the creative minimalist
The site needs a bit of a refresh, so as they used to say it is under construction. As such things might not look right, work right, or even feel right. But only until everything is new and shiny. After that… who knows.
This month has been productive despite global chaos, and I have noticed the importance of maintaining a positive and intentional creative practice.
This week’s creative field notes include how I am keeping up with February Album Writing Month and coming up with a few other creative ideas.
January has been a difficult month for this creative minimalist. However, the festival of Imbolc is as good a time as any to make a creative new start. This week’s vlog explores recent creative highs and lows.
As we begin the new year of 2025, I’m excited to share my collection of journals with you in this week’s vlog. I have a new daily planner, as well as music and fiction journals, and various vocabulary notebooks.
My word of the year for 2025 is odyssey. It both a journey with a destination in mind and plenty of wiggle room for distractions.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
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I found some flowers turned to fluff… new life will soon arrive.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.
Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest
This week’s creative prompt is Adventure. Each week we begin with a single word and expand it to inspire writing fiction, journaling and other creative activities. These creative prompts, are to give me, and anyone else who wants to join in, some inspiration for our creative work.
adventure — an unusual and exciting or daring experience, excitement associated with danger or the taking of risks, a reckless or potentially hazardous action or enterprise, engage in daring or risky activity
Adventure can be used as a noun or verb.
escapade, deed, feat, trial, experience, incident, occurrence, event, happening, episode, affair, stunt, caper, romp, antic, quest, crusade, campaign, venture
Adventure often denotes excitement, life is an adventure, and yet there is always the element of the unknown in a true adventure, and the unknown brings risk and even fear at times.
Let the prompt ‘adventure’ inspire you in any area of creativity that you are interested in:
Let’s expand the word a little further…
A Fiction Writing Prompt exploring the word adventure to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
I closed the bag. If I had forgotten anything, it was too late. Now the adventure could begin.
I recently packed my bags and left on my own adventure across the world. Being a slightly obsessive individual, I may have checked and double-checked everything I put into my case and carry-on. All this was after seemingly endless debates about what I should or should not take.
This prompt aims to capture that moment and more. It is a moment of anticipation and uncertainty. A moment that should affect every sense of your protagonist.
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. The challenge is to describe the feelings being experienced. Use your memories of travel and adventure. Try to draw on metaphorical adventures and transfer those feelings into this prose.
Enjoy and may your writing be an adventure captured in words.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts and write a short piece of fiction.
We can use journals to record our adventures. Adding tickets and other ephemera turn a diary of events into a living memorial. The phrase life is an adventure is used by many, capture that adventure, your life in your journal.
I now have ‘adventure’ written on the board above my computer. I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘adventure’ inspire your music, photography, and painting this week.
As always, these creative prompts are optional and entirely open to your interpretation. Use them as a starting point for a short story, something a little more grandiose, or any creative project or idea.
As mentioned before, this isn’t a ‘challenge’ but the prompts can be used that way if you want. If you do create anything using them, I would love to see or hear about it. Leave a link in the comments below, or tag me #thecreativeminimalist on any social platform.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.
Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.
Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest
This week’s creative prompt is Rest. Each week we begin with a single word and expand it to inspire writing fiction, journaling and other creative activities. These creative prompts, are to give me, and anyone else who wants to join in, some inspiration for our creative work.
rest — allow to be inactive to regain strength or health, be placed or supported to stay in a specified position
Rest can be used as a noun or verb.
relax, ease up/off, let up, slow down, pause, have/take a break, ease, inactivity, respite, time off, time out, breathing space
Rest denotes inactivity, a time to do nothing. So, can we make rest work as a creative prompt? Let’s see…
Let the prompt ‘rest’ inspire you in any area of creativity that you are interested:
Let’s expand the word a little further…
A Fiction Writing Prompt exploring the word rest to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
It was too much. I was overwhelmed. My mind couldn’t cope. I had to rest.
The modern world is fast-paced. We are beset with deadlines, appointments, expiry dates, the time to upgrade, alarms to wake up and take medicine. We move from minute to minute, day to day, doing whatever our day demands. If we are fortunate, we may get a few weeks each year on holiday, a holiday full of new demands and time pressures.
Sometimes this all gets too much, and that is where this prompt begins. We should all know what it feels like, and so we can call on our memories and experiences in our writing here. However, this is fiction and so…
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. Use your experiences and memories of feeling overwhelmed to bring reality to your fiction. A truism often used is write what you know. To develop your writing, exaggerate and elaborate on these experiences.
Enjoy and may your words rest easy on the page as you create and write.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts and write a short piece of fiction.
Making time for writing, creating and doodling in our journals is a great way to rest. Despite alarms often being the cause of stress for me, I have several set to remind me to stop and open up my journal. And if you’ve watched my YouTube channel, you’ll know I have and use several journals.
I now have ‘rest’ written on the board above my computer. I am also on a journey of pilgrimage and discovery at the moment, so making time for some personal rest as well. However, I am still working away and creating, I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘rest’ inspire your music, photography, and painting this week.
As always, these creative prompts are optional and entirely open to your interpretation. Use them as a starting point for a short story, something a little more grandiose, or any creative project or idea.
As mentioned before, this isn’t a ‘challenge’ but the prompts can be used that way if you want. If you do create anything using them, I would love to see or hear about it. Leave a link in the comments below, or tag me #thecreativeminimalist on any social platform.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.
Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest
This week’s creative prompt is Night. Each week we begin with a single word and expand it to inspire writing fiction, journaling and other creative activities. These creative prompts, are to give me, and anyone else who wants to join in, some inspiration for our creative work.
night — the period from sunset to sunrise in every twenty-four hours, the night as the interval between two days
Night can be used as a noun or adverb.
darkness, dark, hours of darkness, nighttime, dead of night, nocturnal
And don’t forget nyctophobia, the fear of the night.
Night being an old goth at heart, I like the night and all things dark. However, it also makes me think of rest and expectations for the day to come.
Let the prompt ‘night’ inspire you in any area of creativity that you are interested in:
Let’s expand the word a little further…
A Fiction Writing Prompt exploring the word night to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
It was dark. All was quiet. It was the night before…
Almost everyone knows the phrase, ’twas the night before Christmas’ even if they don’t know the rest of the poem from which it is taken. This phrase conjures up the expectation of what is to come.
This prompt is all about that magical conjuring. Something is going to happen, and before it does, your role as a writer is to set the scene. The prompt explains that it is dark, and then it offers the reason for that, it’s night… or is that the reason?
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. The challenge is to describe the situation. How does what will happen after affect what is happening now, in the before? Will your fiction describe happy or sad events? A scary moment and impending fear?
Enjoy, the choice of context is yours, but if you are writing something scary, and it is the night, you may want to leave a light on.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts and write a short piece of fiction.
Do you count nights or sleeps until an event, or do you count days? I have been doing both recently as I wait for something. And there will be more about that in the blog soon, I am certain. But before the blog, my journal is and has been full of countdowns.
When it comes to writing in our journals, we may pick them up at specific times, as soon as we wake from the night, or at night before we go to sleep. It doesn’t matter when, but it made me think that night is more than just something we can put in our journal.
I now have ‘night’ written on the board above my computer. I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘night’ inspire your music, photography, and painting this week.
As always, these creative prompts are optional and entirely open to your interpretation. Use them as a starting point for a short story, something a little more grandiose, or any creative project or idea.
As mentioned before, this isn’t a ‘challenge’ but the prompts can be used that way if you want. If you do create anything using them, I would love to see or hear about it. Leave a link in the comments below, or tag me #thecreativeminimalist on any social platform.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
namaste
d
xox
If you enjoyed this post please support my writing by making a donation of any amount.
Sign up for my (ir)regular newsletter to keep up to date with my creative adventures, including special offers, and join me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Pinterest