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 write a few micro-poems or micro-fictions. These will be either poems under 20 lines or stories under 200 words.
For inspiration go read some micro or hint fiction in this Buzzfeed article, at Microfiction Monday, Alba, Molecule, 50 Word Stories and Nanoism. Or also this Barnstorm blog post "How Microfiction Could Transform Social Media".
Read the full prompt twice before you start writing, because you're looking to keep it minimal, so have ideas. If your first draft is longer don't fret. Hone it down. And the piece will be what it is. I've started out with a goal of 100 words but hit on something and had to cull the end result from 1350 to 1200 for a contest because I loved the result. So each story will be its own beast, but we're ideally aiming for 20 lines or 100-200 words with these.
Micro Exercise 1: Childhood Bike Crash. Tell the story of a child crashing their bike. For the first time or the fiftieth, that's up to you. Give us lots of good details, and at the end use an adult narrator's voice to offer perspective and consider how that injury stacks up to future injuries they had, include three specific 'hurt' examples.
Micro Exercise 2: Adult Bike Crash. Write a short piece which an adult has had a number of alcoholic beverages and attempts to ride a bike (perhaps for the first time in a long time), they recall a specific 'feat' they claim to have once accomplished on their bike as a child.
Micro Exercise 3: Biking Off a Cliff 1. Write a micro in which a person (in a dream or real life) pedals directly at a large cliff/drop off and goes over the edge.
Micro Exercise 4: Biking Off a Cliff 2. Take 3 minutes and watch this video of mountain bike 'freeriders' at the 2015 Red Bull Rampage competition. Using what you've seen as inspiration, write a micro in which a narrator watches or participates in either a competition like this, trains for one, or imagines themselves training for it despite practicing on very very small obstacles.
Micro Exercise 5: The Jam Session 3. Write a piece in which a commuter is on an absolutely jam-packed subway or bus when they strike up a conversation with a stranger they're pressed up against only to find out they have something unusual in common. Do the characters try to keep in touch or part ways never to meet again? You tell us!
If you'd like some background music to write to, try this "Hollow Knight" relaxing game music and rain mix.
