Write from your heart, not from your head, with a 10-minute timer

When you approach your writing using the Imaginative Storm method, you don’t worry about writing well. It helps you get out of your head and write from your heart. The 10-minute timer encourages you to just dive in and see what comes. When you practice this method, you’ll find that it’s easy to write from your heart, and your writing will be more emotionally connected than it has ever been before.

Andrea Young wrote this piece to the prompt of Zebith Thalden’s mixed-media artwork “Kolob Terrace Moth (Dentron infrarufus).” It’s hard to articulate what makes it so emotionally connected: it just is! I especially love the opening sentence: how could anyone not keep reading. Andrea’s opening just came, without conscious effort—and we’ve heard that happen so many times in our Writing Prompt of the Week online gatherings that we’ve concluded it can’t be coincidence.

It seems I'm always hungry these days. He convinced me to live off the grid, to build our homestead. We built on a forgotten graveyard. Our soil is nothing more than dust to dust, plagued by lack of nutrients. I dance for rains. Rejoice when a shoot emerges to breathe air for the first time.  The corn resembles something not yet dead. The shriveled cobs wave in the wind making paper whispering sounds. In the dark it resembles drunken zombies swaying with the movement of the clouds.

I'd never seen the night sky as it appears over my piece of earth. Light dots peeking through navy velvet. I connect the dots like I did in childhood and watch my story unfold.

I  stepped back from the precipice determined to remove the mask that has shielded me, protected me, allowed me to live in the shadows. I exposed my raw naked nerves to be held in loving hands. 

Let the Imaginative Storm inspire you! You can find an archive of intriguing writing prompts on the Imaginative Storm Circle and on our YouTube channel, as well as daily prompts on Instagram @imaginativestorm).

Click here to order 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 buy it from your favorite online retailer. It’s also available on Kindle and all other e-book platforms.

In spring 2023, the online video course, Write What You Don’t Know: Imaginative Storm Writer Training, will be available. Join our mailing list now for updates and a 25% discount.