Changes to Prompt A Day Starting in May
Back in January when I started Prompt A Day I was just looking to provide some daily triggers for your writing. Do anything you like with it was the idea. For the most part the daily prompt variety was varied. They were meant to provide ideas.
That has been how I write for the most part. How ever the spirit moves me, I head there. That’s not a bad thing. It makes for variety.
Writing As A Creative Outlet
Writing is a craft. Those pieces with the beautiful flowing prose painting word pictures for us don’t just emerge randomly. They emerge because authors explore and experiment. They practice, and then practice some more.
An area of writing I’ve had a strong interest in is that of the essayist. Not the essays like most of us wrote in school. The essays taking us into the writer’s world to explore it minutely. Their writings may be delivered up as fiction or nonfiction. We’re often left to wonder which they have delivered, they craft them so beautifully.
Creative nonfiction done well are truly works of art in word form. As I’ve explored the subject I’ve been fascinated by the authors I thought of as great fiction writers who wrote great creative nonfiction essays.
Authors like: Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”; Alice Walker, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose”; John Updike, “Self-Consciousness”; John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley”; Lillian Ross, “Picture”; George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris”; Norman Mailer, “The Armies of the Night”; Ernest Hemingway, “A Movable Feast”; Annie Dillard, “An American Childhood”; Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood” and one of my personal favourites Pat Conroy, “The Water is Wide” to name just a few.
If you’d like to see a list of recommended creative nonfiction writing to read your way through, have a look at 100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction.
Starting in May, I’ve revised the types of prompts I’ll be sending out. You’ll always be free to mix and match and use them as you wish. Turn a fiction prompt into non-fiction and vice versa. After all, truth is often stranger than fiction. If living in a global pandemic doesn’t teach us that, I don’t know what will.
Here’s What You’ll Be Receiving
Word Prompt — you’ll receive three words every day. Use one or them all, it’s up to you. They are meant to trigger your thoughts and generate ideas for you to use them in.
Nonfiction Prompt — These are ideas for writing essays, preferably creative nonfiction. To describe the concept briefly. Nonfiction is the telling of facts. Creative nonfiction is in how the facts are told, packaging them up to read as fiction while staying loyal to the truth.
Fiction Prompt — The prompts in May at least will be opening sentences. Take them, spin a yarn. See where you roll with them.
Reading Prompt — Writers read. At least writers who want to develop read. This prompt is moving to a daily prompt. The prompts will be links to short form creative writing. For the month of May, the links will take you to creative nonfiction writings less than a thousand words.
Read them as a reader, let them roll over you. Then read again as a writer. Take note of the form, the style and the use of language the author uses to communicate with.
Quote Prompt — I often enjoy taking inspiration from quotes from other people. Sometimes they make me think, other times they will spark memories and thoughts for me to share. Don’t feel required to use the whole quote, if part of it speaks to you, roll with that.
The Email List
If you are already a subscriber, I hope the changes work for you. I hope they spark your creativity to greatness. If you’re not a subscriber and would like to join, just sign up here.
Shadowspub is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms.
*She created Prompt A Day to share with others. You can subscribe to Prompt A Day for a set of ideas in your inbox every day. *
Hey @shadowspub, I subscribed, thanks!! (: