Give your imagination a new toy every day
Every month we post a card of daily prompts, and feature three per week on Instagram @imaginativestorm. They’re always words or phrases (unlike the images and sounds we use for the Prompt of the Week, and the questions we ask in Write What You Don’t Know). Use them for fun, for “writer training,” and to explore your past from unexpected angles. Giving your imagination toys to play with is the way to add energy and authenticity and originality to any story: real or fictional, poetry or prose.
Sometimes you write a piece in 10 minutes that you could publish without changing a comma! Other times, you just get great material.
Sylvie Greil posted these two pieces on our Circle site:
This day, the prompt was “midnight bliss”:
I hadn’t planned for it but secretly hoped for it.
I had shaved my legs and put on a necklace with a long pendant.
I had picked up tonic water for G&Ts
The clock had been showing 5 to midnight for a long time,
but I had been ignoring it.
Well, not exactly ignoring it,
but rather: watching it anxiously and willing the hand to stay still.
I succeed in immobilizing it at times
and was able to decrease its increments to almost nothing.
When it struck it would be thunderous, and I would go deaf.
With that in mind, I sat down for the surf and turf dinner he had cooked.
A late dinner in the balmy, dusky reprieve of the day’s heat wave.
Late dinner on Mediterranean time.
I glimpsed the almost full moon in a sliver of the night sky above me.
I ate too fast.
I tried to listen.
I misunderstood a lot and didn’t know a lot.
The dug-in DYI scene of South London.
The river the Beatles made famous.
I felt silly and not very smart.
But later, in the kitchen, I caught that certain look in his eye.
And so we went to bed, the AC on full blast.
I curled up in his arms, we kissed, and I sighed. I didn’t realize it.
Is your heart heavy? he asked.
No, I feel light, I said.
Then you got it off your chest, he said.
He fell asleep soon from jet lag and a month of touring.
I listened to his breath for a while and to his heartbeat.
Then I walked out into the East LA night,
The sidewalks were scattered with jacarandas,
grey in the murky Midnight light.
The unusually moist air was fragrant with night-blooming jasmine.
And this time, when I drove home, I did not cry.
And this day, the prompt was “hoops”:
Hey-ho! Uh-huh. I see how it is! Hoops and loops!
But wait a minute, what side show is this?
Looks like I ran way and joined the circus.
I must have been sleeping.
My job? Juggling.
Hollers and hoopla for the hoops and standing ovations, too.
Bravo!
I’d rather be a lion tamer.
But the big boss, the big daddy, the big bald Salvadorean sausage,
went on and on about bitcoin and scared geometry.
About how fluoride eats your brain.
But the gummy worms and Reese’s at 2am don’t?
And what about the ketamine?
Oh joy. Ode to joy. The absence of.
Negatory, sir!
But how about it?
So, this morning, at the crack of dawn, I took off my leotard,
carefully hid my hoops behind the bearded lady’s trailer,
and crept away oh so quietly.
Now I’m safe again. I hope.
Safe from the number 22,
and the freemasons that supposedly roam the streets of LA.
I wanted to say: It’s not me. It’s you!
It’s entirely you!
But we don’t speak the same language.
Thing is, it could have worked out.
Could of, as they say.
I really am rather good with hoops and even loops.
I can tame anything, too.
Lions especially.
Click here to purchase Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow by Allegra Huston and James Navé, founders of the Imaginative Storm method, or order it from your favorite online retailer. It’s also available on Kindle and all other e-book platforms.
Our self-paced online video course “Write What You Don’t Know: Imaginative Storm Writer Training” is now available on Teachable. Take advantage of the introductory price!