Writing Prompts to return

I hope that I turn this leaf and return to a routine I enjoyed for some time.  This routine is once, maybe twice, a week sitting down to spend between 20-30 minutes to think and write from a prompt.  This almost always creates a new path for more writing time as I find the writing prompt brought something I was pleased with onto the page, pleased enough to spend time editing and writing more on the topic.

My favorite prompts are usually from song lyrics, so I will post three here to share as inspiration for whomever that may read and decide to spend some time writing from a prompt as well. I have also linked the song title and musician's name in case you are inspired by their music.

Tips: Choose a prompt. Weigh a few possibilities. Then write without interruption for 12-15 minutes. If, while writing, you’re at a loss for material, shift to another of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste); or shift your perspective from high to low, from close to far away; or consider the journalist’s five questions—who, what, when, where, why. 

1.  "Behind my eyes you're fixin' to see the dam break"  - Samantha Crain, "The Dam Song"

2.  "And they'll teach you not to pray to light, without you pray to rain."  - Danny Schmidt, "This Too Shall Pass"

3.  "And my soul is thirsty for a forest or a songbird."  - Alexa Woodward, "Songbird"

Remember, these are copyrighted lyrics, so do not include the lyric in your own writing, but let the scene or thoughts they inspire be what paints your vision.

Lone Time

Lake Overholser, Oklahoma

I think I know why I have been in a funk lately.  I haven't spent long quiet lonely hours in nature this summer.  Instead, I holed myself up in the house every evening watching something on hulu.com or packing and unpacking.  I haven't spent much time outside photographing nature, have entirely me time.  I noticed that was a phase I took on during my second year in Berea, usually lasting a month or almost two.  When I first realized this, I was talking with a friend who does something similar but during Winter and moreso into books, but more sociable in late Spring and part of Summer. I recognized that in June or July I would go for long meandering walks, music playing, spend hours on trails in the woods with or without a camera, and always alone.  Call it meditative alone-ness, call it me time, call it whatever you will, but I think I missed it this Summer and I realize now that is why I have been facing a major funk (in addition to some other stress-inducing and emotional stuff).  A funk that has felt like a sink-hole depression.

So, Saturday during the day I am going to heal.  I have some obligations that evening, but I will get up Saturday and Sunday and go away from the city and be in some rural space and realign myself with my being.  I hope it will help. And I will need to make more room for this the rest of October.... I don't want to know what my Winter will be like without this lone time.  So here we go.