Here’s a writing prompt for you today: summertime!
What does summer evoke for you? Good feelings? Bad? Does it make you think of a carefree childhood? A horrible time at camp? Your parents getting drunk? Surviving the city swelter? Mosquito bites? Ice cream? Songs? Beach/lake/pool/farm/river?
Think about this season and the memories you have associated with summer. Is there a certain event or feeling you can hone in on to craft a paragraph or short story? Or, maybe even a chapter of your book?
Get into a space where you feel comfortable and think about summers of the past. Where were you and what did you do? How did you feel? Use your five senses: smell, touch, taste, hearing, and seeing.
Here’s my trusty step-by-step process for those who like that sort of thing, but write the way that feels best to YOU!
- Freeform write. Don’t think, just write what happened.
- Read what you wrote and add what you missed.
- Read this new version, and now edit it for clarity or emphasis.
- Read it through and ask yourself what would make this interesting to my reader?
- Edit again, tailoring it to make sense into a story. This may mean deleting large portions and I always recommend when you do that to save the original version in another document because you may want to revisit it.
- Add details if not already present. Think of the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. (One of my favorite things about a rain storm is that I can smell the rain in the air before it arrives.)
Happy writing!