Imagine: It’s your last year of university and between assignment pile-on, a daunting graduation project, learning a language on your own, trying to stay fit, and so on you’re pretty pressed for time. When did you last read a book with your own two eyes just because you wanted to?
And you miss writing for yourself, too.
The thrill of story and the rush of waiting for feedback from friends are things you haven’t experienced in a while.
Eh, shite. This is how the last seven or so months of university went for me, too. Many go through similar experiences for a variety of reasons. To people who value spending their time creatively, this makes for a lot of frustration and even anxiety. This is why nearing October 2019 I decided to take a page from the drawing people and come up with a wee little not-actually-ink-tober for those of us who paint pictures with words rather than pictorially.
Right out of the gate, I knew it needed strict time limits. 20 to 40 minutes tops — coming across an entire hour of unstructured time was pretty rare at that point. It should also feel fresh from beginning to end so as to absolutely fucking not join all the university things in my mental category for intellectual chores. Eventually, I realized a social component would be nice as well.
What I came up with is a 30-day challenge that can be a lot of fun (it certainly was for me), show you things about your writing habits you didn’t previously know, open up new possibilities, and amaze your friends with the particularly good bits you end up writing. It’s really simple:
- Make 3 “empty” lists with 10 items each, then ask people to provide one-word prompts to fill them out. Make sure no one has more than one entry per list. You can make it thematic or just let your friends go nuts with it as I did.
- Having lists 1, 2, and 3, each with items 1 to 10, roll dice to determine which list and which word from the list you will write (about, around, literally? you decide) each day. I used a d6 to choose the day’s list and a d10 to pick within said list. Rolling first thing in the morning is best, so you have time to really think about your prompt before you sit down to write. Most of my best ideas coalesced as I walked the 12 minutes between my department at uni and the bus stop.
- Having come up with a base idea, sit down and turn the timer on. The way this challenge is structured forces you to think sideways and find creative solutions. No time for perfectionism, you have to do it in one sitting.
This is the bones of it. Over the course of the challenge, you may sometimes come up with crap or find yourself unable to make anything of a prompt (one of my teachers gave me PARTHENOGENESIS and it didn’t go anywhere), but you’ll just as likely surprise yourself with clever interpretations and some crazy twists due to how the right measure of limitation actually breeds creativity.
It’s also pretty good to test ideas for longer projects and experiment with shiny new techniques and styles. One of my prompts, sword, I used as an excuse to explore a novel idea I’ve had bouncing inside my head for a while. Summer finally let me try my hand at the medieval Norse metre of magic, Galdralag (if any of you reading is qualified to judge my little rhyme, I’d love to be lectured). Myriad was straight-up Stardust fan-fiction. Miasma went a unexpected way and I was advised to put a trigger warning in it. Ephemeral got an artist friend so excited she drew it. And, finally, I actually managed to make something quite bittersweet and wholesome from burial.
The going back to the people who provided the prompts to show them what came of their suggestions makes for a really good time, too. I can wholeheartedly recommend this even to those not particularly pressed for time based on my experience. I suppose it can be a great palate cleanser between big things as well.
