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Marty Silvio, a balding, overweight, cocky, cigar-chewing egoist who never really got a good look at himself in a mirror, enjoyed manipulating everything, including the truth. He called it “creative responsiveness.” – Laura Rizio, Blood Money
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or scene involving Marty Silvio.
Journaling Prompt: Write about an egoist that you have known.
Art Prompt: Marty the Egoist
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell a humorous story about an egoist you’ve known or a serious story about an egoist who made the news.
Photo Credit: DaMongMan on Flickr
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Stephen Holmboe wore checked trousers with a matching loose-fitting jacket designed in the high-buttoned style. His cravat was wide and flowing, matching the solid off-white of his shirt. In short, he was quite the swell—but a swell who would have been out of style even a decade before. Mr. Holmboe’s manner of dressing his brilliant golden blond hair continued this motif. It was longer than was currently fashionable, as were his bushy side-whiskers and mustache. Curtseying to Mr. Holmboe’s bow, Jenny felt rather as if she were being introduced to an enormous ambulatory dandelion. –The Buried Pyramid, Jane Linskold
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a descriptive paragraph for one of your characters.
Journaling Prompt: How do people describe you?
Art Prompt: Swell
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about a person with a emphasis on physical description.
Photo Credit: BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives on Flickr
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Alphonse Liebermann proved to be short, wiry, and somewhere into his fifth decade. Bald as an egg, he sported the most magnificent eyebrows Neville had ever seen—bushy, even sweeping grey specimens that leapt to punctuate their owner’s every exclamation. They completely intimidated the German’s perfectly unexceptional mustache and, indeed, made it hard for one to remember that he had any other features at all. –Jane Linskold, The Buried Pyramid
Fiction Writing Prompt: Describe your character in detail.
Journaling Prompt: What physical feature of yourself do you like the most?
Art Prompt: Bushy Eyebrows
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Create a detailed description of a person in your next article.
Photo Credit: MMcQuade on Flickr
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Terms like thief and front man weren’t used in the industry anymore. Now Manson was in Redistribution Management and DeGere was an Acquisition Specialist. It sounded a lot more official than thieves ought to be. -Gerald Rice, The Beggar’s Bowl
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or scene about an upscale thief.
Journaling Prompt: If you were going to give yourself a new title for your current job, what would it be and why?
Art Prompt: Thief
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a humorous speech about convoluted job titles in today’s PC climate.
Photo Credit: *saxon* on Flickr
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“Once upon a time in that part of Mississippi where every town’s name reads like a memory of some better place, a girl with a honey-colored braid down her back stood by the side of the road and stared at a hand-painted sign.” -Cynthia Shearer, The Celestial Jukebox
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: Picture yourself as a child where you grew up. Describe the town through a child’s eyes.
Art Prompt: Girl with a Braid
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about your home town and what it was like when you were a child.
Photo Credit: Allie Holzman on Flickr
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The Triumph growled them through the twilight. The air was crisp and cool as clean bedsheets, and Eddi took long breaths of it. -Emma Bull, War For The Oaks
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene or poem that involves a night ride on a motorcycle.
Journaling Prompt: What is your favorite memory of being outside at night.
Art Prompt: Night Riders
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about a personal experience you’ve had involving motorcycles and/or a ride at night time.
Photo Credit: kalleboo on Flickr
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People should die on overcast, gray days, when the beginnings of depression are already beginning to sink their little black hooks into your soul. – Andersen Prunty, The Beard
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a death scene or a poem about dying.
Journaling Prompt: How do you feel on an overcast day?
Art Prompt: Overcast day
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about how the weather affects your mood.
Photo Credit: striatic on Flickr
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The coffee started coming as soon as we sat down, which was the second sign of a truly great diner, the first being surly-but-efficient service and the third having to do with heavenly pie coming out of a pit of a kitchen whose grease accumulation was now a structural feature. -Michael Langlois, Bad Radio (The Emergent Earth)
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or scene set in a diner.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your favorite restaurant and why you look to eat there.
Art Prompt: Diner
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the culture of a local diner.
Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass on Flickr
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“When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury Pike just beyond Dean’s Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.” — H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem inspired by the first line of the week.
Journaling Prompt: Where is the most lonely and curious place you have ever visited?
Art Prompt: Lonely and curious country
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about a lonely and curious country.
Photo Credit: Darren Shilson on Flickr
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We’re playing R&B: ‘Smokestack Lightning’, ‘I’m a Man’, ‘Road Runner’ and other heavy classics. I scrape the howling Rickenbacker guitar up and down my microphone stand, then flip the special switch I recently fitted so the guitar sputters and sprays the front row with bullets of sound. I violently thrust my guitar into the air — and feel a terrible shudder as the sound goes from a roar to a rattling growl; I look up to see my guitar’s broken head as I pull it away from the hole I’ve punched in the low ceiling.
It is at this moment that I make a split-second decision — and in a mad frenzy I thrust the damaged guitar up into the ceiling over and over again. What had been a clean break becomes a splinter mess. I hold the guitar up to the crowd triumphantly. I haven’t smashed it: I’ve sculpted it for them. I throw the shattered guitar carelessly to the ground, pick up my brand-new Rickenbacker twelve-string and continue the show…. -Pete Townsend, Who I Am: A Memoir
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, poem, or haiku focused on the description of sound.
Journaling Prompt: What your most electrifying musical memory?
Art Prompt: Smashing Guitars
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about your favorite rock and roll moment.
Photo Credit: Suicine on Flickr
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I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
If you respond to one of the prompts on your blog, be sure to come back here and put the link in the comment section for that prompt. Share your brilliance!
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