Creative Writing Prompts to Jump Start Your Journaling

Journaling is a therapeutic form of personal writing that can open up avenues for creative, expository, and reflective writing.  We can start out journaling in one direction but change it over time easily.  Since we have an audience of one when we journal, we can be flexible with ourselves as writers and fluid with the writing process and our writing outcomes.   
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People who journal tend to start with a diary-style journal.  Many will take note of things that happened during the day, major events, and changes they observe in tone, emotion, and atmosphere.  This kind of journal writing can be useful to someone who is processing complicated emotions, keeping track of changes at school or work, or looking for keys to what works best in life.  Reflecting on life can help guide writers through a healthy process of looking back when considering the present and the future.

About an equal number of writers use their journals for creative writing.  Getting a writer’s journal or a creative writing journal started might be a bit of a slow process for some, but it can provide opportunities for collecting ideas on paper which can be used in more formal writing. 

Sometimes writers are rudderless on how to make the shift from a reflective diary to a creative journal, but starting off with creative writing prompts can help.  Once the process starts and the creative ideas start flowing, the momentum tends to build up and sustain itself.  

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How do we Fall into Writing Slumps? 

Sometimes, we fall into a creative slump and don’t write.  There are a bazillion reasons why this could happen—having a baby, not having a baby, busy at work or school or life, stressed about everything from politics to family to health, running around, not running enough, and the list could go on forever.  Suffice it to say that all writers fall off the writing wagon sometimes.  It happens. 
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Once we stop writing, getting back into the habit of writing again can take a fair bit of effort, but the payoff is worth it.  The challenge rarely is that we don’t want to write.  The challenge is usually that life has tossed us around and we lack the energy to dedicate towards another activity so the thought of starting a writing journal can be a bit overwhelming. 

These kinds of writing slumps, when we just do not write at all, happen to everyone.  They can feel like writer’s block where we are out of ideas and have no idea where to start.  Sometimes, a slump can feel more like an overwhelming task, like one more time-consuming thing that we are not excited to add to the to-do list.  Or a slump can feel like a skipped obligation.  It can feel like a party you were supposed to attend but skipped and now everyone is mad at us for it so we are reluctant to return. 

Writing slumps happen.  That can drain our creative juices and attack our emotional well-being as we struggle through them in an attempt to get back into a healthy pattern of writing. 

​No matter what style of writing we are attracted to: creative, personal, reflective, or nonfiction, moving out of the writing slump and into a productive writing pattern can make all the difference for our writing. 

Today, people are more overburdened than ever before. Political tensions, climate change, and economic instability create the perfect storm for a stressed-out society. If you aren’t yet journaling, get The Simple Guide to Journal Writing and get started.

What Steps Can Writers Take to Reinvigorate Creativity? 
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1. Organize a Writing Space

Your writing space can be just as important as your writing schedule.  If your space is too cramped or too noisy, writing there can be challenging.  Creating a space that suits your style and needs can improve the likelihood of success.  What does your writing space need?  A standing desk, a cup of coffee, a reference book set—create a space where you can write that includes all the accoutrements of a successful writer.

2. Set a Writing Schedule

Writing schedules vary by person.  Many successful writers recommend writing on a daily basis for a short period of time (1-4 hours).  For those of us who work at professional jobs, have families, or have outside obligations, dedicating daily time is impossible. 
If you are able to write on a daily basis, do it.  If not, then set a schedule of what days and times that you will write.  Your schedule should include at least one writing session per week and should set a specific amount of time that is only for writing.

3. Use Writing Prompts to Stimulate Ideas

When people start into a new writing schedule, the ideas may not yet be available for creative work.  Not to worry, writing prompts can be incredibly useful in this situation, because they can give us ideas to use to start writing no matter what genre we are using—personal writing, nonfiction, or fiction.  When we are up against writer’s block, lacking motivation, or stuck in a rut, writing prompts can do wonders to get the creative juices flowing again. 

4. Stay Accountable to the Writing

​Stick with it.  Even though it may be a challenge at the beginning to stick with the schedule, try your best.  If you fall apart and miss a day or a few days, do not let it detract from your purpose of creating a journal writing practice.  Instead of letting a failure bother you, just start again the next day and try to meet the writing goal.  If you are the kind of person who enjoys giving yourself a treat, then give yourself something nice after meeting a certain number of writing goals (i.e., take yourself out for a nice lunch with a friend after your first month of successful journaling).  Anything that reinforces your writing practice can be useful in supporting your journaling. 

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Creative Writing Prompts  
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Choose three writing prompts from below to jumpstart your writing.  If any of these prompts move you towards a larger piece, like a story, a novel, or a memoir, then go with it and follow that piece to its end. 

Otherwise, try out different prompts and different writing styles to get your writing practice started.  Try to write 500-2000 words for each prompt. 

Personal Writing Prompts

• Think back over the last year.  What is a goal that you met?  Write about that experience, why it went so well, what surprised you about it, what was interesting about it, and what hopes it gave you for the future. 

• Over the last year, what goal did you not meet?  Write about that experience, why did it not go well, what could you have done differently, what about it was disappointing, and what changes did it inspire in you?

• Think back over the last five years.  Choose a happy moment to write about.  What happened?  What did you gain?  What colors, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures do you recall?  Include a detailed description of the setting and the people involved.  What emotions, thoughts, and reflections came to mind about this scene?  Include them in your writing.  If you were to share this story with someone else (i.e., a younger family member), what details would you want to share with them? 

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Nonfiction Writing Prompts

• Brainstorm a list of ten questions that of things you would like to know or learn.  Then choose one of those questions and research it.  Detail what you learned from your research into one or more blog posts, articles, or letters written to an interested audience.  Share the information you gained with readers who would be interested in the same topics that you are.  What could you teach them about this topic?  

 

• Think back to your favorite family member.  This can be a person who has passed or a person you know now.  Describe the details of this person that make him/her so attractive or interesting.  Retell the story of a good time had with this person. 

 

• Imagine that you will lose your memory in 2 hours.  All your memory will be lost forever.  The only memories that you can save are those that you are able to write down in the next 2 hours.  What are they?  Keep in mind that only what you write down will be kept, so jot down every detail, every joke, every connection, every description that you possibly can in that time period.  

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Fiction Writing Prompts

• These days, everyone has a phone in hand and people talk on the phone in public without any concern for the people around them.  Write out a conversation between two people on the phone based on what you could make out by listening to one person talking.  You are welcome to go into public and listen to someone talking on the phone to get an idea for how it sounds to hear one side of a conversation.  You are welcome to include only dialogue or to include the description as well.

 

• You walk into a bar/café/restaurant/library (pick one) and see a person sitting alone holding a walking stick, wearing a top hat and long coat, and whistling.  Tell the background story of this person, what happened to this person, what this person’s motivations are, what this person is doing, and what this person makes you think about.  If this character inspires a story, write an entire story, but if not, then write at least a characterization.

 

• Describe a room after a dramatic incident (a murder, a party, a pact made, a peace treaty signed, etc.).  Describe the objects, smells, smoke, light, and furniture in the room that tells you what happened in this room.  What does the full ashtray of stubbed-out cigars tell you?  What does the empty bottle of wine under the nightstand tell you?  What do the popped party balloons tell you?  Create this story by describing the room.​

Sometimes, starting a new activity is the greatest challenge.  We may be stuck in a rut of old habits and behaviors that no longer suit us, but making the transition to incorporate new activities can be challenging.  When writers want to get back into the habit of journal writing, start out using prompts to rejuvenate that creative mojo and after a short time, the writing ideas will flow on their own.  

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Is life sometimes overwhelming? Do the blues get you down? Today, people are more stressed out than ever before, but journal writing can help. Jumpstart your journal writing practice with this course, which is designed to help you establish a journal writing practice.