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.
Just because, I've included double the normal Micro-prompts here to choose from or to write. Do all ten for bonus points. Save up enough bonus points for a scratch and sniff sticker!
Micro Exercise 1: Jerry 1. In a very short piece show us a character named Jerry who is hapless, yet positive as things literally burn all around him.
Micro Exercise 2: Jerry 2. Write a very short piece in which male Jerry and a female or non-binary Jerri meet at a coffeeshop when the barista calls their name. They have strong impressions of the other which aren't exactly aligned.
Micro Exercise 3: The Laugh Track. Write a micro piece in which the sentence "Cue laughter." happens twice, once early and once at the end.
Micro Exercise 4: Empathy. Write a micro piece in which a character tries to explain the concept of empathy to an animal which magically received the ability to speak and understand language for one day.
Micro Exercise 5: Friendship. Write a very short piece in which someone tries to explain the idea of 'friendship' to an alien.
Micro Exercise 6: Jerry 3. Write a very short piece in which a character named Jerry discovers after an accident, whenever he doubts himself he begins to float.
Micro Exercise 7: Jerry 4. Write a very short piece in which your narrator sees a very old picture of someone named Jerry and is very intrigued by their 'look'. End with the narrator considering how they are a product of their time
Micro Exercise 8: Jerry 5. Write a piece which is fewer than (or better yet, exactly) 50 words that riffs on the term 'Jerry Rig' (to organized or constructed in a crude or improvised manner) .
Micro Exercise 9: Addiction. Write a very short piece in which a character explains the idea of addiction to what they think is a child's ghost (think Casper).
Micro Exercise 10: Jerry 6. Write a very short piece in which a narrator has a day in where everyone they meet/see (with a name tag or whatever) is named some variation of Jerry.
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If you'd like some background music to write to, try The Joe Pass Trio album "Eximious".
