I like to come up with prompts that I can use for inspiration when journaling or considering a story or poem. You can use these prompts one day at a time or print them out, cut them out, and place in a jar, then pull one random prompt per day. I use the random method with students. On journal day, they always moan, "I don't know what to write about!" They learn quickly my answer, "Pull a writing prompt from the Journal Jar." :)
Art and Writing Prompts for March 31, 2014
I frequently use my Journal Jar and Memoir Box to pull a prompt for the day. These are useful tools when I am staring into space and don't know what to say. Of course, I could just google writing prompts, but then I get caught up in looking at every little on the web and don't get any writing done at all! So, I use my Journal Jar or Memoir Box. They are easy to make, or I'll be more than happy to custom make one for you. :) Where do I start journaling?
Dr. Ira Progoff says in At a Journal Workshop, “Insofar as the past is over and the future has not yet transpired, this midpoint is an open moment of possibility. Properly used, it becomes like the eye of a hurricane, a quiet place at the center of life, a free, unconditioned moment of opportunity.” Begin with today, with this minute, this second. Put down this book and journal your thoughts about the above statement. Do it now! Your journal is what you make it. It is yours and yours alone. You enter the page with your soul bared and pour forth your darkest fears, your greatest triumphs, your ho-hum drudgery of life. It doesn’t matter what you put forth, it only matters that you do it! Dr. Progoff explains, “We may use it actively and intensely during times of conflict and difficulty; we may use it softly and slowly when our life is more relaxed...” Doodling - Often times I just sit and doodle on the page. No words, no pictures even, just swirls and flowers or whatever my mind commands my hand to do. The content is not what is important, it is that you bring your spirit to the page again and again. I have gone months entering daily the daily occurrences of my life, boring details that I feel mean nothing. But, as I read back over the years, I find within those boring pages little nuggets of gold. “What you do want is to catch yourself unawares, to record things you didn’t really know you were thinking.” says Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and The Vein of Gold. Julia suggests what she calls Morning Pages. Each morning, preferably upon waking, she suggests writing 3 pages, front and back. Do it without stopping, just let the words flow from your pen. If you find yourself with nothing to say, then write “I have nothing to say” over and over until you do have something to say. An advantage of Morning Pages is that by dumping the trivial, mundane thoughts on paper each morning you will be able to free your mind to ponder further depths. You will feel more alive and less cluttered with tiny details of little importance. • Julia, and other writers, suggest doing your journaling by hand. There is something about the direct connection from mind, to hand, to paper that is supposed to be revitalizing. I don’t know. I journal in whatever way feels write to me at the time. Sometimes by hand and often times at my computer keyboard. Sometimes I pull off to the side of the road or into a parking lot because some profound thought flits through my head and I must get it on paper or lose it. If I have my journal with me (and you should try to keep your journal with you!) I will write it there. But there have been many times that I have poured forth my soul on the back of a McDonalds bag with a stick of lipstick. Do what you have to do. Just DO IT! “Allow yourself to be awkward. You are stripping yourself. You are exposing your life, not how your ego would like to see you represented, but how you are as a human being.” Natalie Goldberg Cafe writing (a la Natalie Goldberg) can be enjoyable. There is a pleasurable tension to the mix of public and private, as you write in (for instance) a coffee shop. Challenging yourself to meet a journaling friend there and writing for a stated period can be a stimulus for keeping to a schedule. • My Journal “ I wrote in my head all day yesterday. When will I learn to pull off the road and get the words on paper?? I always say “I’ll remember it when I get home.” but I very rarely do. Great thoughts and sentences gone and probably not coming back.” Writing in the Moment “I used to write poetry, very good poetry I think. How did I get to that space in myself where I could write like that? And how do I get back there again? The answer is simple, I can not go back there because I am now here and I must write from here, not there. I tried to write poetry again. The space doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Is there any poetry left inside of me, I wonder. Is it curled up behind all of the junk I have collected, patiently waiting to be unfurled and trotted out onto paper? Perhaps there is no poetry left in my soul or perhaps I can not seem to allow myself to voice it. I used to be unafraid of it but now I seem to judge each thought - afraid to place it on the paper, afraid someone will know who I am or afraid I will know who I am.” Journal Prompt: • Now is as good a place to start as any. What are you feeling at this moment? What are you feeling as you bring pencil to the page? What did you do today and how does that make you feel? What did you read today that you would like to talk about? Basic, you say? That is the stuff our lives are made of! Every single thing we do, see, hear or touch has emotional feeling attached to it! If you can access the feelings regarding the basic, then just think what you can do when you access the spirit within you!! |
Quote of the DayWe must create and find our own stories, our own myths, with symbols that will bind us to the world as we sse it today." Tristine Rainer. Archives
May 2014
Categories |