Advent Scribbles: daily December writing prompts
Tiny creative writing prompts for a busy month
(For those of you newly here for the overthinking of TV, part of my work-work involves the teaching of creative writing, so sometimes there may be posts like this. I am large, I contain multitudes, I absolutely overuse that Whitman line.)
Revisting last year’s daily writing prompts for Advent - the idea is that you take maybe 2 minutes, maybe 5 minutes, 10 at an absolute max, to do a bit of writing each day. Small, manageable tasks to try to help you get back into the habit of writing or making things, before the year’s done.
This is a reshuffled list of prompts from last year, with some tweaks - you can indeed do them again, because they’re starting points for you to make your own thing, not riddles with only one solution. I hope they’re useful to some of you. (Also: you can write them on your phone while out in the world; you don’t need to be at the desk with an important, beautiful notebook filled with intimidating, heavy blank pages.)
Here we go:
Sun 1st. Free-write (take the first line and keep going, going, going for 5 minutes - set a timer and if stuck return to the first line and start over): “December is…”
Mon 2nd. “Jingle Bells, Batman smells…” - remember that playground variation on ‘Jingle Bells’? Write your own parody of the song’s chorus. Your first line doesn’t need to rhyme with ‘bells’, but it might help to know that the following words are options: ‘sells’, ‘wells’, ‘swells’, ‘Kells’, ‘cells’, ‘dells’, ‘gels’, ‘hells’, ‘quells’, ‘knells’, ‘Nell’s’, and ‘tells’.
Tues 3rd. What have you “tasted too much”1 of this year? (It doesn’t need to be a literal food - interpret as you like.) Make a list.
Wed 4th. 5 minutes: write about something you remember being fascinated by/curious about/scared of as a child.
Thurs 5th. Take 5 minutes and jot down every cliché/saying/phrase about cold weather you can think of/you’ve heard recently.
Fri 6th. Look at yesterday’s list. Pick one of the items on it and spend 5-7 minutes either exaggerating it as much as you can or making it literal. (e.g. ‘it’s desperate out there today’ - write about the weather ‘desperate’ to find a job/love etc. ‘The wind would cut you in half’ - and so it does.)
Sat 7th. Free-write, 5 mins: “The best gift I ever…”
Sun 8th. Write a haiku (a tiny poem - 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third) about the hot beverage of your choice.
Mon 9th. Someone is “lost in fleeces”.2 Write about it for 5-7 minutes.
Tues 10th. Listen to/watch this song (you may already be familiar with it). Jot down any of the lines that resonate with you, or any thoughts that pop into your head as you listen.
Wed 11th. (It might be helpful to get out your jotted-down notes from yesterday.) Pick one of these: Silent Night / In The Bleak Midwinter / Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening. Copy-and-paste (if on a device) or copy out one verse/stanza - either way, leave or create an empty line between each existing line. Add your own counterpoint (as with the ‘Peace on Earth’ bits in ‘The Little Drummer Boy’) in those spaces. It might be supporting the original - or arguing with it. Up to yourself.
Thurs 12th. Write down 10 things you love/appreciate about a particular kitchen or household appliance (a toaster, a kettle, a dishwasher, a blender, a washing machine, a toilet, a shower, etc). Try to be as specific as possible.
Fri 13th. Write about ‘luck’ (good or bad or both) for 5 minutes.
Sat 14th. “He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake. / The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.”3 List 5 things/sounds you heard today/recently. Try to be as specific as possible.
Sun 15th. Free-write, 5 mins. First line: “I can’t wait…”
Mon 16th. “His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!”4 Similes are ways of describing things by comparing them to other (often more familar) things so we can picture them more clearly. Make a list of 10 things that could be “like an orange” or another fruit of your choice.
Tues 17th. “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer / had a very shiny nose… / All of the other reindeer / used to laugh and call him names / They never let poor Rudolph / join in any reindeer games.” Write the letter Rudolph sends in to an agony aunt/problem page.
Wed 18th. Write ten sentences - no need for them to be connected - using one of the following structures: “____ powders ____” or “____ stills ____” or “____ ruffles ____” (feel free to mix-and-match if stuck). E.g. “Mary powders her face, dust powders the TV screen, the angry man powders the breadsticks into crumbs, awkward silence powders the gathering…”5
Thurs 19th. Pick someone you dislike (it might be someone in your daily life or it might be a public figure - politicians can be useful for this one). Much like Ebeneezer Scrooge, they are visited one night by the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Write down - in notes or sentences, up to yourself - what each spirit shows this person.
Fri 20th. Haiku time again (5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third): write one that includes a detail about a particular smell (pleasant or unpleasant, up to yourself).
Sat 21st. In the Northern hemisphere, this date marks the winter solstice (officially around 9.19am this year in Ireland, or so the internet informs me), the shortest day/longest night of the year. Write a conversation between ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ about this.
Sun 22nd. Free-write, 5 mins. First line: “After Christmas we'll…”
Mon 23rd: design a greetings card for a celebration on an alien world, or in a fantasy universe, including a message inside.
Tues 24th: write a letter to Santa, The Universe, Creativity, a deity, or some other force (whether you believe in it or not) including at least one thing you’re grateful for and at least one thing you hope/wish for in the year to come (even if the rest is a list of complaints).
How did you get on? Did you write something (tiny) most days? Let me know in the comments.
Quote from Emily Dickinson’s poem (291, better known by its first line, ‘It sifts from Leaden Sieves’).
Quote from Robert Frost, ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’.
Quote from ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’ by Clement Clarke Moore, better known as ‘The Night Before Christmas’.
Once again borrowing from Emily Dickinson’s ‘It sifts from Leaden Sieves’.
Omg this inspired me. I’m going to write for each day!