Weekly Challenges

Right now, this very moment, how are you feeling? Making art of your emotions can be as literal or as abstract as you like, and is a great way to stay in touch with your feelings. Represent your mood on the page.

In poetry or prose, write about someone who has long been stuck in an endless cycle and has finally managed to break free. Explore the contrasting emotions – first despair, then joy – felt by your character. 

Set the pace of a poem or short story in slow motion, with the crawling actions within the piece leading up to a final, anticipated outcome or resolution, good or bad.

Come on, don’t be a couch potato! Get up off the couch and paint a couple of couch potatoes chilling out in their living room, or depict any other idiom you’re fond of.

Write a poem, story, or nonfiction piece about the demolition of a building you or others have grown attached to. What memories or people do you associate with the structure – and what does its destruction now symbolize? 

Your physical characteristics change with the seasons … Take it away from here!

Show us a visual representation of your favorite meal or spread, complete with side dishes and dessert, as you might see it laid out on special occasions – or just in a dream!

Write about a couple, or a pair of roommates, touring a new apartment or house for sale. Delve into the intricacies of their relationship or friendship as you explore the physical space through their eyes.

Look up Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day, identify and define it, and use it to great effect or in as many varied ways as possible in a short story or poem.

Take your favorite idiom, lines of poetry, or quote (no more than 2-3 sentences) and use an entire sheet of paper to write it out in the most beautiful or most experimental typography you can dream up!

If you were to be reincarnated as any type of person or creature, in any country, in any future era, what fantastical future would you create for yourself?

Wherever you are at this very moment, pause and take a breath. Use as many senses as you can to absorb your surroundings. Write a descriptive poem or observation about your environment.