. Try it.
June PoWriMo Prompt #17
Because it didn’t post yesterday…
Prompt for the day: Take out a map. It could be a national map or a world map. It really doesn’t matter. Find a place on it where you have never visited, whether it be a city, lake or river. Write about someone returning to this destination after a long time away. What does it look like. Write about the journey.
June PoWriMo Prompt #7
Images and things mean different things to different people. Take an ordinary thing like glass. The words “shattered” or “broken” come naturally with glass.
Prompt: What other words can you use with glass? Crumpled glass (in my palm) comes to mind, but what would you use with glass? Take that thought and run with it.
June PoWriMo Prompt #6
I took part in a writing conference over the weekend, and during the course of the conference, participated in an exercise of random words. Specifically, participants were to give the workshop instructor random nouns. One that gave was skyscraper. It was an interesting choice, partly chosen because I had recently heard Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper” on my IPod.
Prompt: One person did chose this word in an exercise and it conjured images of 9/11 for her. Think about the word skyscraper. What does it bring to mind for you? There are no wrong answers.
June PoWriMo Prompt #2
Some things are just summer. Take, for instance, the weather: hot. Think 4th of July. Think state fairs and carnivals. Think cotton candy.
With these things in mind, consider this phrase: hot candy. Think about the phrase. Think about summer and write about it.
Prompt #2: hot candy
June PoWriMo Prompt #1
OK, for those of you looking for prompts, or perhaps want to join me in writing more (30 poems!) this month, here is your daily prompt. Some days it will be a scenario. Other days it will be a word or phrase. Take what you can from them and just write!
One word: gruntled. Yes, this is a word. Not disgruntled, which is the better known word. Nope.
Gruntled: means to be pleased, satisfied, and contented. Use this word as you will in your next writing project.
Get writing!
J.L. Smith 