See how many creative ideas you can develop from these three prompts.
Email them to me if you like – and I’ll give a small prize to the best one – sue.r.johnson@outlook.com
Three more prompts next Thursday!
Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, I have cancelled my workshops on 3rd April and 1st May. There is a good chance that the workshop in June won’t run either.
Please check this website for details and/or contact me by email at sue.r.johnson@outlook.com for further information.
In the meantime, I will be posting regular writing prompts and quotes on this website and on social media.
Treat this as an opportunity to get that novel written. Make a list of the creative projects you would like to complete in the next three years – and make a start on one of them now.
Try the following prompt and see where it takes you:
‘She’d been told not to go near the empty house…’
We are going through difficult times. It is very easy to get drawn into a spiral of panic, especially when faced with social isolation, empty supermarket shelves and conflicting news reports.
Try to look on this as a time for achieving something different with your creative work.
Aim to do three of the following each day:
Joy Thomas and I offer a monthly workshop in the Community Room in Tesco, St Oswalds Road, Gloucester – usually on the second Wednesday of the month.
The workshops run from 10.30 – 12.30 and cost £8.00.
Tea, coffee and biscuits are provided.
For further details and to book a place, please contact Sue on 01386 446477.
THESE WORKSHOPS ARE TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK.
Our meetings usually take place on the first Wednesday of the month at Jellypicklejam Cafe in Vine Mews, Evesham. The meeting is for anyone who is interested in anything creative – and we also welcome readers. (Every writer needs readers!) We start at 10.30 and stay until about midday. The aim is to give people a chance to network, discuss ideas and promote anything they may be doing. Please bring any leaflets, business cards, books – and come and enjoy great company, good coffee and lovely cake. For more information, please contact me on 01386 446477.
THESE MEETINGS ARE CURRENTLY SUSPENDED DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK.
This is now available as an audio book! If you would like a free promo code to download this – then please get in touch via the contact page of this website.
You can listen to a free sample on my Amazon page – https://www.amazon.co.uk/e/B0034PZG70
Buy yourself a notebook (if you don’t already carry one). Use it to jot down ideas for stories, brief descriptions of people and places and fragments of overheard conversation.
Use the information to create short, experimental pieces. Aim to finish one every day. Aim for 100 words. (This can be developed and expanded into a longer story).
Treat the stories and information you gather like money in the bank or a harvest of fruit or vegetables.
I’ve had my ‘Year of Living Dangerously’ which involved lots of published work, a collaboration with an artist, co-writing with a historical fiction writer (more news about that project in due course) and ending with a link up with a quilt-maker. (Again, more news soon).
My workshops at Number 8, Pershore, are now in their fifteenth year and are going from strength to strength. I am also having great fun at The Suffolk Anthology, Cheltenham and Tesco Community Room, St Oswald’s Road, Gloucester running workshops with Joy Thomas.
My Year of Living Magically will involve completing a play about 17th century witchcraft and a quartet of Regency novels.
I also have a long list of places I’m looking forward to visiting.
Watch this space!
Almost exactly a year ago I went into a shop called Quilters Corner, opposite the library in Evesham, Worcestershire. It was a wet Saturday in March 2018. I was attracted by a beautiful quilt hanging in the window. It was log cabin pattern, using a variety of dark green, rust and cream fabrics. As a former patchwork addict, it was like a magnet. However, more surprises were to come! Inside the shop I came face to face with a black and gold Naumann sewing machine similar to the one owned by my Great Grandmother and passed on to my mother on her marriage to my father. It was the machine I learned to sew on – with varying degrees of success!
I stood gazing at the machine as time span backwards, did a loop the loop and left my brain spinning. I left the shop, went to the nearest café and sat writing a torrent of ideas. A year later, the result is this book. So far, this book has exceeded any expectations I had. The book signing in Quilters Corner (held on a wet Thursday in early April) was an amazing event (photo of me with Charlie Gannon, owner of Quilters Corner). The book is selling well – I have a small following in Germany – and appears to be leading to other projects I would never have thought of doing. I am also researching another novel set in Liverpool and Belfast.
Several people told me not to bother with this project. I am so glad I disregarded their advice and just did it. 
The book is continuing to do sell well on Amazon and via my website www.writers-toolkit.co.uk
I’m developing some of the ideas as short stories. Never waste a good idea by only using it once!
