More Creative Writing Homework

Thanks to the students of Creative Writing, semester one for these topics.

The root of the word “journal,” jour, means day. Write every day—or at least as often as you can—and you will be able to lower your anxiety and expectations about your writing. It will open your mind, free your thoughts. Remember, don’t edit as you go. Just write, and follow your writing, wherever it goes.

1. Write about the critic in your head. What does he or she say?
2. Explain the feeling of being inspired.
3. Incorporate the description of the sound of wind in your writing.
4. Describe a feeling by using a color.
5. What color is your soul?
6. When did you realize you’d grown up?
7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be, and why?
8. What is your favorite holiday, and why?
9. What is your worst fear?
10. Describe the sky, from night to morning.
11. A place you hate.
12. How do you feel about the mail?
13. Write about the changing of leaves.
14. Write about things in the clouds.
15. Write exactly what you are thinking.
16. Describe your best friend without giving his/her name.
17. Write about a hospital.
18. Write about one of your summer days.
19. What are you passionate about?
20. What gets you through the day?
21. Describe your day at school.
22. Write about your favorite season.
23. What is your dream day?
24. Describe a scene just by its sounds.
25. Write about your ideal family twenty years from now.
26. If you could pick one season to die, which one would it be?
27. Often, rain makes people depressed, and sunshine makes people happy. Why do you think this is, and what are some other things that create strong emotions for you?
28. Write about a place that has special meaning for you.
29. What is your favorite thing to do, and why?
30. Are we doomed to become our parents?
31. Write about a world without color.
32. Write from the perspective of an inanimate object.
33. How would you live your life if you knew the date of your death?
34. Write about the safest place you know.
35. What would you do if you won the lottery, but you couldn’t spend the money on yourself?
36. You’re an outcast, because you were born with feet where your hands should be, and hands where your feet should be. Write about your life.
37. You’re 37 years old. You almost made a pro soccer team, but you got injured and lost everything. You’ve turned to self-destructive actions. Write about everything.
38. Who is the one person you could spend your life with on an island? What would it be like?
39. What planet would you travel to, and why?
40. Write about your favorite song—how it makes you feel, lines you like, associations you have with it, etc.
41. Write about your favorite memory.
42. Write about a painful memory.
43. Write about a bittersweet memory.
44. Pick a place or region—real or fictional—and describe everything in and around it. Use imagery.
45. Are you afraid of death or not? Why or why not?
46. What makes you who you are?
47. What (NOT “who”) is your greatest teacher? It may be something abstract or concrete.
48. What word are you? Pick only one, and explain.
49. If you could live forever, would you? What would you do? How would life be different?
50. If you could read minds, would you? If so, which minds?
51. If you could go back in time, what would you do?
52. If you could be anyone else, who would you be?
53. If your life was a song, how would it go? What instruments would be involved?
54. Describe, in objects from nature, what is going through your mind.
55. If you could watch the world from the moon, what would you see?
56. If you could be a shadow of any person in the world, who would it be?
57. Describe your life by the seasons of the year. Does your lifestyle vary from season to season?
58. Write about the evolution of your taste in music. Has it changed since you were young?
59. Write about a snow day at your house.
60. Write about the last day of school. What emotions are present? Are there pranks or jokes?

December River

A river told me
today: Don't be the idle
ice clinging to the
banks; be the quick, dark, quiet
water flowing beyond it.