Category Archives: Prompt of the Day

From poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge:

Jot down in a list the first thing you see when you ask yourself,

If I were a color, what color would I be? (From red to the inside-of-a-watermelon-seed color.)

What shape would I be? (Whatever you see – an airplane wing shape, a boot shape, a parallelogram, a cone, a diamond.)

If I were a movement, what movement would I be? (glide, hop, wiggle, spin)

What sound?

What animal?

What song?

What number? (infinity, googolplex, eight, sixteen)

What car? (Details: year, color, condition)

What piece of furniture?

What food?

What musical instrument?

What place?

What element in nature? (dust, galaxy, waterfall)

What kind of a tree?

What’s something I’m afraid of?

What’s the word hiding my eyes?

Put down the words             I am…

Write about yourself using answers to the questions above as well as  using strong verbs (such as: spin, clarify, fiddle, fling, dibble, lunge, slug, slam, spiral, rehearse, splurge, balance, value, love, leap, stop, reply…)

Don’t think.  See images.  Daydream with words.  Wander.  Define yourself.

If you get tired of I am, start lines with

I will be

I want to be

I used to be

I let go of

I’ve forgotten

I remember

Make a list of the things that you are worrying about right now.  Then write for 10 minutes about one (or more) of them.

Take a newspaper article, cross out whatever words seem unimportant, and circle all the strong nouns and verbs. Are you left with the essence of the piece?  Add words back where you need them. (DeMarco-Barrett, 2004).

Take a line from a favorite poem or short story and write a story starting with that line.  (DeMarco-Barrett, 2004)

Make a list of your 10 favorite things.  Write a few paragraphs about one of the items on your list.