The 2021 Writing Series is a series of daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep their 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.
This is not a standard writing session. This is pure production—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 it, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.
For today's writing exercise you will first read a short piece of writing, and then respond using one of the following prompts.
Today's inspiring piece of writing is the poem "Bumbershoot" by the awesome poet Annie Stenzel who diligent Notebookers will be well familiar with by now. This poem was published in July of 2020 at the journal The Hellebore (A refuge for literary and artistic expression).
Seriously. Go read it. I'll wait.
I mean it, jumping right to the prompts will be borderline pointless as they won't have context. It's a 2 minute read, you got this.
One of the things I love about this poem is that it hits some heavy topics without feeling like it's ever getting heavy. It is poetic without being consciously 'poemy'. It is relatable but it is very much this poet's poem, not relatable because it is summary, generic or soft focus. Great stuff. Okay, now that you've ACTUALLY READ the poem, let's write something.
If you'd like some unobtrusive background music try this "Shades of Orange" folk guitar instrumental mix.
