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
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 “remember”. 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.
remember — have in or be able to bring to one’s mind an awareness of (someone or something from the past)
Remember is a verb.
bear in mind, keep in mind, not lose sight of the fact, not forget, be mindful of the fact; take into account, take into consideration, recall, call to mind, recollect, think of; put a name to, place; reminisce about, think back to, look back on, hark back to, cast one’s mind back to, summon up, muse on; take a trip down memory lane, don’t forget.
Remember recalls the past and yet, that recollection occurs in the present and depending on what we are remembering it can direct our future.
Let the prompt ‘remember’ 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 remember to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
This is the moment, what it is all about. This is what I would remember.
We live in an instant society. With the right resources, we can do most things when we want. I can’t help feeling that this leaves many of us with a sense of loss, a soullessness, which means we rarely focus on the experience of those ‘instants’. It becomes too easy to simply move on to the next moment.
This prompt is all about realising one of those moments and capturing it. This isn’t about describing a walk to the shops, it should be about something that is life-changing.
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. The challenge is to describe something that is probably outside your experience. Fiction is always a balance between the imagination and things we know and understand. Making the unknown believable is an admirable writing skill.
Enjoy and may your words be memorable as they are captured.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts, and write a short piece of fiction.
This week marks Armistice Day. Many people around the world will stop and remember the end of the First World War. Many veterans who have been on active service, share little about their experiences, and yet they remember. We remember their service and the events as well, giving thanks and praying that the future is peaceful.
I now have ‘remember’ written on the board above my computer. I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘remember’ 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 Veil. 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.
veil — a thing that serves to cover, conceal, or disguise
Veil can be used as a noun or a verb.
covering, cover, screen, shield, curtain, layer, film, mantle, cloak, mask, blanket, shroud, canopy, cloud, blur, haze, mist
surround, swathe, enfold, cover, cover-up, conceal, hide, secrete, camouflage, disguise, mask, screen, shield, cloak, blanket, shroud, enwrap, canopy, overlay; obscure, shade, shadow, eclipse, cloud, blot out, block out, blank out, obliterate, overshadow, enshroud, mantle, becloud, obnubilate.
antonyms unveil, expose, uncover
Veil refers to covering or concealing something, however, the uncovering or revealing aspect is our focus this week.
Let the prompt ‘veil’ 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 veil to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
Now, just once every year, at the thin time, the veil is withdrawn.
It’s Halloween or Samhain. All Souls’ Day follows All Saints’ Day. We remember the dead. We celebrate the dark. The thin places are thinner. The veil between the living and the dead is all but non-existent.
Here is your opportunity to write something scary. Although, I would like to add that I don’t think the dead, spirits or what may or may not be on the other side of a thin place are inherently evil or frightening. However, we don’t want my opinions to get in the way of scary fiction.
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. Once you have created the setting, the challenge is to build the anticipation. Draw your reader into the situation, get the hairs on their neck to stand on end, and then reveal what lies beyond.
Enjoy and may your words appear on the page as you remove the veil.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts and write a short piece of fiction.
Religions, philosophies, and everyone on the street has an opinion on what lies beyond the veil of life. I’m not a fan of the popular version of Halloween, it commercialises and trivialises a serious aspect of life. I find the pagan Samhain, and the Christian Saints’ and Souls’ days much more enlightening. They represent and symbolise the thin times when the separation of life and death is more easily crossed. Of course, pumpkins, bats, and skeletons are symbols too!
I now have ‘veil’ written on the board above my computer. I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘veil’ 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 Autumn. 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.
autumn — the season after summer and before winter
Autumn is a noun.
fall, autumnal,
Autumn specifically means a season in the calendar year, it is a predominantly British term, so feel free to use your words, e.g., fall
Let the prompt ‘autumn’ 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 autumn to stretch the literary muscles. No rules. No word counts. Simply write and explore.
It was the autumn of life, but as the golden colours of the leaves showed, there was a beauty to be found.
Nouns, as I was told at primary school, are naming words. You give something a name and that is it. Simple, something is what it is. However, autumn is a wonderful example of using a word’s meaning as a metaphor. No longer is autumn, or fall, just a season each year, but it is also a season that can be applied to almost anything.
This prompt relates autumn to a period of life. The end is nearing, and yet there is plenty to seek and find. It looks at finding a positive from a seeming negative.
The context for this prompt is entirely up to you. You could be writing about the life of the narrator/protagonist, of someone else, or even a civilisation or organisation. The challenge is to see the positive despite the situation.
Enjoy, and may your words be as colourful as the leaves upon the trees.
Set a time limit, use the following random prompts and write a short piece of fiction.
Autumn, along with spring, mean change to me. Spring is all about birth and growth, while autumn is about winding down. Nothing is permanent, life is all about change. However, I often find myself writing the same thing in my journal; some things don’t change. Let’s see if using autumn as a prompt can move me forward.
I now have ‘autumn’ written on the board above my computer. I am confident it will inspire me on my creative journey this week.
Let ‘autumn’ 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