Hi friends — I'm going to be taking a tiny baby hiatus from posting prompts, probably just for this week. The reason for this is actually very exciting! I'm starting to get the IMPROMPTU Instagram account rolling, and I just need a bit of time to get myself organized. Once things get rolling with @impromptuprompts on Insta, it will be all prompts all the time JUST YOU WAIT. Keep your eyes peeled and ears to the ground (and other idioms).
Read this beautiful poem, "Portrait of the Horse", by Jaswinder Bolina.
Write a poem or short story titled "Portrait of the _________" (after Jaswinder Bolina). You fill in the blank. Portrait of the Elephant. Portrait of the Child. Portrait of the Ghost. What does the figurative elephant-child-ghost represent in your life? Is it the noisy anxiety that wakes you in the morning? Or is it the silence between you and your mother? Are you sometimes the elephant-child-ghost? Or is it something you wish you could be? Something you pretend to be to avoid something else? How do you feel about it, how do those feelings shift—do they move the way an elephant or child or ghost moves?
Read the poem "Words Written Near a Candle" by Tess Gallagher.
"..it is all right to make a distance
of a nearness, to say 'Boat, I have left you
behind. Boat,
I am with you.'"
With these words in mind, write a goodbye.
Maybe it's goodbye to an ex-lover, or someone who's no longer alive. To a best friend you've grown apart from. To a past self. To a home, literally, figuratively. To your beloved copy of "Watership Down", drowned in the bathtub (never happened). To yesterday. To 2017.
I often come up with these prompts with poetry in mind, but I like to keep them loose enough that they can be adapted for fiction or other forms of prose. You could, of course, write a goodbye story. You could even write it in the second person (gasp!).
Go forth. Sink into some heart feelings. I know I will.