Free Writing Ideas

Write about five different things, one for each sense - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - that you have experienced in the previous 24 hours.

We don’t have to search far for material to write about – it’s constantly around us, we just have to notice it, and remember to make a record of it.

Paint the picture/moment/event in words - really see (re-experience) all the details.

Give yourself 10 to 20 mins for each one. Start writing and make yourself continue until your chosen time is up.

You could do one a day for the next five days. Don't worry about reading back over them. Let them sit in your notebook for a while.

And for a little inspiration, here are some delicious excerpts from Charles Simic's notebook:

Seeing is determined not by the eye but by the clarity of my consciousness. Most of the time the eyes see nothing.

My soul is constituted of thousands of images I cannot erase. Everything I remember vividly from a fly on a wall in Belgrade to some street in San Francisco early one morning. I'm a grainy old, often silent, often flickering film.

Two young birch trees wrestling in the wind. The crow in the snow refereeing.

The day I went to make funeral arrangements for my father-in-law, I caught a glimpse of the mortician's wife nursing the mortician's new daughter. Her breasts were swollen huge with milk.

The restaurant is Greek. The waiter's name is Socrates, so Plato must be in the kitchen, and Aristotle is the fellow studying a racing form at the cash register. Today's special, grilled calamari with fresh parsley, garlic, and olive oil.

From The Poet's Notebook, Excerpts From The Notebooks Of 26 American Poets, WW Norton New York 1995.

Write well.

Notebook Idea: Why do we write?

Here are three things I’ve thought about:

As a celebration: of the diversity and perversity of the world, of the choices we make, of the people we meet, the things we do.

As a form of prayer: a meditation, or a single-mindedness, a focused activity that is often done during consecrated time, time that has been devoted to the task, time that will not be shared with any other activity.

To inquire and question: Flannery O’Connor said, I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

Open your notebook and start writing: I write because… Be spontaneous, honest, allow yourselves to be vulnerable, and not worry what other people might think, or what you imagine they might think. Try and be honest with the page. Keep writing, don’t stop to think. If you feel stuck, start again I write because… Write for 20 minutes.

I was introduced to this exercise by Tony Weeks-Pearson, a writer and tutor at Maidstone Adult Education in the early 1990s. It was Tony’s passion for writing – the process, the craft and the work of other writers – that set me off on my own writing path. A truly inspirational man.

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 7

And here's the seventh, and last, 7 minute writing prompt. I'll be posting the next poem prompt in a few days. See you soon.

February 18th: dream home

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 6

Nearly there! Here's the 6th writing prompt. Just seven minutes, that's all you need to find.

February 17th: the sudden smell of...

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 5

And the 5th seven-minute-writing prompt is:

February 16th: all day rain

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 4

Here's the 4th of the 7 'seven-minute-writing-prompts':

February 15th: stones

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 3

Here's the 3rd prompt out of the seven. Write for 7 minutes.

February 14th: what lies beneath love

Notebook Idea - 777 - Day 2

Remember: it's only writing freely for seven minutes a day for seven days.

Prompt 2:
February 13th - the road is blocked

Notebook Idea - 777

How do you feel about writing for 7 minutes every day for 7 days? Everyone can manage 7 minutes. No excuses. So set your alarm clock, cooker timer, or mobile phone, start writing and stop when it goes off. If you feel brave, you might even decide to post a draft poem, or even the notes for a poem, that you write every day. Under your own name, a pen-name, or even anonymously.

Prompt 1:
February 12th - nooks and crannies

Notebook Idea - Lost Words

I'm clearing out my old notebooks. Part of me would love to keep each one I've ever filled, but a bigger part of me says, 'if there's anything in them that's really worth writing about, it'll come back, at some time, and in some form'. And anyway, it's not that I'm short of things to write about. No-one is.

So I usually allow myself a few years' build-up and then I tear up or burn the older ones. Although when I first pull them out of the big bottom drawer in my desk, I tend to flip through and scan the pages for things that might just catch my eye... some seed that will fire my imagination. Yesterday the following phrase jumped out at me:

a jumble of yellow bones

I couldn't remember writing it and the context made no sense to me at all, but the phrase has stayed with me, although for now that's all it is, a phrase that suggests a picture, maybe a particular emotion. It has no meaning. Maybe that will come. Maybe not. But these days I want my writing to mean something, not just to me, but to the reader. I don't want to create poems that might startle with their level of craft and/or subject matter, but not take the reader any further. I'd like my work to make people think. I'd like my work to be about some 'thing', for ideas to arise from it and take the reader further into their own life experience and relationship with the world. I don't think I always succeed, but having that in mind keeps me focused.

Free writing ideas:

1. Look through an old notebook and see if a phrase leaps out from the page. Don't worry about the context - start writing from that point.
2. Write a list of things you have written.

Notebook Idea - One Thing

Go and look out of your window right now. What can you see? Rain, winter trees, the grey sky reflected in someone's window? Have a good look and choose one thing. Don't spend too much time wondering whether it's right or not. Just choose one thing. Using this as a starting point, free-write for 20 minutes allowing your creative mind to take the routes it chooses. Let it run.

When you've finished, close your notebook. Don't read over it.

Using the same starting point, write for another 20 minutes tomorrow.

Do the same again the next day.

If you can, aim to do it every day for a week. Or at least every other day.

At the end of the week read through everything you've written. You might find the seeds for a poem here. Maybe not. I believe that it's only a small portion of our writing that's actually worth making into 'art' for other people. But you'll still be able to extract something from this exercise. What matters to you. Look at what you've written - the themes, the ideas, the emotions behind the writing. Make a note of them. This could be where your passion for writing lies. Follow it.