Your creative writing homework

Journal Topics

Remember, when we write in journals, we are focusing on expression first. Don’t worry about form or mechanics—simply get your ideas out there. Tell your internal editor to chill out. Try to write without stopping for at least fifteen minutes.
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1. What is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?
2. Write about one perfect day/hour/moment.
3. Desert-island lists (books, CDs, mementos, etc.)
4. Describe the song in your head using shapes, colors and textures.
5. What are you most like: a poem, a novel, a song, or a play?
6. Write an advertisement for yourself.
7. Write status updates for someone famous/infamous.
8. Are you a sketch, painting, photograph or sculpture?
9. Where were you ten years ago? What were you doing? Who were you with? What was most important?
10. Describe five people in exactly five words each.
11. Write a third-person voice-over of your day.
12. Write song lyrics for a really boring, ordinary thing (feeding the cat, taking out the trash, riding the bus). Good practice for situational irony.
13. Write a really bad essay question or word problem.
14. Best/worst meal, vacation, weekend, holiday, birthday.
15. Write about an intended punishment that was nothing of the sort.
16. Write about the light at a certain time of day.
17. Describe your day by its different light sources.
18. Pick a picture from the bag. Tell the stories of the people you see.
19. When did the world get bigger for you? Smaller?
20. What do you miss the most?
21. How did you learn the meaning of any one of the following: family, sibling, parent, grandparent, step-, half-, foster-, adoption. (You may do this one several times, with different choices.)
22. Freewrite: You are to write your thoughts as they come. Simply transcribe. Do not stop or censor. You may choose this option more than once.
23. Write a poem in the style and rhythm of a school PA announcement.
24. Write a dictionary definition for someone.
25. Imitate another writer or written piece. Parodies optional.
26. Personification: Write from the perspective of an inanimate object. Possibilities: your locker, a ceiling tile, a pen, a paintbrush, a knife, a gun, a pill.
27. Unopened box.
28. Rhyming: make lists/columns, then write something that rhymes. Meaning is secondary.
29. List poem: things to celebrate; things to apologize for; things I wish I said; things I’d take back.
30. Ode poem: praise someone or something, and address him/her/it directly.
31. Write down a dream as completely as possible. No commentary, just reporting.
32. Movie last lines: Pick a famous last line and use it in a new piece of writing.
33. Picture response: Imagery, details, beyond borders, dialogue, characterization for people in the picture, who is the photographer?
34. Direct address: Write as if you are speaking directly to an object or person. Option: use personification.
35. Metaphor practice. List/pick one/expand
36. Ambiguity: make sense out of nonsense; make nonsense out of sense.
37. P.O.V./personification. Write about a storm from the perspective of: a lightning bolt, a tree, a raindrop, a leaf, a cloud, a lightning rod, etc.
38. Music response.
39. Write about a room you haven’t been in for three years.
40. Images: sound of ice; rust; a breeze; two or three ____; a crinkled note.
41. Images: first star; bare branch; sound of the wind; taste of salt; feel of old denim.
42. Sound first. Make a list of words that sound good. Combine them somehow. Meaning is secondary.
43. Ways to waste an hour.
44. Get lost.
45. Observation: go to a public place; observe and transcribe.
46. Documents that provide characterization: excuse note, police report, resume, incident report, referral, letter of recommendation, etc.
47. Write an excuse note. A parent to a school, Adam and Eve to God, etc.
48. List of names/characterization.
49. Pick five words and write about them.
50. Write something using only what you see in front of you.
51. Pick a word that makes you smile or frown, and write why that happens.
52. Write about your weekend.
53. Write about an event in which you remember feeling very awkward.
54. If you could change one thing about yourself or your life, what would it be?
55. One’s flights of fantasy.
56. The first time you hated someone.
57. Write about what you admire.
58. Favorite memory.
59. Character study about one person in the class without saying the name. (Note from Mr. W: Be honest, but not mean.)
60. What does the saying “blood runs thicker than water” mean to you?
61. Would you rather be deaf or blind?
62. What do you think happens when you die?
63. Write about something you heard someone talking about in the hallway.
64. Write about something you see in your surroundings.
65. Write a story with an ironic ending.
66. Write about a time when something turned out unexpectedly.
67. If you had a superpower, what would it be? How would you use it?
68. If you were an evil genius, how would you take over the world?
69. Something that bothers you.
70. What season reminds you of love, and why?
71. Pots-and-pans robots.
72. Your biggest fear, and why.
73. Write a fictional story about animals with human characteristics.
74. Write from the perspective of food and you are being eaten.
75. Write a scene in which everyone’s body language is different.