Without thinking, I sped up, whipping around the curve toward the house and pulling into the driveway. There was smoke coming from the basement doors and everyone was standing around. There was my mother, my stepfather, my siblings. I counted off, mentally inventorying my family to make sure everyone was safe. It ended up being nothing serious — an issue with the furnace — but ever since that day I can’t help but tense every time I hear a siren or see those flashing lights.

This week’s {Creativity Corner} prompt is a story spark.

The sounds of sirens fill your ears as several emergency vehicles pass you on your way home. You don’t think anything of it until you pull onto your block and see the police cars and an ambulance parked in front of your neighbor’s home. The yard is cordoned off with yellow caution tape and you pass the scene slowly, wondering what is going on…

Finish the story in 750 words or less. It can be serious or silly, a mystery, sci-fi or a romance. You could even use the prompt to remind you of an experience you had and write about that instead. Whatever you choose, have fun with it.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share something about your letter-writing experience in the comments. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

(Image by MSVG)

I’m sure many of us have childhood memories of baking or decorating cookies. Normally for {Creativity Corner} we’d write about those memories. But this week I think we should try something different.

Write a scene or story from the perspective of your favorite cookie. Need some suggestions? Try these:

- You’re a Girl Scout Thin Mint traveling hundreds of miles to your new owner who will promptly open a sleeve and begin working her way down to you.

- You’re a chocolate chip cookie who starts out as multiple ingredients and evolves into a single, solid and delicious treat.

- You’re a plain old snickerdoodle cookie and your brother is a chewy chocolate peanut butter cookie. Write about your relationship.

Try one (or all) of the above suggestions, or come up with one of your own. Have fun with it.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

(Image by norwichnuts)

In middle school and junior high, I had several pen pals. Going to the Post Office to get the mail was always exciting because I never knew when I might get another envelope addressed to me with a hand-written note inside. The contents of the letters were never very exciting, but the act of opening and reading something written just for my eyes was worth the walk or bike ride to the mailbox.

After a long hiatus filled with emails, phone calls and the occasional card, I’ve taken to writing letters again. I don’t always get them in return, but sitting down with pretty stationary and a nice pen to write something is just as nice. Knowing that when the recipient opens the mailbox and sees that hand-addressed envelope amidst the junk mail and bills, she’ll smile and know I took extra time and care to send her something I had to put a stamp on.

For this week’s {Creativity Corner} prompt:

Write a letter to someone — anyone. It can be someone you haven’t seen in a while or someone you see every day. You don’t even have to mail it if you don’t want to. You could even write a letter to your (past or future) self.

In the letter, open up to the reader. Share a secret, a piece of advice or a story. Write as much or as little as you want. The only rule is that you must use a pen and some pretty stationary (or notebook paper, if you don’t have any stationary on hand).

When you’ve finished, consider how this exercise made you feel. I often find that when I set out to write a letter it ends up heading in a different direction than I initially intended. I’m more open than I had planned to be and more willing to share things that I hadn’t planned to share. Whether you actually send your letter or not, consider writing letters more frequently as a way to explore your thoughts and emotions. Like writing in a journal, writing a letter can be a freeing experience.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share something about your letter-writing experience in the comments. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

(Image by Pink Sherbet Photography)

When I was a kid, my grandmother always had tulips in beds along the front and sides of her house. In the area I grew up in, they wouldn’t bloom until mid-May, usually right around Mother’s Day. So every year, my sister and I would go over to Grandma’s house — she lived next door — get scissors and a cup of water, and go out to pick a few tulips for my mother.

A lot of my flower memories include my grandmother. She had a lilac bush in her backyard and each summer she would send me out to cut some stems for her kitchen.

I remember marveling over the tiny bell-shaped blossoms of the lily-of-the-valley plants along the back side of her house. They were so white and so perfectly formed.

And later, it was the flowers we took to plant on her grave that I remember, the purple and yellow pansies that we’d line up along her small, nondescript headstone.

What flower stories do you have? For this week’s {Creativity Corner} prompt:

Write about a time you received flowers unexpectedly, or an experience or memory that centered around flowers. Write as many details as you can remember and dig deep into the emotion, as well as the action, of the experience.

As always, have fun with this exercise. Write freely. Don’t delete and don’t judge. Just write!

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

I suppose I could send an email, but that’s much more impersonal. At least with a phone call the person on the other end of the line can hear my voice, my inflection, my emotion.

If I had the money and the time, a flight and a conversation over a good meal might suit some announcements better. Unfortunately, my budget and my job keep me from hopping on a 747 every time I have news I’d like to share.

So the phone it is. And it works quite well in most cases. In fact, the phone works so well, that I can think of several phone calls that have been pivotal experiences in my life. Which brings me to this week’s {Creativity Corner} prompt:

Write about a phone call that changed your life (or the life of your character) in some small or large way.

Where were you when you made or received the call? What were you wearing? What time of the day was it? What did you surroundings look like?

Who was on the other end of the line? Did you call him/her or did the other person call you? Had you been anticipating the call or was it unexpected or spontaneous?

What was the conversation like? What was said? How did you (or the other person) react? How did the conversation end?

In what ways were things different after you hung up the phone?

Use this prompt to recall memories about a particular phone conversation by free-writing your way through it. If you’re writing from your character’s perspective, don’t think too much about what your character(s) should or shouldn’t be doing or saying. Just consider the situation and then write the scene out quickly.

You can edit or flesh it out later. Right now, you’re experimenting and investigating. There’s no pressure to produce a perfect vignette or scene. Just write.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

(Image by Esparta)

I love fresh apples in fall and berries in the spring and summer, but my favorite fruit fills the winter gap and grows on trees hundreds of miles from me. During the cooler months, I eat all the oranges, tangerines, clementines, and grapefruit I can stomach. I crave their tangy sweetness, the sour bite at the back of my tongue, their juicy segments that pop in my mouth. After lunch, for breakfast, right before bed, I eat them anytime and all the time.

Choose a citrus fruit and describe it in as much detail as you can. (If you don’t have a piece of the fruit at your disposal, use your imagination or find some pictures to spark your senses while you write.)

Pay attention to the light (or lack thereof), the color(s) of the skin, the scent, the shape (and irregularity of it). Once you’ve written about your whole fruit, slice it open on a plate and write about how it looks now. How is it different? The same? What does it taste like?

Try this exercise with as many types of citrus fruit as you like. Or compare and contrast two pieces of fruit. Use novel words. Practice your metaphors. Get flowery in your language and then be sparse. Take your time and dig into the essence of the citrus. Have fun with it.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

(Image by Muffet)

This week your Creativity Corner prompt will take you back to a time when you could barely imagine some of the technology that we have at our fingertips now.

The Tech Effect

Think about today’s technology and choose one advancement that you take advantage of every day that you didn’t have access to when you were a child (e.g., email, internet, mp3 players, cell phones, etc.).

Now write for 10 minutes about what life was like before you had access to this technology. Describe the way you lived without the technology and how you coped. What technology was available that the new technology has replaced? What were the positives and negatives of not having the technology at that time?

Take 10 more minutes to write about what life is like with access to the technology you’ve chosen. What are the positives and negatives now? Compare and contrast the time before and after you had access to that technology. Are you happy to have the new technology or do you miss life without it? How do you think your life would be different if you didn’t have access to this technology or if you were to give it up for a day? A month? A year? Could you survive life the way it used to be now that you’ve learned to live life with access to the technology you’re writing about?

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

So for this week’s Creativity Corner we’re writing about songs that have stuck with us, not just because they were catchy, but because they’ve attached themselves to our memories.

Sticky Songs

Think about a song that you remember when you recall a certain moment or period in your life. You might even want to pull out the old album or find the song on YouTube and listen to it while you write. Let the memories come back to you and then start. Free-write about the song and the memories that come with it.

What is the song and who sings it? What does the singer’s voice sound like? Is it husky, high-pitched, strained, full of emotion or emotionless? Do you remember the video for the song (if there was one)?

How does the song make you feel? What are the details of the memory (or memories) attached to that song? Where were you when you first heard it? What were you wearing? How old were you? What emotions does the song stir up? Do you have a physical reaction?

Write whatever comes to you as you listen to or think about that song. You might be surprised where this exercise leads you and what details you’re able to recall as you free-write. Don’t censor anything. Write about your feelings then and how you feel about the song now. Write about a seemingly unrelated moment if your writing takes you there. Just let the song lead you.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!

Then, right around the third load of laundry, something happened.

I realized that I had no reason not to spend this found time reading and writing and enjoying my own company. I had no place to go. No appointments to keep. No responsibilities to meet. So I settled in and the creativity started to flow.

Instead of turning on the TV, I listened to the radio. I journaled. I worked on essays that I’ve been trying to finish, but haven’t had time and energy to work on. I wrote blog posts and a newsletter for a client. I read short stories and essays and blogs I haven’t visited in ages. I slept in and practiced yoga every day. I cuddled with my cat and ate satisfying meals that I prepared with pleasure.

In short, I relaxed. I focused. I centered myself on the things I love. And from that place, I produced. I learned that sometimes shutting out the world is the only way to connect with the things that mean most to you. Being snowed in for the last three days has been the best retreat I’ve ever had, despite the fact that it was forced on me by Mother Nature.

I’ve gotten used to the solitude and freedom to do the things I love whenever I choose. But with the streets clearing and the forecast looking brighter (after another foot or so of snow by tonight), it appears I’ll be heading back to work in the next couple of days. I’m not looking forward to readjusting my routine to office life again. What I am looking forward to is my next retreat–even if I have to manufacture it myself.

It’s not often that we get blizzards here in Maryland, but when we do, it means days indoors, first waiting for the snow to stop, and then waiting for the roads to be cleared. The good thing about being snowed in is that there’s plenty of time for writing and reading. No reason to go outside means no reason not to be in front of the computer. OK, there are plenty of things I could do around the house, but that stuff can wait. I’ve got ideas to get down, essays to edit and freelance projects to finish. I hope you’re having a writing filled weekend, too.

Enjoy this week’s prompt!

Blizzard

Write about a blizzard you experienced. How old were you? Where did it happen? Was it expected or were you surprised by a sudden storm? How long were you stranded by the snow? What did you do to occupy your time? What did it look like outside? Did anything strange or unexpected happen during the snow storm?

Write out all the details you can remember, including physical and emotional details, thoughts you may have had at the time and any reflections you might have about the experience now that time has passed. You might even compare it to another “storm” experience later or earlier in your life.

If you live somewhere that doesn’t get snow, imagine what it might be like to be stranded in a snow storm and try to describe a blizzard experience without being cliche. Or put one of your characters in a blizzard and see how she reacts to the situation.

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!