The Notebooking Daily Fall Writing Series is a daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep your creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.
These exercises are not meant to be a standard writing session. They are meant to be productive and to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink them, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.
#108
Ekphrastic in the sky
Ekphrastic in the sky
For today, we're going to write a poem or prose piece inspired by another piece of art or an ekphrastic piece. The piece of art in question is "in the sky" by Roman Avseenko
If nothing right off strikes you try the following exercises along with the image.
- Tell the story of the ring's arrival. What accompanied it and why is it so near this train station?
- Write a narrative from the perspective of a passenger on a train passing right under the ring when it suddenly appears (and with what physics consequences).
- Write a piece in which this ring has been mysteriously floating there for centuries with no one able to figure out anything about it. Follow the person who cracks the mystery. How? What is it and why is it there?
- Write a short piece in which aliens make contact and greatly improve humanity, but they make us build trains everywhere because for some reason, they love trains.
- Write a piece which revolves around the construction of a 'sky elevator' which will drastically reduce the cost of bringing material into space and will usher a new era of space exploration. But first the thing has to be built. Write about either the experience of locals that are just trying to live their lives in the shadow of the elevator's construction; or about specialists brought in to do one very vital but very dangerous step.
If you'd like background writing music try Ralph Vaughan Williams- Oboe Concerto - The Lark Ascending - Robert Haydon Clark - Consort of London.
