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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Writing Prompt: Two’s Company
This week’s writing prompt / dance with a partner do-si-do
I’ve been doing more writing exercises with index cards. I used this one today in a journaling group and it’s a lot of fun. But it does requires at least two people! (We did it with three in Monday’s workshop.)
One person writes an opening sentence establishing a character in a situation. Then you alternate — one person writes a sentence beginning with “Fortunately…” and the other writes the next beginning with “Unfortunately…” and you keep going back and forth 3 or 4 times, building an increasingly wild story together.
Example:
- “Maria decided to rob a bakery at 3am.”
- “Fortunately, the door was unlocked.”
- “Unfortunately, so was the bear cage next door.”
- “Fortunately, the bear loved croissants…”
It’s great for a workshop because it teaches cause and effect, narrative momentum, and the value of surprise, and it’s entertaining. At the end you can each read the full story aloud. We did two rounds, switching who writes “Fortunately” and who writes “Unfortunately.”
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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Writing Prompt: The Life You’re Living Now
LGBTSr’s Weekly Writing Prompt
We spend a lot of journaling time mining the past. But what about the present? The life unfolding around us this week, this month, this season? Not who we were, not who we are or who we want to become.
Consider a few prompts that address the present we’re living in an write about one, more, or none of them!
- Your current relationship with time. Do you feel like you have enough of it? Where does it go? What are you giving it to willingly, and what is taking more if it than you want to spend?
- The work you’re doing right now. What feels meaningful? What feels like noise?
- Who you’re becoming. What is changing in you? What older version of yourself are you letting go of, or want to?
- Your body in the present tense: How are you sleeping? Eating? Moving? What is your body asking for that you keep postponing?
- The relationships currently shaping you. Who are you spending time with, and how do you feel afterward?
- What you’re avoiding—an honest look at the one thing or things staring back at you that you just don’t want to do.
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LGBT Senior’s Weekly Writing Prompt: Happiness? Fulfillment? None of the Above?
This week’s writing prompt
Happiness is a word we use easily and define poorly. It can mean delight, relief, pleasure, laughter. Contentment feels quieter, perhaps as a sense that our life is enough and we’re pleased with it. Fulfillment might feel deeper still, as if we’re living the journey rather than being on it.
For this one-page flash writing, don’t overthink it. Write honestly. Let your pen move before your inner critic takes over. And don’t hesitate to be contrary. If none of these things seem applicable to you, say it. Maybe you think it’s nonsense. Maybe you think happiness is a marketing tool for the wellness industry. That’s perfectly okay.
However you define them, consider this: What might you want to feel them, or more of them: A change in routine? A conversation? More rest? A creative risk? Less noise? More calm in the chaos of the world around us? More connection?
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New Feature at LGBT Senior: A Weekly Journaling Prompt – Making Up Our Minds
I’ve been conducting thematic journaling workshops for two years now. I always start them with a short writing prompt everyone can do in ten minutes or less. I’ll be putting these on LGBTSr now as well. Ready, set, write! – Mark
This week’s writing prompt
March can’t make up its mind. One day it’s a winter coat, the next day it’s a windbreaker. Two days ago it was 82 degrees, now it’s freezing.
But March isn’t the only one hedging. Many of us have something in our lives right now that can’t quite decide what it wants to be — a relationship in a holding pattern, a project that keeps almost getting started, a metamorphosis that has us half-caterpillar, half-butterfly.
Write about your own “coat or no coat” moment. What in your life is stuck between two things right now — between starting and stopping, staying and leaving, hoping and letting go? What would it feel like to finally just decide?
