Day Four - 1st Annual 12 Days of Christmas Write Christmas Challenge

"Creativity Calisthenics"

            Has your creativity ever seemed to disappear? If so, I’ll let you in on a secret. You’re probably not giving it enough exercise.

            To keep your creativity thriving, try to write something every day. What can you write? Anything--a letter, poem, short story, advertisement, paragraph or page, list, letter to the editor, obituary or book, movie or product review.

            I start each morning off with a critique of a fellow writer’s work. Reviewing manuscripts with a critical eye tends to make my senses sharp for when I turn to my own creations. Next, depending on my mood, I choose one of the above types of writing as a creativity exercise. The exercise may or may not (again, depending upon my mood) be something associated with my writing-in-progress. The important thing is to challenge my creativity and keep its energy flowing.

            If you’re not a creativity self-starter and work better by assignment, consider this your task. Write each of following words/phrases (letter, poem, short story, advertisement, paragraph, list, letter to the editor, obituary, book review, movie review, product review) on slips of paper.  Place the folded slips in a jar. Each day, sit down with your jar. Pull out a slip. For the next fifteen minutes, create something pertaining to the word on the slip.

            For example, to make it fun and interesting, you can write a movie review from the point of view of a child, a parent, an animal or a fictional character. You can write a shopping list for a scientist or person in another occupation. You can write a letter from an imaginary person to a famous person or a famous person to your child self. The possibilities are endless! Just mix them up, consider them from several angles, and be creative!

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BONUS *WORD WEAVING* CHALLENGE:


Write a picture book story using as many words from this list as possible. Give yourself bonus points for using all of them. If this practice becomes a project, feel free to discard any words that don't serve your story. They will have done their job by inspiring something new! 

BERRY

HOUSE

SUGAR

SILLY

PENCILS

    PIRATE

    JINGLE

   TOOTH

   BEARD

   TREASURE

Words randomly selected from IF YOU EVER WANT TO BRING A PIRATE TO MEET SANTA, DON'T by Elise Parsley and THE BROKEN ORNAMENT by Tony DiTerlizzi. Please feel free to check out these books. 

Enjoy! And please share your comments below! 

And please feel free to share this post on Google Plus, Facebook, Facebook Groups, Twitter and Pinterest to spread the word so that we can have an even bigger and better challenge next year!

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Lynne Marie is the author of Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten - illustrated by Anne Kennedy (Scholastic, 2011), Hedgehog's 100th Day of School – illustrated by Lorna Hussey (Scholastic, January 2017), The Star of the Christmas Play -- illustrated by Lorna Hussey (Beaming Books, 2018), Moldilocks and the 3 Scares -- illustrated by David Rodriguez Lorenzo (Sterling, pending) and Let's Eat! Mealtimes Around the World -- illustrated by Parwinder Singh (Beaming Books, 2019). You can learn more about her at www.LiterallyLynneMarie.com. 

To order the Star in the Christmas Play, click the title.