Writing Prompts - Free Writing

Today is my birthday.

Free Writing: or stream of conscious writing or first thoughts or timed writing.

Free writing is simply putting pen/pencil to paper and writing without thinking about what you’re writing. This is not writing that you analyze or comment on. You can write about anything. To get started, it might help if you time yourself, starting by making yourself write, non-stop for five minutes. If you go past that time, great, but don’t quit before the time is up.

Write for 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes every day.

Free Writing subjects

1. Describe the light coming through a window
2. Begin with “I remember.” Write down lot of small memories. If you fall into writing about a large one, great. Doesn’t matter if the memory is resent (5 minutes ago) or from the distant past.
3. Write about something for which you feel strongly, either positive or negative. Write about it as though you love it. Then flip and write about it as though you hate it. Then flip again and write about it perfectly neutral.
4. Pick a color, any color. Take a 15 minute walk and notice all the things that are that color. Write about what you’ve seen.
5. Write in different places. A Laundromat, the mall, the park, a doctor’s office, a parking lot…pick up the rhythm of the place and write about what’s going on around you.
6. Write about your morning, afternoon or evening. Be specific and detailed, write about everything you did.
7. Visualize a place you really love, a corner in a room, sitting under a tree, waiting in the doctor’s office, be there, give details; sights, smells, sounds, colors, tastes, use all your senses.
8. Write about “leaving.” Approach it anyway you want. Write about leaving home in the morning to go to work/school, leaving to go on a trip, leaving someplace for good, leaving home for the first time, running away, the death of a friend/loved one.
9. What is your first memory?
10. Who are the people you love?
11. Write about the streets of where you live.
12. Describe a grand-parent.
13. Write about:
swimming
the stars
green places
the most frightened you’ve ever been
how you learned about sex
your first sexual experience
the closest you ever felt to God or Nature
reading and books that changed your life
physical endurance
a teacher you liked/didn't like
a fear, or fears, you have overcome or may still have
Be honest, be detailed
14. Open a poetry book at random, grab a line, write it down and continue from the point where it ends.
15. What kind of animal are you?