Writing Prompts
Wild Writing is not my invented phrase, it came from a class I took with Laurie Wagner of 27 Powers, and who knows, maybe it originated from someone before her. But I like the phrase it suits me and my writing. Basically Wild Writing is stream of consciousness writing.
This year, 2022, has seen a return to writing for me, specifically Wild Writing. I have been slowly working my way up to 20 minutes of timed Wild Writing after the dog and I return from our morning walk at the beach. I started with ten minutes, and when that became too easy to fill, I upped the time to fifteen minutes. Now I am stretching to twenty minutes. I like using a timer because then I don’t have to keep an eye on the clock. I can truly write wildly.
Some days I come back from the walk knowing where I want to start the Wild Writing, other days I need a starting point. That is when I will get out a book of poetry, Mary Oliver and Robert Frost are my favorites, open a random page and look for a word or phrase that strikes me. I will set the timer, open the composition book, line up my four freshly sharpened pencils and begin.
Honestly, I wish somebody would email me a writing prompt every morning. Often getting started is the hardest part. So what I am hoping to provide in the words that follow are some starting points in case you would like to join me in some Wild Writing. How will this help your creative life? Give it a try and see, you might be surprised.
Crossroads
Clothesline
Path
Railroad Tracks
Refrigerator
Train
Spring
Favorite Number
“What I propose to do now is to try listening to my life as a whole, or at least to certain key moments of the first half of my life thus far, for whatever of meaning, of holiness, of God, there may be in it to hear. My assumption is that the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.
For the reader, I suppose, it is like looking through someone else’s photograph album. What holds you, if nothing else, is the possibility that somewhere among all those shots of people you never knew and places you never saw, you may come across something or someone you recognize. In fact — for more curious things have happened — even in a stranger’s album, there is always the possibility that as the pages flip by, on one of them you may even catch a glimpse of yourself.”
~ Frederick Buechner