PROMPTS TO INSPIRE YOU, PART TWO, by Adele Gardner, aka Max Jason Peterson

Want a dose of inspiration? I'm back with more prompts! 

As Adele Gardner, I host Adele's Writers Cafe, which is a live Zoom-only inspiration workshop for micro poetry and prose. These free sessions are made possible by Hampton Public Library. If you're interested, feel free to check out the ongoing collection where you can find past, present, and future workshops in the series (ages 18+, free, but registration required for each individual session via Eventbrite):

https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/adeles-writers-cafe-micro-poetry-prose-3651389

For more details on how these work, as well as additional prompts, feel free to look at Part One in this series.

Here are some more prompts I've created for your enjoyment! As always, feel free to use any part of the prompt, or let it take you in a whole new direction. You can even use these to further explore a character or situation in an existing work in progress.

If it is helpful, try writing something for each prompt for ten minutes with a timer. You may not finish your idea in that time. And you most likely won't get beyond the rough draft stage regardless. But having this short a timer can help us just get our thoughts out there, in some form that we can play with later. 

Travel or Transportation: So many ways to go places, so many places to see! Sometimes we feel a need to get away, find a chance of scene, or simply a change of mind. Think about traveling in the mind’s eye through books, media, and/or the imagination. Or science, science fiction, or fantasy traveling via portals, teleportation, space shuttle, interstellar ship, or tesseract. Or physically visiting another place on Earth near or far (as near as another room in the house; as far as the next universe or beyond); it might be a visit to family or friends, a road trip, or a daily commute. Will you stay in a haunted hotel? Imagine any form of conveyance, ancient, modern, or futuristic.

Time Shenanigans: We all need more time, don’t we? Explore time’s impact—or our impact on time. Have fun with time travel, time loops, déjà vu, past lives, alternate versions of characters in the multiverse when time branches off through different decisions or circumstances. How about the effects of relativity? Or time passing at a different speed for people on different worlds? Humans may experience time moving too slow or too fast—and sometimes we can change our own perceptions of time, living in the Now. Explore your connections to time, including how you want to spend it.  

Pets: The creatures we cohabit with change our lives. There are so many types of pets, historical, modern, and otherworldly; maybe your character chose one, or maybe the pet chose them. Pets can reflect personalities, but also influence them. Maybe the character defines themselves by these pets and wouldn’t live without that type of pet; or maybe this is a reluctant (though caring) pet-parent who made an exception in an otherwise pet-free life.

Missing: Is your character missing someone or something? This could be the emotion of longing for something or someone currently at a distance or out of reach, or the actual fact of someone or something being lost. The character might feel they are missing part of themselves but not be sure what the missing piece is. Or they might be hunting for something specific, or trying to reclaim a part of themselves temporarily lost by the wayside.

Family dynamics: Your protagonist has great powers—be they magical, scientific, superpowered, or as part of a pantheon or mythology. Write a letter from their point of view to a parent or sibling, providing insight into the familial relationship and a greater understanding of the protagonist. 

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Adele Gardner's poetry collection Halloween Hearts is available from Jackanapes Press:

https://www.jackanapespress.com/product/halloween-hearts

Themes of Halloween, horror, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ray Bradbury. The press has seasonal discounts.

Max Jason Peterson has two stories in the new anthology Coastal Crimes 2: Death Takes a Vacation from Wildside Press.

PROMPTS TO INSPIRE YOU, PART ONE, by Adele Gardner, aka Max Jason Peterson

As Adele Gardner, I regularly run micro poetry and prose workshops every spring and fall, titled Adele's Writers Cafe. They're free, hosted by Hampton Public Library, and held entirely online. I now have a collection where you can find past, present, and future workshops in the series (ages 18+, free, but registration required for each individual session via Eventbrite):

https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/adeles-writers-cafe-micro-poetry-prose-3651389

All the sessions are live via Zoom, but they're not recorded, in order to protect the copyright and privacy of the authors for these new drafts. I create new prompts for each inspiration session in advance, compiling them on a handout distributed at the end of the event (I always strive to provide at least one more prompt than we'll probably get to, so you have something to take home and work on later). 

During the session, I give participants ten minutes per prompt to write, write, write. Then anyone who wishes is welcome to share what they created. There's no instruction or critique, just positive vibes. Participants may write short-form poetry or fiction.

We expect the work to be rough, our first thoughts and impressions, but there's so much insight, humor, and beauty that comes out of these sessions. Some participants have gone on to publish more polished versions of their work. Sometimes it just helps us get unstuck in our ongoing creations. (For example, a novelist might use a prompt to explore the psyche of a character.)

Since we could all use a lift to our inspiration from time to time, how about trying a few of these prompts on your own? Knowing that these are just rough drafts and you're not investing much time may help free your creativity. So set your timer for ten minutes, turn off the editor in your brain, and enjoy!

Returning: Your protagonist has been away a long time. Maybe they never wanted to come back; maybe they always longed to; maybe they’re drawn against their will, like returning to the scene of the crime. Maybe the old homestead is exactly the same, or maybe it’s unrecognizable or ruined. Maybe it’s time travel, and everything goes wrong—or your hero saves the day. Write about why they need to go or run; what’s stopping or driving them. Or who, because this can also be about “Until we meet again.”

Home: Sometimes home isn’t a place—but sometimes it is. Sometimes it arrives when one thought it wasn’t needed. Sometimes it’s the one thing our heart desires, and we go hunting high and low. And sometimes we discover it was there all along. Home carries a lot of emotions—positive, negative, or in between. Write about the concept, the reality, the people, the physicality. Focus on the sensory and/or the emotional, but take us there.

Song for ________:  Write a short piece paying tribute to someone in your life you’re thankful for, or about someone you admire whom you’ve never met: someone (any species) who’s had a positive impact, inspired you, changed your life for the better in some way, or whom you simply love.

Hard times: Sometimes adversity brings us closer. Sometimes we aren’t sure how we’ll ever get through them. They challenge us and bring out our best, our worst, our highs and lows. Show characters facing adversity or setbacks. This could be written from the point of view of “looking back” on times the character has survived.

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Adele Gardner's poetry collection Halloween Hearts is available from Jackanapes Press:

https://www.jackanapespress.com/product/halloween-hearts

Themes of Halloween, horror, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ray Bradbury. The press has seasonal discounts.

Max Jason Peterson has two stories in the new anthology Coastal Crimes 2: Death Takes a Vacation from Wildside Press.