Tag: Writing Prompt

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Writing Prompt: A Quiet Love

February is a time to celebrate love. With Valentine’s Day and anticipation of spring, it’s easy to carry love in our hearts.

Love appears in a variety of ways: love for a spouse, child, parent, sibling, friend, neighbor, pet, place, hobby, way of life. Love shows up in big and small ways. Sometimes it’s in the smallest moments when you notice and remember love the most.

For this month’s writing prompt, focus on a quiet way someone loved you. Not a big way, but something meaningful yet easily overlooked.

Write about a simple memory of being loved. Photo by CGabriel at Unsplash

It might be the memory of a caregiver’s routine, a meal someone made, a habit that made you feel safe, a time that made you feel noticed in a loving way.

Whatever comes to mind, set your timer for 15 minutes and write freely. If the topic shifts, that’s okay. Just write. Pour your heart onto the page. Follow your ideas wherever they go. Don’t edit or second guess. Just write.

A writing prompt like this may inspire an idea for your writing project. Or it may be simply a time to feel creative and practice writing. Either way, it’s a great way to remember feeling loved.

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Writing Prompt: Describe a Winter Scene

A writing prompt is a way to practice creative skills while having some fun with writing. If you ever feel stuck, try a writing prompt. It helps you regain momentum. You might even find a new path forward in your writing project.

Writing-prompt exercises are meant to be short and free-flowing. Turn off your inner editor and loose your creativity onto the page. There is no right or wrong approach. Just write.

Set your timer for 10-15 minutes, start writing in response to your specific prompt, and see where it takes you. Resist the urge to stop, delete, perfect, brainstorm, start over again. None of those belong in a writing-prompt exercise.

Just free write and keep going. If your writing moves in a different direction away from the prompt, that’s fine too. Enjoy putting words on paper without knowing where you’re going. Savor the moment.

Winter scenes, whether indoors or outdoors, make wonderful writing prompts. Set your timer for 10-15 minutes and capture all five senses in writing. Photo by Ray Hennessy at Unsplash

Winter is a wonderful time for writing. A cozy writing nook beats braving the cold. Shorter days mean more reflective early evening time. While winter weather may not always be pleasant, winter scenes are beautiful to describe.

Our writing prompt for January is this: Describe a winter scene. The scene can be indoors or outdoors, as you prefer. Try to describe it with all five senses: what do you see, smell, taste, feel, and hear?

You might start with one winter scene and jump to another. Or you might end up writing longingly for a summer beach. Anything goes. Main thing: keep writing.

Sometime this week, set 10-15 minutes aside to write about your winter scene. Enjoy the creativity. Get caught up in the moment. Take this opportunity to have fun and grow as a writer. Stay warm!

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A Family Recipe Can Enrich Your Writing Project

As Christmas approaches, I’ve been remembering the cookies my grandma and great aunts used to make. I’ve also been cleaning out my kitchen as part of a puppy-proofing purge. In the back of a cupboard, I found a wonderful surprise: a printout of some of my grandma’s and great aunts’ recipes, including the Christmas cookies.

Now, I’m not exactly a baker, so it’s unlikely I’ll try to make the cookies. Although we never know when inspiration can strike. However, as a writer, I am very excited to include the cookie recipe on my family history blog. That prompted me to reflect on different ways we can use favorite family recipes in any kind of writing project.

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Writing Prompt: Back-to-School Letter for Future Generations

One of the fun things about writing family history is you can experiment with different writing formats. You can tell a family story by writing a poem or a song, describing a photo, sharing a recipe and the story behind it, creating a diary-style note, or writing a letter.

Today, we’ll look at a writing prompt for a seasonal letter you can write. This letter is partly an encouragement to future generations of your family, and it’s partly a way to share your own memories. 

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