MONDAY MOTIVATION

The Write Prompt

From last week’s writing prompt: the last car.

The last car I had was a green Aerostar. Call it the Mom-mobile or as we sometimes referred to the car as the green bomber, which we “bombed” around town in. It was my first vehicle with a cup holder, albeit, a not very good one. Any sharp turn would send a large cup careening onto the floor mat, invariable dousing all in its path with liquid contents. Not a good thing if it was pop or a mocha, more tolerable if it was just water. That minivan saw several trips up north and one trip east, including Gettysburg. It went from containing baby seats to carrying young men, who learned to drive behind its steering wheel.

When I use a writing prompt, I usually like to include as many senses as I possible, but the above piece turned into more of a quick visual history of what went on inside my last car. However, that’s the fun thing about writing prompts. You can interpret them any way you like! The last car could be the last car you drove in, rode in, the last one your grandma bought or the last car of a train, also known as a caboose. There isn’t necessarily a right way. The prompt is just there to get you going. 

I found an interesting post on the Tweetspeak blog, a resource for writers, which likened finding writing prompts to a method of reading and responding. Isn’t that essentially what we do as writers? As we read books or articles, we often think of what our response would be to the words we’ve just taken in. The world around us is filled with writing prompts as we take in sights, hear sounds, smell scents and odors or taste the savory and sweet. The prompts surround us. We just need to take the initiative and write about them!

What’s your favorite way to find writing prompts?

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