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Summer can offer writers new opportunities due to the change of schedule that often comes with this time of year. This is true for adults and young people alike with schools on break and more time spent outside. All these changes can come with unique writing inspiration, but it can be tempting to put your writing on the back burner with all the demands of summer schedules.
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Exercise Your Summertime Writing Inspiration
Summer can offer writers new opportunities due to the change of schedule that often comes with this time of year. This is true for adults and young people alike with schools on break and more time spent outside. All these changes can come with unique writing inspiration, but it can be tempting to put your writing on the back burner with all the demands of summer schedules. In fact, I would recommend you launch into this summer with a writing exercise journal. It can be as simple as a spiral-bound notebook or as fancy as one of those pretty blank books you can pick up from bookstores.
Writing Inspiration #1: Walking in Someone Else’s Shoes Summer tends to take people outside with everything from summer social gatherings to gardening to simple walks. With this in mind, it’s a great time to stretch your creative muscles by imagining new settings and new places. One great writing exercise involves doing an online image search for “summer garden” or “vacation spot” or maybe “exotic locale.”
Writing Inspiration #2: Up Close, Very Close Many of us regularly need to practice our description skills. Sure, we’re no longer in a literary period where you can spend pages and pages describing clouds and know the reader will stick with you through it, but description continues to be important. As we describe a character interacting with objects in the environment, we believe more in the story and we get to know the character a little bit better.
Writing Inspiration #3: My Love is Like a Red, Red, Nose One of the most delightful tools in a writer’s kit is comparisons. Comparisons come in many forms: the simile (and it’s more sober, literary big brother, the metaphor), the analogy, and even the allusion exist primarily to bring something to a moment that goes beyond the obvious and offers either a little emotional goose to the moment or an extra dash of clarity. As a result, practicing your comparison skills will make you a better writer.
Writing Inspiration #4: Inspired by Calls Sometimes having to come up with a story when you’re only looking at a blank screen is much harder than coming up with a new idea based on a prompt. One way I sometimes do this is by looking at Calls for Submission. For instance, the blog Publishing…and Other Forms of Insanity publishes a fresh “Calls for Submission” post every month and these make wonderful story prompts.
No Failing Grade So now you have four great writing inspiration exercises for your summer exercise notebook. Give one a try and see what you can come up with. With exercises, you can’t fail. No matter what you do with them, you’ve done right. So have fun with them, explore, play, be silly or serious, whatever works for you. You’re going to be surprised by what you come up with as you scribble in this journal. I’ve written whole books inspired by one line, one comparison, one thought from one exercise.
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