Continuing on with our journey into how to remove the dreaded writers block without spending any (or very much) money, I’m going to show you a simple but powerful tool – the Story Jar writing prompt.
For anyone who would like a fun way to inject a a little creative boost to their writing and generate a few stories on the fly, this really works to get the brain ticking over in ways that you may not have thought possible before.
A bonus is, this can also work in a. group situation so try it with your writing group or even with your family around the dinner table or the sofas and see just where a group imagination exercise can take you. Beats mindless scrolling any day!
What is a Story Jar I hear you ask?
It’s basically just a container of some sort filled with pieces of paper – each bearing a story element such as a character, setting, object, goal, theme, genre…. it could be anything you wish.
You can be as creative as you like, grab some coloured paper and put a different element on each colour such as characters on pink paper, settings on brown paper, genres on yellow paper….you get the idea…
Then you can select a colour depending on what element you want to concentrate on – or, go rogue and stick them all on the same colour – oh the risks that could come from that!!!
All you need is a container, paper scraps, a pen and your imagination.
Steps to create your own
1 – Choose your categories
Examples could be: Characters; Settings; Objects/motifs/ Conflicts/problems or Emotions.
2 – Write one idea per piece of paper.
Examples could be: Character – A retired circus performer; Setting – A haunted coastal village; Object – A broken compass; Conflict – Keeps reliving the same day; Emotion – Longing
3 – Fold or stack your prompts and put them into the container. make sure you have plenty of each category so that you have loads of variety.
4 – Draw one from each category (or mix and match) and start writing.
So, it you were to draw the following – A young inventor, an underground library, an ancient key and a phobia of spiders…You could write about a curious inventor who discovers an abandoned library beneath a city and uncovers a key that unlocks a hidden past – but, he’s so afraid of spiders that he struggles to make his way through the labyrinth of spider webs that have accrued over the many years that the arachnids have lain here undiscovered and unchallenged…
Oooo, my fingers are itching to type already!!!
I’m wondering what the funniest or strangest story prompt you’ve ever come up with is?
Share them in the comments…
Let your imagination run wild and happy writing!!!
Anita x
Meanwhile, everybody keep their fingers crossed for a successful grade for my Masters please, altogether now….. CROSS!!!
is basically a set amount of time where you decide that you are not going to spend any money…on anything apart from your normal direct debits. Household bills aren’t included in this as i don’t think the mortgage company are going to agree if you tell them that you’re not going to pay the mortgage this month because its due date falls in your no spend time….
If you want to keep a track of how much you are spending, then make it visual. There are many ways to do this, and you can be as simple or creative as you like with it. Keep a money jar and put into it the money that would have spent if you had gone to the shop. Write a list of how much you haven’t spent. Go all out and get yourself a spreadsheet on the computer and input all of your savings. When you can visually see what you are saving all the time, it gets easier.
So, set a date, set a length of time and plan ahead. Use whatever psychological tricks you need to in order to help you to achieve your goal and go for it. You’ll be surprised at just how imaginative you can be when you really don’t want to break into that fiver.
that is reduced for quick sale because it cannot be sold after its best before date.
All of these can be very helpful at Xmas time as, usually just for those closest to me, i will make something unique and individual for them that is suited to their personality and cannot be purchased in the shops. 
fabrics that i felt suited them. It is harder with the boys, but bean filled phone holders and crocheted blankets have gone down really well. All these cost me is the price of the individual parts (fabrics/wool/charms/chains etc) and the time it takes me to do them.
One thing that i haven’t yet mentioned is that i also cook. And i quite enjoy cooking
pickles and preserves and so, most years, i put together home made hampers of pickles, chutneys and jams for family and close friends. I have the staple ones that i make every year of orange marmalade, lemon marmalade, strawberry jam and sweet chilli jam and then i will usually cook one or two others just to vary it up a bit.
Ones that i can recommend are rhubarb and ginger jam, green tomato chutney (this is a brilliant way to use up those green tomatoes you grew that never got round to turning red), spiced apple chutney and one of my favourites that i can never do again i called autumn chutney and was a random assortment of vegetables that i had grown and needed making into something. Really wish i’d written that recipe down, it was delicious, especially with some cheese on crackers.
packaging them. Up until now, this has always been with a roll of cellophane and a pretty bow, but with my plan to help the environment out and stop using single use plastic, that plan has now been scuppered and i’m going to have to find another way of doing it for next year. No idea what yet, i have another 9 months to figure that out though. Watch this space.
Another source of help can be friends and family, even if they don’t have the time to do the physical stuff for you, they may be willing to have a conversation to help you, and the older generation are generally a minefield of information about the make do and mend lifestyle. There was a time when they didn’t have a choice, and they didn’t have the internet to help them either. If they wanted something, they had to either work out a way to provide it or go without.
I would also leave space for comments and reflections. What if something doesn’t happen the way you wanted it to? What are you going to do then? How are you going to stop yourself from feeling a failure when real life decided to kick you up the Jacksy just to make your day? These are important points to note as well, Life can truly be a right pain in the arse sometimes and there is very little we can do about that, but we can do something about how we react to it.
i had to purchase two new front tyres and have a wheel alignment on my car? Cost me over £200. That was a pain in the arse. Wasn’t expecting it. But it did save me from having a tyre blowout which could and probably would have cost me an awful lot more, and maybe not just in money.
Piskie Dreams 