Someone was telling me the other day about all these sites that offer inspiration for blog entries, so I checked one out this morning. The first question I got was: Can you live without electricity for a month? (Answer: Off the top of my head…sure. It wouldn’t be pretty, though.)
But then I got these other gems:
Do you like progress?
Are you sad? Why?
Why do you think nobody understands you?
Name three reasons why you should get out of bed tomorrow…
Is the inner you aligned with the outer you?
Seriously? These are supposed to inspire you to blog? Or even just …inspire?
Some time ago I saw a post at Lynn Viehl’s blog about a book filled with writing prompts—using them as exercises for your mind (I think it was The Writer’s Book of Matches, or something similar). That’s always a great idea—taking fifteen minutes out of your day to just write anything based on something you see in front of you. No worries about finishing, or showing it to anyone: nothing but writing for the sake of writing.
You can find prompts everywhere: National Geographic, the nightly news, a poem, even a trip down to the grocery store. In school, I remember that our teacher gave us The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg (I borrowed the images below from the linked site), and set us loose to write short stories based off his art. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, and with that particular book, I recommend that you get familiar—because not only is his art surreal and creepy, and lovely—it really is great brain food.
In fact, leave your name in the comments (feel free to share what inspires you), and on Wednesday I’ll do a random drawing and give away a copy of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Even if you don’t like to write, it’s still a great book to have around.
