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 250 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".
Check out all of the prompts and pick a couple to write. Once you've done that, focusing on one at a time, 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 100-250 words with these. And if they grow into something much larger, hey, you've got something longer!
Micro Exercise 1: Roadkill 1. Write a short piece in which your narrator sees a specific animal dead in the road. The narrator should imagine why that animal was crossing the road as they continue their drive.
Micro Exercise 2: Mystery Box 1. Write a very short piece in which a person enters an empty train or subway station to see a large gift-wrapped box the a sign that says "Open Me". Does the person open it or not? What's in there (if we find out)? Make the atmosphere nice and creepy.
Micro Exercise 3: Mystery Box 2. Write a micro piece in which you describe an 'it' in ambiguous and vague, but interesting ways. Never explicitly tell us what 'it' is.
Micro Exercise 4: Toy Box. Write a micro piece in which two characters fight over the same toy in a toy box. They should not be related, but should be very familiar with each other, and they should insult each other as they each try to get the desired toy. Be sure that we know exactly what that toy is
Micro Exercise 5: Roadkill 2. Write a very short piece where a person lives on a busy street and is cataloguing the various instances where they've discovered dead animals hit by cars in front of their house. Be sure to have one other aspect to the piece, something which the roadkill list plays off of, or helps add depth to.
Micro Exercise 6: Mystery Box 3. Write a piece which is under 100 words which includes a person speculating what a wrapped birthday present contains, based on knowing who the gifter is and who the birthday person. Have your narrator leave the party before the present is opened.
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If you'd like some background music to write to, try this cat-inspired lofi mix "Home is where the meow is".
