Creative Writing Prompt for the week of April 18th
This week’s task – try some NON STOP WRITING…
Since my high school Creative Writing class, my favourite writing exercise of all time is Non Stop Writing.
It’s a simple exercise to do, all you need is an egg timer - or something like it, a pen – pencils not allowed as erasing is too tempting, and quite a few pieces of paper.
The rules are simple, set your timer for a manageable length of time – ten to fifteen minutes, clear your head and begin! You CAN’T take your pen off the paper, YOU CAN”T STOP, your pen must stay moving and glued to the paper and you have to keep going as if the gods are making you do it!!
By doing so, you don’t have time to judge what you are writing, you are just letting the words flow – even if those words are damndamndamnidon’tlikethisatall – you HAVE TO keep writing.
Every time I do this I am amazed at what comes out – scraps of poems not yet written get joined together and almost make sense, grocery lists turn into rants, rants turn into stories, sometimes I even create a bucket list of all the things I have to do before I die and it somehow becomes useable imagery of the beautiful places I hope to someday visit.
Anything can happen! It’s a good warm up for a writing day, or a speeding truck aimed to plow though a good old fashioned writer’s block.
It works. Try it!
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Thanks for this prompt, Kate! I have been “waiting for inspiration” for weeks now, to no avail, and I needed a reminder to just DO IT. I’ll let you know how things turn out.