winter

prompts & things

It’s strange how winter behaves. This one is long; it stretches its wide limbs outwards, then back in. Winter freezes things over. It freezes the air and with that, the sound. A silent winter is this.

There is a lot of art in the world. As an art therapist, I notice a lot. Notice the color, the feel, the sound. Now, in early January, my lips and tongue are frozen and cannot produce their usual sounds. These are words.

My dictionary is here, pages strewn across the floor. Some pages are draped upon my furniture, others sit in messy piles. Words don’t look the same on paper. They don’t mean anything here. Where is their sound, their voice? Your voice? Where do they go in the winter?

The mind is powerful enough to create sounds even in the frozen months. They stay wrapped up, like a caterpillar in its cocoon.

Soon spring will arrive, where everything surfaces. Words and the sounds they create in our minds and mouths will sprout like plants.

Thinking of things to write about is a tough task. Personally, I have tremendous difficulty coming up with a topic or prompt to write about. As of late, I've used writing prompt generators as a sort of match to light up my brain and get me into my writing funk. Though the stories I write based on these prompts seem to make no sense, they are fun to experiment with and are definitely a productive warm-up to serious writing. I have been using this writing prompt generator. What I love about this one is that it gives you short snippets of key information to include in your story. The info I was given to this story in particular was:

• An art therapist
• A dictionary
• A long winter
• Genre of fantasy (didn't exactly use this!)
• A random quote (that I can't remember, honestly)

If I didn't see fit, I didn't use all the information given, which challenged my brain to think of other things to include! I hope this helps! Time to get those brain juices flowing, author!