Weekly Challenges

Draw or paint (or possibly photograph!) the kind of cottage or dwelling you might expect to see in a fairy tale or fantasy film. 

Spend one week keeping a gratitude journal, writing down at least one thing you’re thankful for at the end of every day. When the week’s up, take a few minutes to reflect on the process.

In poetry or prose, write about a character visiting a psychic and being told their fortune through tarot cards or tea leaves. What is revealed to them? Does your character take heed?

Draw, paint, sculpt, or photograph your zodiac sign. For an extra challenge, add other birthday-month elements: make your birthstone color prominent, or add a spring setting if you’re a Taurus, etc.

Write a poem in the form of a recipe: a list of ingredients (in the form of foods or emotions, etc.), then a list of instructions adding those ingredients together to make something new.

Your character looks back over their shoulder one last time, wrenching themselves away: a last goodbye. What are they bidding farewell to? Respond in poetry or prose, real or fictional.

Draw or paint a person, animal, or insect as if it were leaping directly off the page. Alternatively, draw or paint an object being thrown off the page by a character in the background.

If middle and high school superlatives were not voted on – if you could choose them for yourself – what would you name yourself? “Most likely to…” Collect your identities into a poem if you can think of many ways to describe yourself.

Tell, in poetry or prose, the story of seeing the ocean for the first time – your first time or a character’s. Is it transcendental, surprising, freeing, frightening, or simply sublime? What emotions does it naturally stir up? 

Design a futuristic cityscape that incorporates the natural world or sustainable technology.

Write about a character who feels they are cut off from something. How does this deprivation affect the way they go about their life?

You’re sitting by your window, head in hands, thinking about anything but tomorrow’s test. Suddenly, you see something out of the corner of your eye that snaps you out of your reverie.