Summary

The web content provides five creative writing prompts to help overcome writer's block during stressful times, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The article acknowledges the challenges of writing during difficult periods, such as a pandemic, and offers five writing exercises to maintain productivity and creativity. These prompts include keeping a gratitude journal with a positive twist on stay-at-home experiences, answering self-help questions and writing down resolutions or goals, responding to a favorite Medium article, finishing a draft by providing insights on the writing process, and imagining what an inanimate object or an absent person might say if they could talk. The author emphasizes the importance of interpreting these prompts freely to encourage writing and ease the difficulty of facing a blank page.

Opinions

The author shares personal experience with writer's block and the struggle to write positively during trying times.
Engaging with Medium content is suggested as a source of inspiration and a means to distract from worry.
Writing down responses to self-help questions or goals is seen as a valuable exercise, even if it's done digitally.
Reflecting on and publishing unfinished drafts can be a way to connect with readers and share the writing journey.
The act of writing, even if it results in a rough draft, is considered preferable to not writing at all, as editing is easier than starting from a blank page.

5 Prompts to Start Writing

Conquer that Blank Page!

A dreaded virus.

Weeks of being stuck at home all the time with what looks like an indeterminate many weeks to go!

Panic buying, declining income or unemployment, and looming recession ahead.

Stressful, stressful, stressful!

And not knowing what to write about and/ or being stuck in writer’s block is the icing on the distress dessert!

I know because I have been there. It feels almost criminal to write, let alone write about positive stuff (of the non COVID19 kind) and certainly not about silver linings. And just when you convince yourself and set about to write, bam! nothing! No ideas at all.

I come to Medium for my daily respite from the worry-wave and for ideas and inspiration. So, I thought why not add the little exercises I am doing to continue writing, collect my thoughts and ensure that my ideas keep coming.

Without further ado, here are my 5 techniques to keep the words flowing onto the pages :

Gratitude Journal (with a twist)
Answering Self Help Questions
Response to Favorite Medium article
Finish that Draft
If Only _____ Could Talk!

1. Gratitude Journal (with a twist)

For the past week, I wrote five things every day that I am grateful for.

Except that these had to satisfy at least one of the two following conditions:

- Occurs courtesy of the stay at home rule

- Things that are annoyances but I am forcing myself to look at them through the lens of positivity

2. Answering Self Help Questions

We read so many articles and guides and self-help stuff. Most come with an exercise we have to complete.

If you are like me, you probably do it but don’t write it down.

Well, time to do that. Write it down!

If you have not read a self-help book in a long time, write down your resolutions.

If you hate resolutions, (sorry if yours was a travel goal!) add your writing goals!

Of course, it can be written digitally. The point is to write in your favorite medium. (Pun fully intended!)

3. Response to Favorite Medium article

Craft a long reply or opinion on an article you read here on Medium. If you read many in a day, first pat yourself on the back then pick your favorite and start composing.

If you can’t remember anything you read, write about how you’re here to get away from the stress of real-life and how you are coping by mindless reading and scrolling.

If that seems too vulnerable, no worries! Go check your profile section for what you clapped and highlighted and try to interpret a common weave- length, genre, tags, headlines. Play detective and have fun chronicling the results.

Worst case: there’s no common pattern — throw it at the community and can challenge your readers to see if they can spot something.

4. Finish that Draft

If you’re a writer, chances are you have a sentence or more languishing in drafts.

Flesh it out and publish.

If it’s too little to fashion into a complete article, give us readers insights into why you started, what got you distracted, why you never finished, or even why it will never get published.

5. If Only _____ Could Talk!

This one is quite creative.

Pick a random object from where you are standing now or a person you can’t see.

What would they say if it/they could talk?

Now free-write for ten minutes. Voila- words get written.

If you notice, none of this is complex or rigid. They’re simple yet ambiguous enough to warrant the interpretation of choice. That’s deliberate because that is exactly what gets me and most people to put down words.

Yes, it will probably make for a crappy first draft or even second and third. But, editing is far easier than staring at a blank page: real or digital.

So, start composing and let those stories bloom. There’s more than enough space for all our stories here on Medium!