Here is a collection of writing ideas to keep you going for days as our schedules start to fill with fall commitments and shorter daylight.

Let the Seasons’ Personas Inspire You to Write

It’s the change of seasons now. Some of us feel crisp, chilly air as September wanes. Others of us may find other ways to note the seasonal change—rain starting, or rain stopping; shorter days and longer nights; school buses letting their charges out at the curbs, their red stop signs extended and warning us to stop; school crossing guards and student crossing guards; pumpkin spice lattes; TV series returning to the air, pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins, and Halloween candy on the grocery store shelves. This makes me think up writing exercises, of course.

Here’s this week’s idea. Write from all four of the ideas. Some of the writing may be longer and some shorter inside each of the segments:

I. The seasons change. What do they have to say about that?

1. How would Fall eulogize Summer?
2. How would Winter eulogize Fall?
3. How would Spring eulogize Winter
4. How would Summer eulogize Spring?

II. If a season of the year were putting out a birth announcement for the next season, what would the birth announcement say?

1. Summer announcing the birth of fall.
2. Fall announcing the birth of winter.
3. Winter announcing the birth of spring.
4. Spring announcing the birth of summer.

III. If one season were falling in love with another season, what love letter would the season write?

1. Any season to any other season.
2. Or perhaps one season is a philanderer and writes more than one season a love letter.

IV. If one season were turning down the lover, what would that season’s Dear John letter be?

V. If each of the seasons had last wishes, what would they be? Who might they address those wishes to?

1. Summer’s departing thoughts?
2. Fall’s
3. Winter’s
4. Spring’s?

I hope that this persona writing exercise inspired by the current change of seasons offers opportunities for writing many pieces, whether they be poems, prose or flash. You might find that the segments come together under one title as a lyric essay.

Let Before and After Perceptions Inspire More Writing

When I was a girl, I read my mother’s women’s magazines cover to cover--Good Housekeeping, Family Circle and Woman’s Day.

What really hooked me were the before and after pictures and stories–house remodels; makeup, wardrobe and hairdo makeovers; pictures of clients involved in weight loss programs, stories of bad marriages turned good after counseling. The whole world started looking like before and after–the way to school in the morning and the way home after you’d been in school all day, your teeth with braces and your teeth after the braces were taken off, the puppy adopted from the pound the day you brought her home and the puppy weeks after she was a member of the family, watching TV before dinner and watching it after you did your homework.

Make a list of at least 10 “Before and  Afters.”  Next, choose one that intrigues you at the moment. Add in details about what you are remembering. See where your writing takes you. You might a poem that is a list of before and afters or you might write separate essays each of which starts with a different before and after.

For instance:

My idea of a college wardrobe before I left for college was mix and match sweaters, skirts and slacks as seen in Seventeen and Vogue. My idea of a college wardrobe after I was at school a couple of months was blue jeans and sweatshirts. It was so hard to spend time on getting dressed and keeping clothes looking good when I had papers to write and ten books to read each week. Jeans never meant as much to me as they did at the University of Wisconsin. Especially in winter–long johns underneath, wool socks, Clark’s desert boots, a warm coat, hat and gloves. I would make it to class and peel the layers off in the overheated buildings. Us girls began to look the same that year. I know at least one young man in one of my classes felt ripped off by the nature of our wardrobes. He was not an attractive person, but he felt righteous enough to say something about how all the women were certainly letting themselves go. . . .

To keep on writing each day, choose a different before and after from your list and write about that one.

Or make up a new before and after each day that you sit down to write. Describe the before part in detail. Then switch to the after part and describe it in detail.

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Let us know in the comment box below how these writing exercises are working for you. Do you feel like sitting down to write? Did you surprise yourself with some new material?