The 2022 Writing Series is a series of daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to spark their creative mind and to spur production of new pieces. 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 about" 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—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 series' exercises in under 30 minutes.
The Timer Method
If you're going with the timer method (which is certainly not required) I recommend setting four timers (these markers are if you're doing a 30 minute session): The First Timer for 5 minutes for a pre-writing reminder, if you do any planning or thinking on how those things can fit together or how to structure what you're doing, or to revisit your writer's notebook to remind yourself of anything you might have noted to write about 'in the future'. But mostly, to remind you not to overthink, not to delay the actual writing process. You should think at least a little about what the point of the piece will be (more in the third timer section) The Second Timer for 15 minutes which is the main writing time. Remember, don't overthink during this section. You're knocking out the piece. When this timer goes off it's not the end, but a signal that you'll be trying to wrap it up soon. The Third Timer for 5 minutes which is time to wrap up what you're writing. This is where you're making sure that you're tucking in any 'loose narrative threads' and getting to your conclusions. Remember, pieces should have some takeaway or 'point'. Some 'why'—a thing that the reader can point to if they're asking themselves "why did I read this?". The Fourth Timer for 5 minutes which is time for editing, for going back over the piece and giving it a 'once over' for typos. I highly suggest reading it aloud once at the beginning of the five minutes (or prior to starting the last timer). Then you'll use the time to fix things early on that you later changed, and to sprinkle in 'crumbs' which foreshadow or work well with later metaphors so that the piece feels more united.
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!
BONUS PROMPT: Today if you complete all of the micro exercises, you'll have a special surprise at the end. It's worth it! But let yourself be surprised and don't click ahead.
Micro Exercise 1: Petting Zoo 1. Write a short piece in which a child is at a petting zoo and the pygmy goat they really are excited to pet, headbutts them.
Micro Exercise 2: Petting Zoo 2. Write a short piece in which an adult is having a terrible day and they find themselves outside of a petting zoo and on a whim they go in and petting one particular animal thinking about their terrible day they begin to feel a bit better.
Micro Exercise 3: Petting Zoo 3. Write a micro piece where we see the petting zookeeper (caretaker? employee?) is packing up the petting zoo for the night. Surprise us and give us at least one awfully cute moment (and don't be afraid to go dark or odd if you feel like it).
Micro Exercise 4: Dream 1. Write a surreal micro piece in which a person (who we never discover the gender of) thinks they're lucid dreaming (controlling their dreams using various techniques) and in their dream they begin climbing up into the blue sky on an invisible ladder. End the piece with the character looking around and seeing a beautiful small town below them and waving at a little kid that's waving at them way down on the ground, and trying to figure out if they should keep climbing up or climb back down.
Micro Exercise 5: Tower 1. Write a very short piece where a kid is watching a ladybug climb along the curved edge of an aspen leaf and then looks up to see a person quickly climbing a huge antenna tower across the street.
Micro Exercise 6: Dream 2. Write a very short piece where your narrator is having a dream where they are swimming through the sky and they wake up surprised to be very very high up on a huge antenna tower, take it from there.
Micro Exercise 7: Petting Zoo 4. Write a short piece in which a child is at a petting zoo and they're scared of the animals because the last time they were at the zoo they'd been headbutted by a goat. The parents are very distracted and even though the kid is really scared they're forced to face their fear, and this time they have a super sweet scene petting the pygmy goat, and subtly include the detail that as that scene's happening, in the background there are police/fire sirens approaching.
BONUS PROMPT SURPRISE: Now, ya know, it's supposed to be organic, so I'm putting the bonus prompt surprise below the background video. It'll be worth it though! Just be sure you've written all 7 micros first.
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If you'd like some background writing music, try this: "Ocean Blue" from background music friends of the blog, Dreamhop Music.
