Prompts

A Bug In Your Ear

JOURNAL WRITING PROMPTS by Thomas C. Buell

1.     Speculate on why you spend as much time as you do in certain places: a TV room, a drug store. Or why you’ve read a book again, or seen a movie.

2.     Sketch in words a person who doesn’t know you’re watching: the girl looking at her reflection in a store window as she redoes her face, the man in the park peeling a banana.

3.     Catalog the noises around you now or the absences of noise.

4.     Write a poem. Keep it concrete and avoid rhyme. If you’re stuck for a start, begin with the first four words of William Carlos Williams’, “The Red Wheelbarrow” or “So much depends upon…” Or try writing one or two haiku.

5.     Revise yesterday’s journal entry. Try to improve it by addition or subtraction. Try a new word or figure of speech here and there. Cross out all unnecessary words.

6.     Research an area you know nothing whatsoever about, either in the library or through interview: Tibetan prayer wheels, pickle manufacturers, etc.

7.     Describe an incident of minor importance but one which you felt vitally important at the time: getting a parking ticket, missing an appointment, dropping a tray in the cafeteria. What were your intense reactions at the time?

8.     Evaluate your stand on a controversial issue: gun control, medical marijuana, taxes. Analyze the reasons for your beliefs.

9.     Discuss a situation which you find intolerable and then suggest solutions: identity theft, child abuse, etc. Blow off some steam—Stand back and reconsider your reactions.

10.  Report on a local event or development: the campaign appearance of a national figure, marathon race, etc. Make it a press report.

11.  Emulate the writing style of a sports writer or columnist you frequently read: write it straight or in parody: “Dear Abbey.”

12.  Advertise a product for TV or magazine. Sell some VW’s or plane tickets, using adman or huckster language. (Adman-someone who works in advertising. Huckster-a person who writes radio or TV advertisements.)

13.  Quote a passage from a book you’ve been reading, a passage which strongly appeals to you. Or a poem. Then try to pinpoint why the selection has had such an impact on you.

14.  Rewrite a passage from an editorial which you find particularly turgid. Or choose a business document or government report and rid it of jargon. Retaliate massively by putting it in plain English.

15.  Condense an article or textbook chapter that has particularly interested you.

16.  List a series of overworked figures of speech. Refurbish some by using them in a new way. Example: “Quick as a rabbit…slow as a snail.” The teacher rabbited his way thought the corridors, then snailed to a stop at the door of the principal’s office.

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD JOURNAL by Robert O’Neal & Alan C. Love 

1.     Don’t just drive to work. See what goes on around you. Write about that. Don’t just walk up a stairway. Look at who goes up ahead of you. Write about that.

2.     Don’t just sit down in a classroom. Smile at the person next to you and say something (they’ll probably talk). Write about that.

3.     Don’t just watch TV. React to it. Hate it, love it, but always know why you love it or hate it. Write about that.

4.     Don’t just think about reading books. Read one. Like it or leave it, and make up your mind why you did. Write about that.

5.     Watch a news program. Charge yourself up about one scene you see. Write about it.

6.     Go into a hardware store you have never noticed before. Pick out the most absurd and useless gadget you’ve ever seen, and write about seeing it and about its absurdity.

7.     Tell about trying to hitch a ride to school, or finding a parking space.

8.     Write about today’s weather. Make it important to your feelings.

9.     Go to school an hour or two hours early or to the grocery store. See how different your school/store looks at that time of day.

10.  Crawl underneath your car and look out between the wheels. Imagine you are a family dog, and how the world looks to him from under your car.

11.  Try another beauty parlor or barber shop. Write about it.

12.  Try being a redhead instead of a blond, and write about how it happened and what the results were.

13.  Pick up a newspaper off the vendor stand, read the lead story (on page 1, the blackest type), and react to it. Write.

14.  Or turn to the editorial page and read the first editorial, and write an imaginary letter to the editor (that would be an excellent journal entry).

15.  Go into the student lounge. Pick out the most attractive male (female) in the whole bunch. Deliberately try to sit down by him (her) and talk. In your journal entry, tell what happened.

16.  Buy something to eat you’ve never tried before: Yogurt, pastrami, anchovies, smoked oysters. Write about it.

17.  Make friends with a strange dog. Write about that.

18.  Try opening an easy-open package. Describe what happened.

19.  Pick up a stick or a stone, really look at it, and describe it.

20.  Buy a pet, a kissing Gourami, for instance, and tell about it.

21.  Tell how you “blew” a test, or forgot to buy a Blue Book for one.

22.  If you’ve never flown, go out to your airport and watch the planes take off, and write about it.

23.  Or watch the passengers boarding a flight, or coming off a flight. Or just go into the restaurant-grill and order a cheeseburger and imagine you were going off to Acapulco or Paris, and write that down as your journal entry.

24.  Borrow your dad/mom’s shoes and slip your feet into them and write how they must feel to him/her.

25.  Write down a list of things you said you would never do again, and how you feel about them now.

26.  Make a new friend.

27.  Go to bed, and just when you are drowsy, imagine you have just turned into a zebra, a camel, a leopard, an elephant, an alligator. Write it down.